Ovum Research Director Weighs In on ESS/Oracle Partnership

ESS, a global provider of Environmental, Health and Safety (EH&S) software, and Oracle (News - Alert) have recently announced their alignment to deliver environmental sustainability information management capabilities.

This partnership is a result of the unprecedented growth in regulatory directives and impending legislation that is making it critical for organizations to address the management of their environmental compliance initiatives to better manage the associated business risks.

Oracle and ESS plan to provide a cohesive offering by leveraging Oracle Governance, Risk and Compliance Manager or Oracle Business Intelligence SuiteEnterprise Edition Plus. This offering is expected to aid in the reduction of the complexity, risk and cost of managing environmental sustainability.

This joint initiative is expected to broaden the focus of ‘green IT’ from computing along to IT’s role in addressing the larger problem of environmental impacts from non-IT processes that include manufacturing, logistics and building operations. Warren Wilson, Research Director of Ovum (News - Alert), a global advisory and consulting firm, has some things to say about this latest partnership.

“It’s easy to scoff at such talk and dismiss it as mere self-promotion and bandwagon-jumping. Frankly, we think it’s more akin to a stake in the ground. And the more stakes in the ground – the more claims vendors make about their solutions – the sooner customers will start critically evaluating the claims and holding vendors to account, and the sooner the vendors will have to compete in earnest on the business value of their ‘green’ products and services,” said Wilson.

“This will not only winnow valuable solutions from chaff, but will also help to identify stumbling blocks, such as the lack of a widely accepted standard for carbon reporting. Out of the confusion and conflicting claims will come pressure for such a standard – either de jure, set by regulators, or de facto, set by vendors. Altruism is a fine thing, but by itself it won’t slow the pace of climate change. Self-interest and competition will.”

While ESS and Oracle say that they will go to market together, they have yet to provide details as to how they plan to do so. Wilson believes it makes sense for those to first target Oracle customers that have yet bought the GRC Manager solution or BI suite and use those early engagements to integrate the ESS and Oracle offerings in ways that can be repeated for future engagements.

Perfectly inline with growing trends and consumer preferences, ‘Green’ was everywhere at OpenWorld, from the show catalog to the awards. In a series of presentations, Oracle executives and partners described the market shift and explained the increase in which energy consumption and carbon output have become central to business planning, rather than just afterthoughts.

The ‘Green’ movement has gone from ‘trend’ to the mainstream where consumers of all walks of life are putting more pressure on the enterprise to improve their environmental performance and make it a top priority. As this trickles to the pocketbook, companies are beginning to listen.