Oracle is announcing several enhancements to Oracle Unity CDP, a key part of the Oracle Fusion Cloud CX suite of applications. It also announced moves to make B2B buying easier using Oracle Fusion Cloud.
The announcements came today at Oracle CloudWorld in Las Vegas.
New capabilities within Oracle Unity. The keynote of Oracle’s Fusion offerings has been to fuse new and better relationships between marketing and sales teams. That’s reflected here in the presentation of unified account views, based on data from marketing, sales and service clouds. A novel development, however, is the incorporation of data from back office sources, including finance, contracts, product usage and supply chain.
There are four new capabilities:
- Account Profile Explorer. This is the feature that allows a unified view of front-end and back-end customer data.
- Buying group and opportunity scoring. This uses AI to detect and analyze buying group signals based on things like role, title and engagement with topics.
- Industry onboarding accelerators. These help accelerate CDP implementation with industry-specific templates, data models and attributes; currently available for high tech, industrial manufacturing, professional services, telecommunications, utilities, financial services, travel and retail.
- Oracle Analytics Cloud integration. This will provide data visualizations and help support decision-making.
We asked Oracle SVP Rob Pinkerton to reflect on the importance of these enhancements. One point he made is that Oracle Unity CDP is actually a relatively young product.
“It’s been in the market for a couple of years,” he said, “but this is still a very early, young product. To put a database with this kind of power in the front-office, in front of marketers, and to do so in a way that puts corks on their forks so they don’t poke themselves in the eye… I feel this is early innings in this game.”
With that caveat, Pinkerton highlighted Account Profile Explorer. “This is the place where sales and marketing teams are falling in love again. In large organizations, sometimes sales doesn’t know who marketing is marketing to, and marketing doesn’t know who sales really wants to sell to. Sales is focused on accounts and marketing is focused on contacts. What Account Profiler does is give people ways to really focus sales and marketing efforts in the core areas where you are most likely to win and create value. It even makes it possible to introduce product teams into the mix.”
In a nutshell, Account Profile Explorer “shortens the assembly line of the sales and marketing flow.”
As far as incorporating back-office data in the customer dataset, Pinkerton says some of Oracle’s competitors are playing catch-up. “They realize there’s gold in them thar hills,” he laughed. “Oracle has thought this through at a big enterprise level,” he said. “Some of our customers are the biggest, gnarliest, industry-leading providers, often of things you’ve never heard of — they’re not big brands, they’re the ones that make the machinery, that deliver the infrastructure.”
A unified view of B2B buying and selling. A new solution within Oracle Fusion Cloud CX gives buying and selling teams a collaborative view of their commercial relationships, featuring quotes, orders, account and contact profiles, subscriptions, renewals and assets. This features a connection between customer and financial data and is aimed at supporting a range of GTM motions including recurring revenue, usage-based and consumption-based strategies.
In addition, enhancements to Oracle’s revenue transformation solution include:
- Unified CPQ, contracts and order management helping to organize and execute complex sales agreements.
- Generative AI for contract summarization reducing contract processing time and assisting with contract questions.
- Generative AI for sellers to create emails, executive briefings, summaries of CPQ, etc.
Don’t forget the consumer. Although these announcements shine a light on Oracle’s support for B2B marketing teams, Pinkerton didn’t want to overlook B2C. “We still have a B2C business that we’re committed to. Responsys is our leading product; Unity is very popular there. AI is transforming the way that consumers buy things in a way we don’t fully know yet.”
Teaming Responsys with Unity does place an emphasis on first-party data, of course. “How do we provide more value to our existing customers?” Pinkerton asked. “What do we know about our existing customers? How do we learn who they are more quickly so we’re not out there spending money on third-party data Understand how they’re responding, integrate that into your existing data, make your decisions and you’ll do well. That’s what we’re recommending.”
Why we care. An overall view of customer data, especially in the B2B space, incorporates not just sales and service, but of course things like contracts — especially in a subscription economy. It would not be fair to say that Oracle is uniquely positioned to introduce back-office data to a CDP. SAP has made similar moves. What Oracle and SAP have in common — differentiating them from Adobe and Salesforce, for example — is that their enterprise back-office solutions like ERP are, if anything, bigger than their CX offerings.
What’s more, Oracle Unity can fit a “composable” structure, leveraging Oracle Autononmous Datawarehouse, which just might be where all that back-office data sits.
