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Option 10: Building for the future

We believe the U.S. economy is now more likely to experience a U-shaped recession where the rate of decline is rapid and the recovery slower. This period of uncertainty creates an opportunity for companies that have the resources and will to invest in sales and marketing. The leaders during the next major expansion phase will be those that invest during a downturn.

Our discussion with customers shows that companies invest in customer relationship management and marketing services solutions as much for operational efficiency as revenue generation. This is one area where initiatives that effectively cut costs can also build a foundation for future growth.

Automating the direct sales force with better account management, proposal generation, forecasting and territory management tools can increase the number of deals in the pipeline. It will also reduce the amount of time, resources and inaccuracies in the process. If managed intelligently, a strategic CRM program can create a virtuous circle of cost saving, increased customer satisfaction and new revenue potential.

In this environment, selecting the right technology foundation for customer initiatives has never been more important. This is a time to tightly manage risk and limit investments on stand-alone component technology. Against this backdrop, Siebel Systems is the only game in town. They have the breadth of products, services and partnerships to be the strategic choice for nearly every major customer project. We have tracked the CRM market closely for a decade, and each major study has shown Siebel grow incrementally as the strategic choice.

In our experience, there are compelling reasons to select both Siebel’s enterprise and hosted SaaS products. Having experience on both sides of the SaaS versus enterprise software debate, we view this phase in the business cycle as contrarian. Now is the time to purchase enterprise CRM software. Software vendors like Siebel are even more willing to sharpen their pencils to close a deal. As the business climate improves, today’s investments will bear fruit quickly.

Oracle releases latest version of Siebel CRM

Here at Extraprise, we're excited to share the news that Oracle has recently released the latest version of Siebel CRM, version 8.1.1. Here's what the online version of B2B Magazine has to say about it:

"Oracle has launched the newest version of its Siebel customer relationship management system for lead nurturing and customer loyalty management. Aimed at the communications and public sectors, the newest version provides industry-specific customer self-service, enhanced use of multichannel applications with Siebel Chat, and comprehensive search capability. Its Siebel Loyalty feature enables clients to offer membership enrollment and management, including loyalty points accrual and redemption, member services, partner management and promotion management. The company said Siebel CRM 8.1.1 provides cost-savings through its use of open-standards technology. " —Christopher Hosford

Simultaneously, Oracle announced a number of Social CRM offerings that support desktop and portal based access to Siebel information "mashed up" with social network information such as LinkedIn and Facebook.This release, represent almost 30 person years of engineering and has significant enhancements in all areas of the product including:

• Fusion Middleware-based updates to Siebel Self-Service, including Siebel eSupport and Siebel eCommerce;
• Vertical-specific self-service applications for communications and public sector organizations; Improved multichannel capabilities with deeper search and better use of Siebel Chat;
• New customer loyalty features in Siebel Loyalty including loyalty points accrual and redemption, member services, partner management and promotion management;
• New features in Siebel Marketing for strategy and planning, multichannel response, and lead management; and
• Extended sales forecasting capabilities for cross-functional teams, deal registration capability, and an enhanced user interface for Siebel Sales.

Particularly germane to Extraprise were major announcements around the 8.1.1 Marketing module. New features in Siebel Marketing provide a closed-loop solution that provides the marketing organization actionable insights by automating processes across the marketing function, from strategy and planning to multi-channel response and lead management execution. Related to marketing, and part of a major push by Oracle, is the evolution of their Loyalty platform as a "fourth pillar" regarding CRM (the first three are sales, marketing, and support). Within the loyalty offering are means of increasing the value of interactions on a 360 degree basis. You can view an in depth webinar on the release and its significance presented by Anthony Lye, VP of Oracle CRM. Below is a screen capture from the presentation focusing on some the differentiators associated with Siebel Marketing.

As might be expected, the webinar touched on the current economic conditions, positioning it as an opportunity to introduce fundamental, transformational change within organizations. There was also a focus on ROI, accelerated payback periods, and major TCO improvements facilitated by the 8.1.1. release.

The discussion about Social CRM focused on the changes in the marketplace and the ineffectiveness of disruptive marketing and a transition to engagement and support for all types of new commerce (and commerce facilitating) models like C2C interactions fostered by sites like Facebook and C2B interactions where people are speaking directly to the companies that serve them.

Siebel Named Leader in SFA by Forrester

Forrester Research just released the latest installment of their Forrester Wave for Sales Force Management which rates the major vendors in the space as of Q4 S008. Siebel, SAP, Microsoft, and salesforce.com all achieved the vaunted Leader categorization, as did up-and-comer RightNow Technologies. Both Oracle's Siebel (the on-premise Siebel offering) and Oracle CRM OnDemand (the Siebel SaaS offering) were ranked as leaders. Forrester praised Siebel for its functionality and called out its social web capabilities and its support for the indirect channel. In addition to the strong rating for functionality, Siebel (on-premise) rated well in terms market presence. The one area it got significantly dinged in was in regard to Time to Value, where it ranked lowest. Interestingly the CRM OnDemand offering received the highest rating in this area. This Sales Force Management Wave analysis is supported by several other complementary Waves. The one most germane to Extraprise's business is the Enterprise CRM Suites Wave (which include a more full set of CRM functions including support, field service, marketing, etc.). Siebel ranks as a Leader in this area as the vendor having the greatest breadth and depth of functionality. In both Sales Force Management and Enterprise CRM Suites, it's interesting to note that other Oracle CRM offerings (PeopleSoft and eBusiness suite) do not fare as well as the marquee Siebel-based offerings. Over time, Oracle has a strategy to converge the best functionality from each platform into a new "Fusion" offering. Most bets are being placed on that meaning the Fusion offering will look a lot like the Siebel application. In the short to mid-term, Extaprise's Siebel expertise may provide us some opportunities for us to work with customers on developing a strategy to migrate from other offerings to the ultimate Siebel/Fusion Oracle CRM offering. The full Sales Force Management Wave Analysis can be viewed in pdf format here.