Aiming at SMBs, US tech giant Oracle opens Asia-Pacific region's first 'Digital Hub' in Bengaluru

US tech giant Oracle announced the opening of its first Digital Hub in the Asia-Pacific region here, aimed at providing small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) access to cloud solutions and resources they need to power digital transformation.The new facility, one of the five Digital Hubs, is set to open in Asia Pacific, highlights Oracle's commitment to better serving the mid-size market in the new cloud economy, the company officials said. They said this new Digital Hub, here, is a part of a global network of best practise centres for SMBs that will help them leverage Oracle Cloud solutions to streamline operations, boost innovation and gain a platform for growth."What we are doing with our Oracle Digital Hubs is (sic) we are trying to get our enterprise grade solutions for all our small and medium sized customers," Oracle India Managing Director, Shailender Kumar told reporters here. "There will be five hubs across the Asia Pacific, but India is the first hub, and that underlines the importance Oracle has given to India from a business standpoint, from getting close to the customers, and ensuring that we can help them to meet their objectives," he said.Two hundred people have been hired by the company in the last six months for the Digital Hub India, who will be primarily focusing on sales and pre-sales. They will be supported by an ecosystem consisting of marketing, channel programme, demand generation engine, which will be from outside, Kumar said. The other four Digital Hubs that will come up in the Asia Pacific region will be in Sydney, Singapore, Seoul, and Beijing. Pointing out the facilities at the hub, Kumar said, "we want to have a mix of digital and physical presence with our customers so that we can reach out to them very effectively." The company said that the hub would house Oracles new digital sales team and focus on helping moreThe company said that the hub would house Oracles new digital sales team and focus on helping more mid-size organisations transition to the cloud quickly and easily. In addition to the simplified buying experience, Oracles Digital Hubs will provide a complete suite of cloud applications, platform, and infrastructure services as both stand-alone services and as bundles, it said, adding that the range of choices empowers small businesses to select solutions that directly address their goals or issues. Responding to a question, Kumar said there are about 51 million SMBs existing in India which is the addressable  market and "our aim is to touch all of them."Oracle has employee strength of about 38,000 people in  India.