Maximum Healthcare, Minimum Costs Medical clinics, hospitals, and treatment centers worldwide are adopting cloud services to gain access to a wide variety of innovative healthcare technologies that improve patients’ health while also fighting the trend toward ever-increasing expenses. Doctors can use analytics to compare the costs of test and treatment options with the expected medical benefits. Cloud-powered chatbots can help patients during anxiety attacks and encourage participation in wellness programs. With cloud services, the process of introducing new capabilities is much faster than the conventional on-premises upgrade process, meaning better healthcare and better cost controls. — Alan Zeichick, Oracle director of strategic communications
Mark Hurd On How IT Must Change Within the finance department, moving to the cloud means getting better efficiency while spending less time on managing security and compliance. Businesses get access to the latest technology and innovations faster, with cloud deployments leveraging under-the-hood technologies such as artificial intelligence to streamline workflow and augment existing processes. After all, asks Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, “Do you want core competencies in patching databases? Or do you want core competencies in gaining market share?”
Ziosk Serves Up Better Data with Cloud Ziosk, a maker of tabletop touchscreen tablets used mostly by big US restaurant chains, is using Oracle NetSuite ERP cloud software to quickly “track their devices by serial numbers, locate the venue where they’re operating, and know if the devices are turned on or off,” says Kelly Simons, Ziosk manager of productivity solutions. It also now can provide restaurant managers with a range of data analytics, including daily sales and guest satisfaction ratings.
Disruption and the Next Big Banking Battleground Dave Curran, CIO of Westpac, Australia’s first bank, is leading the company’s embrace of cloud computing. The biggest challenge, he says, is not technology but people. “The way we develop talent has to change,” Curran says. The old model was to go hire people anytime you needed a new skill. Instead, you need to re-train the people you have. “We have to create an ever-growing skill set.”