Siebel Systems - on-Demand Crm Case Study

Problem Statement: With the acquisition of Siebel Systems, Oracle faced key decisions in determining and implementing strategies that would place Oracle at pedestal position in the On-demand CRM market while also gaining market leadership in the packaged-software market.

Recommendations:

• Invest in R&D, software engineering, and information security with Siebel’s CRM On-demand as the core, in order to consolidate, streamline, and develop key features of acquired technologies

• Restructure the marketing segmentation strategy by offering hybrid packaged-software to large businesses with multiple core competencies and by offering CRM On-demand in “multi-tenant” deployments to large businesses with single core competencies and to SMBs.

• Invest in customer satisfaction improvement methods through the development of quality assurance and tech support centers including: call centers and maintenance dispatch centers

• Incentivize and train the Oracle global sales team to sell packaged-software, CRM On-demand, and hybrid solutions based on restructured marketing segmentation strategy

• Adopt the pay-as-you-go business model for CRM On-demand customers and the traditional enterprise software business model for packaged-software and hybrid customers

Discussion and Analysis of the Recommendations:

At the time of the case, Rottler and Cleveland were considering several strategies, the first being to “push the product frontier forward.” While attractive at first glance, additional acquisitions would ultimately derail efforts to establish and maintain market leadership in the fastest growth segment. Oracle had recently acquired a number of smaller firms; therefore, consolidation, integration, and restructuring of marketing strategy needed to remain the paramount focus. Targeting businesses with multiple core competencies with packaged-software would provide dedicated servers with high customization abilities tailored to customer’s unique needs over varied sales divisions. Oracle should also focus efforts on solidifying its base business and improving information security to minimize the risk of leakage and corruption, especially in “multi-tenant” deployments.

Secondly, Oracle