Dig deeper: What the composability revolution means for CDPs
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# Oracle Expands Features of Its Unity Customer Data Platform (CDP)
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, businesses are increasingly relying on data-driven strategies to enhance customer experiences, drive engagement, and improve overall business outcomes. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) have emerged as a critical tool in this endeavor, allowing organizations to unify customer data from various sources, gain actionable insights, and deliver personalized experiences at scale. Oracle, a global leader in enterprise software solutions, has been at the forefront of this transformation with its **Unity Customer Data Platform (CDP)**. Recently, Oracle announced significant expansions to Unity’s capabilities, further solidifying its position as a key player in the CDP market.
## What is Oracle Unity CDP?
Oracle Unity is a comprehensive Customer Data Platform designed to help businesses unify customer data from multiple channels, create a single customer view, and leverage AI-driven insights to deliver personalized experiences across marketing, sales, service, and commerce. Oracle Unity integrates seamlessly with Oracle’s broader suite of cloud applications, including Oracle CX (Customer Experience) Cloud, Oracle Marketing Cloud, and Oracle Advertising, making it a powerful tool for organizations looking to optimize their customer engagement strategies.
### Key Features of Oracle Unity CDP
Before diving into the new enhancements, it’s essential to understand the core features that have made Oracle Unity a popular choice for enterprises:
1. **Unified Customer Profiles**: Oracle Unity aggregates customer data from various touchpoints, including websites, mobile apps, social media, email, and offline interactions, to create a comprehensive 360-degree view of each customer.
2. **Real-Time Data Processing**: Unity processes data in real-time, allowing businesses to respond to customer behaviors and preferences instantly. This enables more timely and relevant interactions.
3. **AI and Machine Learning**: Oracle Unity leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to analyze customer data, predict future behaviors, and recommend personalized actions.
4. **Data Governance and Privacy**: With increasing concerns about data privacy, Oracle Unity includes robust data governance tools to ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA. It also allows businesses to manage customer consent and preferences effectively.
5. **Seamless Integration**: Oracle Unity integrates with a wide range of Oracle and third-party applications, making it easier for businesses to connect their existing systems and leverage customer data across the organization.
## New Features and Enhancements in Oracle Unity CDP
Oracle’s recent expansion of Unity CDP introduces several new features and enhancements aimed at improving data unification, personalization, and customer engagement. These updates are designed to help businesses deliver more relevant and timely experiences, while also improving operational efficiency. Here are some of the key enhancements:
### 1. **Advanced AI-Powered Segmentation**
Oracle has enhanced Unity’s AI and machine learning capabilities to offer more advanced customer segmentation. With the new updates, businesses can now create highly granular customer segments based on a broader range of data points, including behavioral, transactional, and demographic data. The AI-powered segmentation engine also identifies patterns and trends in customer behavior, enabling businesses to target specific customer groups with personalized offers and messages.
For example, a retail company can use AI-driven segmentation to identify customers who are likely to make a purchase during a specific season or event, allowing them to deliver targeted promotions at the right time.
### 2. **Real-Time Behavioral Insights**
One of the most significant updates to Oracle Unity is the ability to capture and analyze real-time behavioral data more effectively. This feature allows businesses to track customer actions as they happen, such as browsing behavior, clicks, and purchases, and use this data to trigger personalized responses in real-time.
For instance, if a customer abandons their shopping cart on an e-commerce website, Oracle Unity can immediately trigger a personalized email or SMS reminder with a discount offer to encourage the customer to complete the purchase.
### 3. **Expanded Data Source Integration**
Oracle has expanded Unity’s ability to integrate with a wider range of data sources, including third-party applications, CRM systems, and external data providers. This enhancement allows businesses to bring in more diverse data sets, enriching customer profiles and providing a more holistic view of each customer.
Additionally, Oracle has improved its API capabilities, making it easier for businesses to connect Unity with their existing technology stack and automate data flows between systems. This expanded integration capability ensures that businesses can leverage all available data to inform their customer engagement strategies.
### 4. **Enhanced Data Privacy and Compliance Tools**
With data privacy regulations becoming more stringent worldwide, Oracle has introduced new tools within Unity to help businesses manage customer data more securely and ensure compliance with global privacy laws. The enhanced data governance features allow businesses to track and manage customer consent, preferences, and data usage more effectively.
Oracle Unity now offers more granular control over data access and permissions, ensuring that only authorized users can access sensitive customer information. This helps businesses maintain trust with their customers while staying compliant with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and others.
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