SIEBEL SYSTEMS

ABOUT THE CASE

Gregg Carman, working in sales office of Siebels Massachusetts office, is
negotiating a $ 2.1 Billion sale to Quick & Reilly recently acquired by
FleetBoston.
FleetBoston wants to veto the purchase.
Gregg Carmen is in dilemma about which company to back?
ABOUT SIEBEL
SYSTEMS
 SIEBEL SYSTEMS
Founded in 1993 by Tom Siebel.

Revenue : About $2 Billion.

No. of employees : 8000

50% market share in Sales Management, Marketing automation, Customer Service, and
support by 2001.

No. of products : More than 200

139 direct sales offices in 40 countries around the world.

World leader in CRM software,

Key integration partners for Siebel are Accenture, Cap Gemini etc.

Key Hardware and Software partners included Alcatel, AT&T Wireless, Avaya etc.
 WAY OF DOING BUSINESS
Focused on two goals:

to build a high technology company focused entirely on customer satisfaction

build a company with enduring value.

Company included customers in product design process before building products for
them

Siebels customers achieved a return on their investment within 9.6 months along with
increase in :

Customer satisfaction levels by 20%.

Employees productivity levels by 19%

Customer retention by 16%

 WAY OF DOING BUSINESS
Siebel built partnerships with customers focussing only on software components that
accounts only 16% of total CRM investment.

Differentiation strategy for Siebel was Ecosystem of Partners by offering best services
and having best customer level satisfaction in the industry.

Core Values of Siebel Systems :

Customer Satisfaction

Professionalism

Professional courtesy

Bias for action

SWOT ANALYSIS
 World Market leader in CRM services with 50% market share.
8000 employees.
Ability to execute large-scale projects.
S 729 partners.

No offerings in Hardware and Service segment.

Single focus value proposition.
W

CRM software market to grow at nearly 32% compounded annually through 2005.
High trust amongst customers. (98% rebuy intention)

O Incomplete point solutions and limited execution skills in the competitors.

400 vendors competing in the market.

New market entrants.

T Competitors strategic shift from low cost strategy to customer benefits strategy.
TAS PROCESS
Siebel Systems TAS Process
TAS : Targeted Account Selling

Purpose : Building a sales strategy.

5 Steps process :

1) Assess the opportunity

2) Define Competitive Strategy

3) Develop Relationship Strategy

4) Turn Ideas into Action

5) Test and improve the Plan

Step 1 : Assess the opportunity
Analyzing the customers profile.

Determining the competency.

Determining chances of success.

Long term & short term benefits.

Step 2 : Define Competitive Strategy

Analyzing competitors sales strategy with yours

Use frontal, flanking and fragment strategy when there is good opportunity and
competition is possible.

Use defence and develop strategy when opportunity is not good and competition
is not possible.

Step 3 : Develop Relationship Strategy

Identify key players and define key roles in buying process.

Analyze formal organization and access informal organizations.

Step 4 : Turn Ideas into Action
P : Prove Value

R : Retrieve Missing Information

I : Insulate Competition

M : Minimize Weaknesses

E : Emphasize Strengths

Step 5 : Test and improve the Plan

2 teams :
Presenting Team

Reviewing Team

Include :
Understanding the plan

Testing the plan

Improving the plan

ABOUT CARMAN
 ABOUT CARMAN
Experience of 10 years in sales related jobs.

His job is to serve financial service clients.

Selling style : subtle and personal.

Classified buying centres into 2 parts :

Project team

Senior management

Carmen referred :

Project team as my coach.

Senior Management as my executive manager.

Attitude towards methodologies is that they make a good salesperson more effective.

Power of Methodologies :

Help in structuring all customer information.

Not missing any important information that could potentially affect the sale.
 SITUATION
Quick and Reilly is a discount stockbroker which is recently acquired FleetBoston, the ninth Largest
bank in the United States.

Two persons from Quick and Reilly, V.P. of Marketing and V.P. of client services approached the
Greg Carmen.

Quick and Reilly personnel talked about their merger, budget approval procedures and the software
firm, Bradley Partners, with which they are working.

They asked Carmen about Siebel systems competitor Oracle.

