Siebel

Problem Statement

Within a month of its introduction, the Siebel Sales Enterprise software was met with serious resistance from Protech’s 200-person sales force who complained that the software did not include much of the functionality they needed and was too complicated to access the features they did need. While a problem at Protech is a serious issue for Siebel Systems given the fact that Protech is one of its first major accounts and a development partner, it is also critical for Siebel Systems to maintain sales momentum to position the company for a successful IPO and achieve the goal of becoming a market leader in the Sales Force Automation industry.

Key issues

Siebel Systems’ flagship product, namely SSE, provides significant advantages (Exhibit 1) to customers looking to automate their sales systems. The SSE software is in the “Introduction” phase of the product life cycle. Siebel Systems is selling the software itself and invoicing the customers directly because it recognizes that integration partners are not in a position to provide all the information required to sell SSE. Once Siebel makes the initial sale, a systems integration partner is solely responsible for implementing the SSE software. This pure and highly leveraged business model enables Siebel Systems to narrow its focus on the product functionality, reliability, scalability, and performance service output demands (Exhibit 2) of an enterprise customer. However, there are a number of gaps in this business model which have resulted in the problem at Protech.

To ensure a successful implementation, the system integrator needs to be very knowledgeable of the SSE software “data model” - a core building block of the SSE software system. Freeman, the integrator selected by Protech for implementation, has limited experience with SSE, and is not well-versed in the SSE software “data model.” Siebel needs to ensure that all its integration partners are well educated to successfully implement the SSE...