In the midst of a pandemic, Albert Triola (Barcelona, ??1963) assumed the position of general manager of Oracle España, one of the major technology companies in the United States and the 13th largest in the world by market capitalization. This telecommunications engineer, graduated from the UPC, has taken the reins of a key company in the technological gear that manages huge amounts of data in the cloud.
Oracle stock hit an all-time high at the end of March and has fallen 11% since then. Where is the business now?
In a very sweet moment. AI is driving demand for cloud data management. We are behind Microsoft’s AI interface and also have Nvidia as a customer. We currently manage $80 billion worth of contracts. And the turnover of the last fiscal year, which we close in May, was 50,000 million, 22% more than in the previous year. The demand is growing a lot.
What is your bet on AI?
Last generation We develop our own AI and also integrate that of third parties. In January, we launched the OCI Generative AI service, which brings together large language models from Cohere and Meta to address business needs in a hundred languages.
In Spain, who are your customers?
Oracle was born in 1977 and landed in Spain at the end of the nineties. It started working for authorities and large corporations and has now grown so much that it reaches any company.
Could you give an example?
CaixaBank, Banco Sabadell, hotel chains, football clubs and SMEs. 80% of public administrations use our technology, and so do most companies in the Ibex 35.
You are the first manager in Catalonia to assume the general management of Oracle España. What is the biggest challenge of your mandate?
The truth is that I have been very lucky since I landed there in 2020. The demand has grown and I have experienced the boom in artificial intelligence and especially cloud data management.
In what sense?
For many years, Oracle España was dedicated solely to data management and left the infrastructure that stores it in the hands of its customers. In the 2023 financial year, we decided to change the model and offer our customers the possibility of storing data in the cloud.
Where is the infrastructure that stores this data?
Last year, we reached an agreement with Telefónica to install a data center in Madrid. This infrastructure, along with another cloud region located in Germany, will store sensitive customer data that we have across Europe.
What kind of data?
From entities that operate in hyper-regulated sectors, such as banking, health or the public sector. The aim is to offer as much control and security as possible. The initiative is called Núvol Sobirà and complies with European Union regulations, which require that the management of this sensitive data be located in European territory. In addition, we employ engineers from the European Union.
In addition to this data center in Madrid, Oracle also announced last year the opening of a digital center specializing in health technologies in Barcelona.
Yes. This opening responds to the strategy of strengthening our presence in healthcare after the acquisition in 2022 of Cerner, a company that supplies technological systems to hospitals. In the center of Barcelona we want to provide technological support 24 hours a day to our customers throughout Europe.
How many people work there?
We started with 60 workers, but the intention is to significantly increase this number.
Why did you choose Barcelona?
For its ability to attract talent and for its health and technology ecosystem. In addition, we already have another innovation hub, located in the Glòries tower, with more than 400 workers, including engineers.
What does this center do?
It develops NetSuite, the business management software specialized in the needs of SMEs. From Barcelona, ??this technology is distributed to more than 35,000 customers worldwide. We also have a small commercial team in town. Catalonia is an important market within Spain, where we collaborate closely with the Generalitat, the UPF and other companies.
Oracle has also opened a center in Málaga, a city that has accelerated its commitment to the digital sector in recent years.
Yes, in this Andalusian city we have located a commercial pre-sales and customer service office that provides services in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. We employ workers of many different nationalities, attracted by the quality of life.
In which other cities does it have a presence?
In Madrid we have the headquarters and the data center; in Barcelona, ??the three offices already mentioned, and in Seville, Valencia and Bilbao, we operate through small commercial offices to be close to customers. In total, we employ 1,900 people in the country.
Has Oracle seen layoffs in recent years? Many tech companies have had to cut staff massively because they overestimated their capacity for growth during the pandemic.
In our case, we have not applied employment regulation files (ERO) in Spain, but we have adjusted, on a timely basis, equipment that has ceased to be strategic or that we had oversized. Nothing out of the ordinary in a company of our size.
What is Oracle’s turnover in Spain?
As it is a publicly traded company, we cannot share this data. The Spanish market weighs the equivalent of Spain in the global economy. It is a growing market.
Artificial intelligence drives the business, but do they also plan to grow from acquisitions in Spain?
We have never bought Spanish companies, although we might be open to it. However, the acquisitions we make are of global technology giants. This is how we have grown from the seventies to today.
