Sergio Giacoletto does not talk like one of Oracle's inner council. The software giant is infamous for aggression. Its staff often take a positive glee in aping the abrasive manner of chairman Larry Ellison.

But Mr Giacoletto, executive vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa, builds up Oracle's case with patience. The software industry's ferocious sales machine has often left customers trailing in its wake and Mr Giacoletto knows it. "We are very conscious that it is time for the IT sector to pay back real benefits to the users," he says.

Speaking from the perspective of a man who has spent 30 years in the industry, Mr Giacoletto does not shy away from articulating the frustrations of software users. "We do admit that IT has been guilty of complicating things. We have to give the users systems that work," he says.

The concept of service is key to his definition of software in a world weary of IT's extravagant promises. Oracle's strengths have always been in marketing and financial backing. It made its name in the mid-1980s as a database vendor. But as with Microsoft, it recognised that marketing has more impact on customers than innovative programs.

The Oracle approach has been to allow smaller, more imaginative companies to create a market and then overwhelm that space with superior resources. The latest target is the CRM sector. It has hired 1,500 staff to develop and sell CRM adapted Oracle software over the last four years. This looks like a textbook Oracle approach. But Mr Giacoletto interprets his company's strengths through the eyes of its customers.

"You would not assemble a car by yourself, buying an engine, doors and wheels from separate vendors. But that has been the approach to software," he says. "Only 20 years ago companies wrote their own spreadsheet or database. And the software industry is still very fragmented today. Our strategy is to offer a wide range of integrated products."

With 7,000 engineers writing software Mr Giacoletto says Oracle can fit together whatever functions the customer needs. He is very realistic about the company's core strength in database technology, but quietly reinforces the message that size is on Oracle's side whatever the latest software fashion is. "We believe in long-term consolidation. And we know that it is very very difficult for our customers to change the direction of their IT infrastructure," he says.

His conversation is peppered with references to Oracle sites across the globe: Posco, the big Korean steel company, uses Oracle in a $150m IT project across the corporation; Zamil, an Egyptian manufacturer of heavy industrial components, introduced Oracle "on budget, and inside 80 days"; Ferry operator P&O Stena Line implemented an Oracle marketing system for £750,000 and expecting to save more than £1m within nine months.

The ability of Oracle to deliver the goods on time is a constant theme, and he underlines the challenge of installing new products on top of existing systems with mischievous humour. "God created the world in seven days because he had no legacy systems to deal with."

CRM has been seized on as a convenient rallying point by just about every software company. Mr Giacoletto admits that the casual use of the term means it is getting harder to define what CRM really means. "Good CRM gives you more than just automation of some sales force functions. It delivers a true understanding of the customer," he says.

Arriving late on the CRM scene

Even if he is right in pinning down what CRM means, surely Oracle is arriving late at the CRM party, after specialist software vendors have had three or more years of selling their products?

Mr Giacoletto accomplishes a balancing act, meeting criticism with honesty while never losing sight of Oracle's claim to industry dominance. "We are late to the market in CRM, but we bring an integrated approach and that means we are already the number one supplier. Remember, the database will always lie beneath any CRM activity."

This core database strength is what Oracle expects to pull it through any economic circumstances. Mr Giacoletto sees Oracle as the reliable long-term supplier of systems that blue chip operations will turn to for safety. It is a deliberate echo of the old adage that no IT manager ever lost his job for buying IBM.

But he insists that the aggressive face Oracle shows to its competitors is balanced out by a genuine interest in the customer. "Sometimes it might not be apparent from our marketing campaigns, but internally we see customer success as the key to this business," he says.

Mr Giacoletto's shirt has buttoned cuffs, not ostentatious cuff-links. For someone who has survived at the very top of the sales-driven Oracle world where conspicuous wealth is part of the corporate brand, this underlines independence and confidence.

His attitude to the competition is equally untypical of Oracle. "Yes, the customer needs a supplier that provides an integrated service. But this does not mean that all of our rivals will die. There will always be room for the niche guys."

By Oracle terms this is generous, though the sting in the tail is evident. In the future of major software sales there will be small, boutique shops, and then there will be Oracle.

There is no escaping Oracle's vision, as seen through the eyes of the famously aggressive Mr Ellison. Mr Giacoletto is one of five regional vice presidents who report to Mr Ellison. "Larry has divided the world into five regions," he says.

But if Mr Ellison wants to rule the world, he does so through trusted lieutenants. "Larry is a demanding manager, but I like him a lot and he does listen." Mr Giacoletto speaks of this latter quality with emphasis, clearly aware that not everyone shares the view of Mr Ellison as a receptive individual.

"The key for us is to communicate and to show references," he says. As an ambassador for Oracle Mr Giacoletto never loses sight of those objectives. He believes Oracle is on target to buck a gloomy market, and cites the emerging demand for hosted software services as another area where the company's highly visible brand will win deals.

This market has been opened up by earlier entrants, but this has given Mr Giacoletto time to study the business model. "We realised you have to use a partner for the physical data centres, and then employ the existing Oracle support organisation." Both British Telecom and Nextra, a subsidiary of Norway's national PTT Telenor, have been signed up to run Oracle applications while outside interests subscribe to elements of a large suite of software.

Now aged 51, Mr Giacoletto is a native of Turin who is nominally resident in Geneva. But his role means he spends less than a week in every month at home. Recent world events have not restricted the travel schedule of Oracle executives or Mr Giacoletto's confidence in a single-minded company. "My goal from Larry is simple, profitable growth."