Two options before Carmen for response

To show Siebel systems ability to execute large scale projects with a complete CRM solution
and point out limited execution skills of Oracle in the CRM space.

He dont want to directly compare his firm with competitor until he knew the customer well.
QUESTION 1 :

How should Carman respond to the invitation to tell the

Quick and Reilly executives what he thought of Oracle?
What feature of this particular interaction influence your
opinion? Would your opinion of the right response change
if the circumstances were different?
(A) Carmans response related to Oracle was appropriate as :

o He should not compare its product with the competitors before even introducing it
properly to the client. This will give an indication of boasting about the product.

o Suggesting a competitors product may built a sense of trustworthiness as he is not just

trying to sell his product but trying to get the solution for customers problem.

o Demonstrating the capabilities of the Siebel systems at the demo section can help
clients in getting more clarity of the products and its functions.

However he could have tried to

o Understand about Cathys business requirements for the solution; shortcomings of the
existing software they are using and their expectations from the software solution to
resolve such problems.

o Introduce Cathy with the existing Siebel product and their customer feedbacks.
(B) Features of this interaction that influences my opinion are

o Carman did not know the client or their requirements well (size, expectations, budget, scope of
installation)

o Cathy had no prior knowledge of the Siebel Systems and a very superficial technical know-how.

o Oracle is one of the Siebels leading competitors and a bigger brand

o Carman did not want to compare his firm and competitor unless he knew the client well

(C) Yes, definitely I can straightaway think of situations where his response should have been different

o Cathy had prior knowledge of Siebel Systems through other customers

o Cathy had a comparative study of Siebel and its competitors

o Cathy had already told to Carman the size and timing of the opportunity or Carman had already
knew the client and their requirements
QUESTION 2:

How should Carman qualify the prospect? Should he ask

directly or should he suppress his curiosity and leave it to
the prospect to bring up information about the size and
timing of the opportunity? If he asks for information, how
will he use it?
(A) Carman should qualify the Cathy as a very good prospect. This is because:

o Cathy is not satisfied with the existing product at their company and was in the market looking out for
a sales force automation product that could help them managing lead tracking.

o Siebel Systems is the leading product in the market and can address all the problems.

o If Carman quickly identifies the Size, budget, scope of the opportunity and the executives how can
influence the deal, then it would become quite easy for him to convert this into a sale.

As Q&R are nave for the implementation, they can have a stringent or superficial budget and unclear or
hidden requirement. Hence, Carman can ask basic information such as the shortcomings of the existing
products, their basic requirements and number of users and can suggest a more detailed solution with the
cost of it.

If Q&R is not satisfied with the suggestion then at a later stage they can negotiate on the budget and
modification according to the given budget in the package.
(B) Suppressing the curiosity might result in prospect not bringing up that point at all in the whole
conversation, and then it would be a lost deal for Carman.

(C) Carman can use this information while talking to Q&R executives

o To propose the right timeframe to implement the solution

o To propose the cost & benefits of the solution to the customer

o To understand and document the process which in future can help Siebel to provide solutions to
similar clients
QUESTION 3:

Evaluate Carmans interactions with the customer up to this

point. Is he doing a good job? How effective is Siebel
Systems approach?
(A) Lets see how Carman has approached the job

o He tried to gather the information to understand requirements

o Demonstrated the Siebel System solution at the trade show

o Despite of directly giving a comparative study, he focused on the Siebel product and also kept
the decision open ended for the client whether to analyse Oracle or to select Siebel.

o He also wanted to meet the executives and influence them to convert the deal

In our opinion he could have done much better

o He could have tried to understand the problems faced in the existing software and other
requirements of the client to tailor the demonstration to showcase features that addressed their
specific needs

o He could have asked about other alternatives they have been considering before approaching
Siebel systems stand

o He should have been alert while listening to the client.

(B) Siebel Systems approach is effective because :

o They keep customer satisfaction at the top

o They provide complete solutions to the customers by following a market driven approach.

o They gather information about customers problems and deliver a customized product
according to their needs.

o They not only concentrate on the sale of the software, however they work with customer in
implementation and productive use of the solution and ensure that customer derives the
benefit out of the system.

o They create strategies keeping in mind counter strategies which competition might adopt
THANK YOU