Siebel Systems

When I first read this assignment I became extremely excited as I love debating and I believe I missed my calling as a corporate attorney. I know Seibel well, and am very familiar with their software. I began this assignment by researching Siebel today and the history of the company even before I knew what side I would be on. When I read that I would be on the side of Siebel, the assignment lost a little fizzle. I have worked in customer service, sales, and account management all of my life. My focal point has always been the customer and making the customer happy. I dream of someday having a job where I am the customer and I get to be wined and dined. (Although, with Sarbanes-Oxley in place being gifted in any corporate environment is becoming a lot less likely). At least once a week I restate to one of my sales reps, “A happy customer tells four people about their experience, an unhappy customer tells nine people”.

What I learned from this debate….

The customer is not always right! Yes, there I said it. I hope none of my sales reps happens upon this paper. If so, I have some serious explaining to do! Protech absolutely is at fault for their unhappiness. They hired a company that truly did a slipshod configuration and installation of Siebel’s SSE. At first I wasn’t sure if this conclusion was a result of my hammering my points into Tony, Ann and Ben or if I truly felt this way. After thinking about this and tying Protech’s demands to what I have personally experienced in the corporate world I realized I absolutely would never concede to reconfigure Protech’s software. Corporations are concerned with themselves.

Protech absolutely made some fatal flaws and they are as follows:

1. Hiring Freeman and expecting them to learn about Siebel’s SSE and then perform a configuration