Oracle reseller reinvents itself to form new partner union

Red Stack Biz will collaborate with four small Oracle consultancy partners to give them more clout in the market

Channel veteran Rob Thompson has relaunched his Oracle business and established a new association of Oracle partners in a bid to give smaller players more "clout" in the market.

Red Stack Guru – Thompson's previous business – has been rebranded as Red Stack Biz, which will have three business wings, covering consultancy, selling transactional Oracle products, and the cloud.

The cloud division, Red Stack Cloud Solutions, has formed an association with four other small Oracle consultancy partners and will combine with these firms to help them win and deliver Oracle cloud deals. In return for its collaboration, Red Stack Biz will take a percentage cut on these deals.

Speaking to CRN, Thompson said he decided to form the new group because he appreciated how hard it is for small Oracle partners to get noticed.

"I know what it's like to be a big partner and there are a lot of advantages to it. Oracle is very aware of you, the clients are very aware of you. But being a small partner is difficult; you don't get a lot of attention from clients etc...

"Having had that discussion with one of the main players in the industry, we decided there were lots of those partners to join forces with."

Thompson said the union of four Oracle partners, along with the consultancy business (Red Stack Consultancy) and the transactional wing (Red Stack Guru – Thompson's previous business) meant he could create a collective £15m-revenue group in a "very short space of time".

"The beauty of this is we will portray those six smaller businesses as one large entity with everything handled by Red Stack Biz.

"We can give them [the small partners] more clout in the market space, take them into deals that are bigger than they would normally go into, and we are going to be able to make their relationships with Oracle grow, because they will see that the six companies together are collectively delivering what a big partner would do on its own."

One of the partners Red Stack Biz is on the verge of inking its partnership with is portal development company Ether, and Thompson has become Ether's director of sales in order to bring the firms closer together.

Thompson said this was the only union of Oracle partners of its kind he could think of, and claimed Red Stack Biz has an extra advantage due to the expertise he, and his team, have in the Oracle cloud.

Headquartered in Wiltshire, Red Stack Biz is expected to begin trading in September.