Oracle announced its plans on Thursday to acquire TOA Technologies, a Cleveland-based firm that specializes in cloud-based field service solutions. These SaaS solutions seek to optimize what Oracle refers to as the “last mile of customer service for enterprises” by coordinating and managing dispatchers, mobile employees and customers to improve service, empower service agents and allow for a more in-depth and long-term customer development. Although the terms of the acquisition remain undisclosed, TOA is considered global leader, as it manages services for major brands like Home Depot, Virgin Media, and Vodafone across more than 20 countries. By fitting into Oracle’s cloud services segment, the deal provides considerable synergies, especially within the realm of field mobility with TOA’s ETAdirect field service management system.
Looking for smarter, better engagements
Oracle’s acquisition reflects the greater trend within field mobility in looking increasingly beyond reducing operational costs to measure success and to gauge solutions. A recent VDC end user survey revealed that the top two metrics used to measure field mobility solutions were improved worker productivity (45%) and better field worker communication/collaboration (33%).
Here too, the importance of increased customer service and loyalty mesh with Oracle’s emphasis on a modern approach to field service operations that include long-term brand and customer development through better customer engagements.
Taking the cloud to the field
Since its acquisition of RightNow in 2011, Oracle has made other key strategic (and recent) acquisitions which include BigMachines (October ‘13), Responsys (December ‘13), and BlueKai (February ‘14) to enhance its Cloud Service Platform. The acquisition of TOA further complements Oracle’s cloud services value play with a proven solution that enhances predictive scheduling and brings the ability to streamline service workflows for its customers. Oracle currently possesses scheduling solutions that compete with TOA's ETAdirect platform; however, VDC expects that Oracle will make it easy and attractive for existing customers to migrate to TOA's solutions once they enter an upgrade cycle.
Oracle’s actions make it clear that the company sees smaller and more focused/specialized firms such as Astea International, ClickSoftware, and ServiceMax as becoming increasingly competitive. ClickSoftware continues to sharpen its workforce management solutions and recently (February ‘14) acquired mobile specialist Xora. VDC sees field service solutions are a critical area for enterprise software vendors such as Oracle, particularly when considering workforce mobilization trends. VDC data shows that companies anticipate increasing enterprise mobility budgets by an average of 10.6% for 2014 year-on-year, and for field mobility applications, that figure rises to 11.1%. With smaller firms being acquired, the field is becoming increasingly competitive for the larger players, and VDC anticipates fierce competition ahead to capitalize on rising mobility budgets.
(with contributions from Eric Klein, Senior Analyst)
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