Is the man in red using the cloud to power his joy spreading global operations? We investigate!

For years, children around the world have wondered: just how does Santa get all those presents to all those kids in one night? They’ve posited theories that include the use of enchantments, the more conspiratorial idea that maybe there’s more than one Father Christmas, and some have even suggested that surely there must be sorcery behind the annual logistical feat.

But now scholars have come forward with a promising new hypothesis. Could he have switched to the cloud? We have it on good authority that he is in fact a fan of tech trends, so there may be something to this speculation. Here’s how he could be making the cloud work for him.

Dedicated region: Cloud@Santa

The North Pole runs a complex operation—from staffing, to logistics, to security—and Santa travels thousands of miles to deliver toys to 2.2 billion children in 193 countries in one night.

To meet peak demand on Christmas Eve and scale down for the rest of the year, Santa needs something that can deliver scalability, security, performance, and elasticity. The cloud would tick all those boxes, helping him hire and manage thousands of elves, ensuring that all his parts arrive on time, and keeping his finances in order.

CX: Christmas Experience

Today’s communications with children are becoming more complex. Instead of mailing handwritten letters, they’re sending their Christmas wishes through a myriad of digital platforms, such as Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok. It makes sense that he’s using a cloud-based CX platform to master the signals kids send via digital channels so he knows what gifts to leave underneath their trees.

A very autonomous Christmas

Santa’s sled isn’t self-driving (yet—we hear he’s looking into it), but the Nice List could be. What if the man in red used an autonomous database to provide a secure, high-performance environment that automates upgrades and patches without manual processes by any creature—human or magical? Like any savvy business owner, Santa wants his elves busy making toys, not managing software. We know he’d want it to be self-repairing, to detect and protect from system failures (such as late-night elf maple syrup parties). In case of an emergency—a Grinch hack, for example—Santa wouldn’t lose all of the names and naughty/nice deeds that he and his elves spent the year collecting.

Ho, ho, ho, low code

Like you, Santa is tired of making spreadsheets and checking them twice. What if, in the time it took to say, “ho ho ho,” he built a new low-code APEX application to help track when kids are naughty or nice? Now him and his elves can log into a single, centralised app where the data is maintained and updated in real time. Armed with intuitive data visualisations and dashboards, and Oracle Database’s ability to manage location data exposed through the APEX application, Santa can make informed delivery decisions and optimise his route before hopping in his sleigh on Christmas Eve.

ERP: Elf and Resource Planning

The Nice List is longer than ever this year, which means the North Pole needs to keep a close eye on its finances and operations. Santa absolutely needs an enterprise-grade performance management tool to help him accurately forecast and budget to make sure his workshops are equipped to churn out millions of presents. With the cloud, once children’s letters arrive, he can adjust forecasts and assign resources to his elves to begin production.

Meanwhile, Workshop CFO Mrs. Claus turns to another cloud favourite, a resource planning platform, for insight into the organisation’s financial position. With a clear view into the finances, she can budget for toy materials, pay the elves, and manage candy expenses. No more harassing the North Pole’s network of Mall Santa representatives to submit expense reports for travel, food, and lodging—they can do it via a mobile-friendly digital assistant!

These deep insights into their finance operations explain something the business world has been wondering about for decades: how Mr. and Mrs. Claus have been able to access the information needed to drive year-on-year increases in growth and global joy.

Elf management: Maintaining a merry workforce

With Santa’s workshop going into overdrive to make enough toys by Christmas Day, he’ll need a tool to help him quickly find the best elves available to recruit, hire, and train. You know how difficult it is to motivate your staff, now imagine they were working in sub-zero temperatures, with long hours and hard work ahead.

Our sources say CEO Claus uses the most innovative tech to deliver a positive elf experience, creating Christmas joy all year round. Apparently, he has access to self-service applications and an on-demand digital assistant, so the elves can get their schedules, peppermint pay stubs, and answers to any workshop questions quickly and easily via voice or text.

What’s next for the North?

Chatter around the reindeer trough is that Santa’s always feared a hostile takeover of his operations. People close to him say it’s what drives his relentless pursuit of innovation and efficiency, and what encouraged him to make the switch to a cloud-based workshop in the first place. Our research shows that if he continues to take advantage of the data, security, and scalability provided by Oracle Cloud, he should be fine for another 1257 years.

This investigative blog has been created with love and festive joy by Oracle Africa communications team. Merry Christmas everyone!