US-based Oracle, a multinational IT company, introduced significant additions and updates to its full portfolio of software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, at a recent business and technology conference in the US city of San Francisco.

At Oracle OpenWorld 2014, Oracle unveiled Oracle Cloud Applications Release 9, which provides a full portfolio of cloud offerings that are personalized, secure, and connected and provide a practical path to the cloud for Oracle customers.

Oracle Cloud Applications allow users to tailor applications to fit their business, empowering employees to configure their user experience, dashboards, reports, workflow, and data.

Customers and partners can easily personalize their Oracle Cloud Applications using Oracle Cloud Platform as a Service (Oracle Cloud PaaS) to create new features and build their own modern cloud and mobile SaaS applications, a statement said.

With Oracle Cloud Applications, companies can connect the entire business— data, processes, analytics, and people—and provide employees with a unified user experience.

In addition, customers can seamlessly integrate processes and data between cloud, on-premises, and third-party applications, according to the statement.

To help customers adopt its cloud applications, Oracle has expanded the Oracle Customer 2 Cloud program to Oracle ERP customers. This program enables Oracle’s on-premises customers to move current support to modern cloud applications and helps customers be successful through rapid start-up services and packaged integrations.

Oracle has also expanded Oracle partner programs related to Customer 2 Cloud to help partners successfully transition their business practices to the cloud.

Oracle Cloud provides the industry’s broadest portfolio of public cloud services across data as a service (DaaS), SaaS, platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning Cloud (Oracle ERP Cloud) is composed of Oracle Financials Cloud, Oracle Procurement Cloud, and Oracle Project Portfolio Management Cloud. Oracle ERP Cloud Release 9 includes a broad suite of applications that are tailored to meet the needs of customers in specific industries, including public sector and higher education.

Significant mobile enhancements make it easier for Oracle ERP Cloud users to handle key business transactions wherever they are, whenever they need to, according to the statement.

Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud (Oracle HCM Cloud) Release 9 includes design enhancements developed with customer input to give even casual users a simple solution so they can get back to their day-to-day work more quickly and maximize their productivity.

Oracle HCM Cloud supports integrations to Oracle’s PeopleSoft Payroll and Oracle E-Business Suite Payroll, enabling existing customers to move to the cloud at their own pace.

Also available in Oracle HCM Cloud Release 9 are new Work Life solutions, social applications designed to help reach and engage an organization’s entire workforce, especially Millennials.

Users can now access the full range of Oracle HCM Cloud on their mobile devices via a single, unified experience in a browser or via the mobile application.

With Release 9, Oracle introduced enhanced social commerce capabilities in Oracle Social Cloud and Oracle Commerce. By enabling organizations to precisely target content to segmented audiences on Facebook, Oracle is extending its commitment to helping organizations enhance the customer experience and generate higher brand awareness and conversion rates.

Oracle also announced new modules for Social Station, an innovative workspace within Oracle Social Cloud’s social relationship management (SRM) platform. The new modules enhance customer visibility and agility with real-time data, reporting, and response features that help organizations quickly prove the value of social programs.

Major updates to Oracle Sales Cloud include new smartphone and tablet applications, prebuilt and drill-down reporting capabilities for analytics, new partner relationship management capabilities, and industry-specific solutions.

With the latest release of Oracle Sales Cloud, organisations can rapidly innovate to meet customers’ changing needs by enabling sales professionals to plan, prospect, collaborate, and close deals more effectively and efficiently, said Steve Miranda, executive vice president, Oracle Applications Development.

“In today’s modern, digital world, businesses and organizations rely on technology to help them run their back-office operations, as well as customer-facing functions such as sales and marketing.

“To help them remain truly competitive, Oracle offers a complete portfolio of Oracle Cloud Applications that provides modern business practices for virtually every function in the enterprise. Oracle Cloud Applications Release 9 is personalized, connected, and secure, designed to help our customers achieve their most critical business goals,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service