Stories From the Cloud

Knowledge is power. And in the business world, knowing what your customers truly think of you is an extremely powerful tool. But those insights are hard to come by. Tony McCormack, CEO of Joulica, explains how advanced analytics are helping call center workers better understand their customers — so they can provide better service.

There are risks any time you move to new tech. The cloud in particular has caused friction between CISOs, who are laser-focused on security, and other execs. This gap presents an opportunity for leaders to come together and rethink how they can do business both more efficiently and more securely, says KPMG's Brian Jensen. In this episode, Jensen shares key takeaways from the 2020 Oracle and KPMG Cloud Threat Report and what they mean for today's businesses.

Streaming video has come a long way, but there's still a sizeable lag from when live events happen to when they show up on your screen. That's the problem Phenix aims to solve. CMO Jed Corenthal discusses the ramifications of real-time video for sports fans, gamblers, music aficionados, and other content consumers — and how the cloud can make it happen.

"How likely are you to recommend this podcast to a friend?" That question might give you flashbacks to all the lengthy customer service surveys you've been asked to fill out over the years. You know, the ones that don't always solicit the type of feedback you actually want to give — or that a brand wants to receive, for that matter. Rado Raykov, CEO of Holler Live, talks about how his startup is rethinking customer feedback for the social media, swipe-up/swipe-down age.

Early detection is the key to stopping pests and diseases that threaten agricultural crops. But when plant-eating beetles hide under leaves and plants show no visible signs of disease until it's too late, that's not an easy task. AgroScout, a startup based in Israel, aims to solve this problem using drones, multispectral imaging and data science. CEO Simcha Shore explains how these different technologies come together to help farmers get a leg up.

Hoarding isn't just a problem with papers in our desks or socks in our drawers. It affects enterprise applications, too. When companies feel obligated to keep all their data and pack as many features as possible into their apps, it can make them less efficient. Daniel Newman, principal analyst and founding partner of Futurum Research, says modern cloud apps can help businesses use less data — and use it better.

Internet of Things devices that weren't built with security in mind open the door to downtime, intellectual property theft, and worse. The problem is, if you can't see the cyberattacks against these devices' vulnerabilities, you can't fight them. Michael Yehoshua, vice president of global marketing for security firm SCADAfence, discusses major IoT threats and how to protect against them.

Are robots coming for manufacturing jobs? That's a very common question in the industry. But the reality is, except in the largest high-volume factories, pencils and paper still rule the day. On this episode, Mark Carleton, COO of manufacturing software provider MESTEC, explains how technology can help modernize and improve operations.

Emerging technologies promise to change the way we do business. But if employees don't use the new software and gadgets at their disposal, that promise will never become reality. Paul Gaynor, global technology practice leader at PwC, discusses ways to get user buy-in, increase adoption of new tech, and drive digital transformation.

There's no industry that isn't facing some form of mass disruption. And companies that are ahead of the curve in terms of business and IT transformation can help others along the way. In this episode, Doug Kehring, executive vice president of corporate operations at Oracle, discusses the tech giant's own journey to the cloud and how it's sharing lessons learned with customers.

The unique shopping habits of millennials and Generation Z mean retail and marketing are ripe for disruption. And startups are uniquely positioned to take advantage. Visual search platform Snap Tech and marketing technology provider BrandTotal, members of the Oracle for Startups program, are two such companies. Jenny Griffiths, CEO and co-founder of Snap Tech, and Alon Leibovich, CEO and co-founder of BrandTotal, join the podcast to discuss how younger shoppers are different—and how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence can help meet their needs.

Businesses that are more diverse outperform their competitors, according to research. Technology can help remove the biases that contribute to the gender pay gap and otherwise hinder diversity in business. Technology can also help give businesses access to the best talent pool, regardless of gender. Those are the goals of Gapsquare, a startup whose software analyzes companies' pay by gender and helps drive organizational change. In this episode, Zara Nanu, CEO and co-founder of Gapsquare, and Jason Williamson, Vice President of Oracle for Startups, discuss the current state of diversity in business and the ways in which technology can help close the gender pay gap.

In the past, technology vendors and their customers emphasized function over form. But that's changing as employees expect applications to not only work flawlessly -- but to look good doing so. Michael Krigsman, industry analyst and host of the CXOTalk podcast, chats about the changing roles of CXOs and the effects of personal devices and applications on how businesses operate.

Artificial intelligence could be tech's great hope -- if it overcomes serious issues around modeling and data integrity. Cloud influencer Bill Kleyman discusses the hype and reality of AI and tackles topics such as: A drone that used AI and repeated trial-and-error (including many crashes) to teach itself to fly and navigate. How the "garbage in, garbage out" adage that has governed computing for decades is still true. If your data or model is faulty, your AI won't amount to much.

Keeping data safe and secure is a hugely complicated job — especially for large businesses that collect, store, and analyze tons of data. KPMG's Brian Jensen and Oracle's Greg Jensen discuss why the security stakes are higher than ever as more mission-critical workloads -- and their data -- move to the cloud.

Bots are getting a lot smarter and more interactive. Oracle's Suhas Uliyar talks about: How advances in AI and natural language processing are making bots more proactive How digital assistants can help manage rote business tasks like expense account or vacation approval processes How Oracle uses its experience in applications and data to train business-oriented bots