For more info on a specific newsletter, click the title. Details will be displayed in a new window.
Subscribe to
Computerworld 40 years of the most authoritative source of news and information for IT leaders.
Siebel to push customer education to make CRM work
or
Other CRM Stories
|
|
|
|
October 05, 2004 (Computerworld) -- LOS ANGELES -- Moving to expand customer relationship management beyond software and make it more relevant as a business process, Siebel Systems Inc. today unveiled a series of initiatives to help companies roll out software implementations more successfully and consolidate customer views in real time.
During a set of keynote addresses here at Siebel User Week, executives expanded on the company's new "Chapter 2" strategy, which is intended to take the company beyond being just an applications vendor and make it more a trusted partner for customers. As newly installed CEO Mike Lawrie put it yesterday, the company wants to go beyond "technology for technology's sake" and use it for "driving business performance."
To that end, Siebel's senior vice president of services, Eileen McPartland, announced a new customer business blueprint initiative that offers customers a six-step services framework to draw on. That framework includes offering educational content such as white papers that users can access via a customizable, Web-based interface. Siebel plans to use its own experience to help customers better understand their own business and measure success using relevant industry-specific metrics when rolling out CRM, she said.
The methodology is designed to aid companies in meeting the key criteria such as gaining executive sponsorship for projects, cleansing and maintaining customer data, and ensuring end-user adoption. Using Siebel's steps and how-to explanations, customers will have methods in place that can reduce total customer ownership and improve their CRM processes, she said.
McPartland emphasized that Siebel intends to remain a technology vendor, not a services company, and will rely on partners to aid in the customer blueprint rollout. Although Siebel in the past has offered a number of overlapping services to customers, it intends to consolidate them and make it easier for customers to access Siebel resources during an implementation.
The initiative is expected to be in pilot by early 2005, said McPartland.
Siebel officials also offered details on its announcement yesterday to create customized software packages (see story). Relying on an integration stack from Informatica Corp., Siebel's analytical applications will pull data from multiple sources, such as an ERP or billing system, and deliver it in real time to company employees.
Larry Barbetta, general manager of Siebel analytics, said this would "democratically" distribute information through a company. A call center rep, for instance, might not need to run complex reports but could quickly see what sort of customer they were working with and treat them accordingly.
The customer analysis software sounded "cool" to Debra Domeyer, chief technology officer at CarsDirect.com, an online automotive retailer that runs Siebel for its e-commerce site and to handle referral processes. The software could make it easier to deliver real-time information to manufacturers about the configurations customers are seeking when ordering cars online and help carmakers with their inventory management. It could also provide immediate analysis of sales promotions and assess variables such as the size of a discount or regional factors and aftermarket sales.
Ian Jacobs, an analyst at Current Analysis Inc., said Siebel this week has essentially issued a mea culpa, admitting that for many of its customers, its portfolio of applications is either "too complicated to implement, too complicated to use or too far beyond what actual needs are. This is certainly not a surprising revelation; There have been a multitude of stories about 'failed' CRM implementations."
Siebel, he said, has chosen to take a more services-oriented approach rather than effecting tangible product enhancement to solve the problem.
|
Print this Story |
|
Send Us Feedback |
|
E-mail this Story |
|
Digg this Story |
|
Slashdot this Story |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
All Zones Application Performance Zone Business Continuity Zone Data Center Management Zone Enterprise-Class Security Zone The File Data Management Zone Grid Computing on Windows Zone Security Management Zone ITIL Best Practices Zone The SAS Zone Storage Virtualization Zone Business Intelligence and Analytics Zone |
 See your link here
|
 |
||||||||
| ||||||||
| ||||||||
| ||||||||
|
Download this white paper, FREE, compliments of Oracle!
Download this special report now!
Advance your BlackBerry(R) solution management know-how this July
Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services.
- Google gives away home-cooked Web application security scanner
- Microsoft trumpets security additions in upcoming IE8
- Apple cuts price of high-end SSD MacBook Air by $500
- More top stories
Cost Effective Scaling with Virtualization and Coyote Point Systems An overview of the industry trend toward virtualization, how server consolidation has increased the importance of application uptime and the steps being taken to integrate load balancing technology with virtualized servers.
Download this white paper now!
|
 Best Places to Work in ITWhere can you earn top dollar, get the best benefits, the latest IT and more? Find out in our 14th annual survey. |
| HP StorageWorks EVA4400 Before now, midsize customers settled for either an expensive and complex array or low cost solution that lacked functionality. Now experience virtual storage with enterprise class functionality at an affordable price. View this product demo now
|
|
In Depth: Apple's Leopard leaps to new heights A refined look, revamped apps and new options build on an already solid OS foundation. Read more... |
