Market Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about Oracle drawn from our latest Value Index research, the 2023 Ventana Research Value Index: Customer Experience Management, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

In all of our Value Indexes, we utilize a structured research methodology built on evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria and derived from RFP responses and a vendor selection process for analytics and business intelligence. We evaluated Oracle and 21 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product — Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability and Usability — and two related to the vendor — TCO/ROI and Vendor Validation. To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our Benchmark Research on Customer Experience (CX).

Oracle is a major provider of back- and front-office software systems, best known as a database vendor but containing many enterprise functions under its wide-ranging umbrella. It was categorized as an Exemplary Vendor, ranking fifth overall in this Value Index evaluation. Oracle was a Value Index Leader in Manageability, where it ranked third. It ranked fifth in Reliability and fourth in TCO/ROI.

Oracle’s Cloud CX platform is highlighted by Oracle Unity, its customer data platform (CDP), that combines each customer profile with the ability to enrich data and build real-time customer segmentation. Cloud CX is a customer experience management (CXM or CEM) platform that centralizes customer data, making it available and providing contextual analysis for different use-cases. The platform includes a content management system, conversational artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots with prebuilt skills, and a library of low-code development modules for providing integrations and experiences.

The platform is well embedded within many enterprise technology stacks, meaning there are likely CX-related components in place that can be leveraged by CX teams wherever they operate. Oracle’s biggest apparent gap in acting as a CXM suite is in customer journey management. To improve its ranking in Product Experience, Oracle should focus on building out features related to customer preference management, personalization and collaboration among CX teams.

This assessment was based on Oracle’s CXM products available in September of 2022.

Oracle, like all vendors in this space, should continue working towards a holistic, integrated CX platform that addresses the needs of users across the enterprise. Connecting workflows from marketing, sales and service teams should be a key priority.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of CXM software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Read the report here.