By Nishant Arora

New Delhi, Aug 25 (IANS): As small and medium businesses (SMBs) and start-ups in India begin to embrace Cloud for their digital transformation, global tech major Oracle is witnessing growth at an unprecedented pace among them in the country, says a senior company executive.

"For the third time in a row, India has won the best performing region award in all of JAPAC (Japan and Asia-Pacific). We are signing on hundreds of new Cloud customers every year and witnessing strong growth in our Cloud revenue," Shailender Kumar, Managing Director, Oracle India, told IANS.

Some of the big Cloud clients for the Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle in the country are the State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Persistent Systems, among other.

"Now even start-ups and mid-size firms have started to adopt Oracle Cloud," Kumar noted.

According to him, Blockchain -- touted as one of the most promising transformative technologies -- is witnessing a rapid adoption worldwide and Indian firms too are embracing the technology across industry sectors.

The Blockchain technology -- based on distributed storage of data -- has the potential to fundamentally change how every industry does business by making interactions more secure, transparent, efficient and cost-effective.

"Customers here in India have shown encouraging responses. Some are running pilot projects too. Moreover, Blockchain projects are quickly moving from pilot to production as enterprises and governments begin to see the inherent value of distributed ledgers and smart contracts," Kumar noted.

A Blockchain is a continuously growing list of records -- called blocks -- which are linked and secured using cryptography.

According to IT industry's apex body Nasscom, by increasing productivity and reducing cost, Blockchain technology has the potential to create value of up to $5 billion in India in the next five years.

Worldwide spending on Blockchain solutions is forecast to reach $11.7 billion in 2022, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). In 2018, global blockchain spending is expected to hit $1.5 billion -- double the amount spent in 2017.

According to the IDC, Blockchain spending will be led by the financial sector ($552 million in 2018), driven largely by rapid adoption in the banking industry.

Kumar, however, has seen Blockchain adoption beyond the Banking, Financial services and Insurance (BFSI) sector in India.

"There is a lot of interest from the Indian organisations across sectors, beyond BFSI, where we have witnessed initial uptake. We see opportunity in pharma, oil and gas, retail and telecom, among other sectors," Kumar informed.

Forward thinking companies in the healthcare space are experimenting with Blockchain for supply chain management, combating spurious drugs in the system as well as for clinical trials.

"Oil companies are keen on using Blockchain technology for checking the authenticity of the bids and security," Kumar told IANS.

To help businesses build Blockchain networks to drive efficient transactions, Oracle in July made its "Blockchain Cloud Service" available in India.

Indian Oil, Arab Jordan Investment Bank, CargoSmart, Certified Origins, Intelipost, MTO, Neurosoft, Nigeria Customs, Sofbang, Solar Site Design and TradeFin are among the organisations which are early adaptors of Oracle's Blockchain platform.

"Businesses around the world have been deploying an early adopter version of Oracle 'Blockchain Cloud Service', which allows organisations to easily build blockchain networks to drive more secure and efficient transactions and to track goods through supply chains on a global scale," Kumar explained.

Another latest addition in Oracle offerings is "Oracle Soar" -- world's first automated enterprise Cloud application upgrade product that enables businesses to reduce the time and cost of Cloud migration by up to 30 per cent.

"We have provided a complete set of automated tools and proven cloud transition methodologies for the Soar solution that enables customers with applications running on premises to upgrade to Oracle Cloud Applications in as little as 20 weeks for a reasonably complex implementation," said the company executive.

Autonomous Cloud is the next generation of Cloud services which free up the most valuable and expensive resources -- humans -- to create more value for the business.

Moving forward, said Kumar, the company's strategic priorities in India will focus on growing its Cloud business, growing the volume business through its new digital sales business unit and transforming the company's sales culture.

"We want to make doing business with us easy and quick. We will continue selling Oracle Cloud technologies and services to small and medium businesses, including start-ups, in the country," Kumar emphasised.

The global tech major last year announced plans for a dedicated data centre in the country.

"Our India data centre is a work in progress and is expected to launch soon," said Kumar.