Don't Mention the 'R' Word

Despite some obvious cutbacks in corporate hospitality at the year's OpenWorld (there are rumors that some customers have actually had to buy their own breakfasts!) there seems to have been no mention of the 'R' word - Recession.

This time last year the general feeling was downbeat in the wake of the financial crisis and everyone was waiting to see what the knock-on effect would be on the ecomonomy as a whole. The IT industry (and just about everyone else) then went through a phase of trying to link just about everything to an ability to cut costs, but generally the feeling is now more positive and the consensus seems to be that IT projects are now starting to move forward again.

In Life Sciences we've also seen some discretionary projects being delayed and there has certainly been a focus on consulting rates this year, but the feeling from Regulated Companies I've been speaking to at OpenWorld is that strategic projects are continuing to move ahead. This includes not just projects designed solely at reducing costs but also those looking at improving overall business competitiveness and facilitating business processes which would either not be possible without a degree of automation / integration or would not be cost effective or efficient.

As most companies now seem to have their costs under control (hence more focus on corporate hospitality) the sign is that traditional projects are starting to move forward again in the fourth quarter (ERP, CRM, PLM etc). There is also significant interesting in the use of Fusion Middleware to facilitate business process and systems integration and this is certainly one of Oracle's significant growth areas.

With continued growth being forecast in the Life Sciences industry (albeit low growth in developed countries and significant growth in developing economies such as China) it seems that we're starting to put the recession behind us and look once again to the future.