SIEMENS BUYS INTO CRM (from AMR Research)
Siemens is investing time and money to ready the Quintus
eContact Suite for the next generation of mobile and voice
communication channels. However, the vendor's simultaneous
backing for mySAP.com CRM could confuse the market.
........
Siemens Information and Communication Networks recently
bought 19.9% of Quintus, the provider of unified, electronic
call centre software. Quintus customers in Europe include
call centre outsourcing companies as well as enterprises
that man their own call centres. The Quintus stake was
followed swiftly by the full acquisition of Trango Software
Corporation, the provider of CTI messaging systems. These
acquisitions haven't stopped the same Siemens group from
announcing joint development of intelligent routing systems
for the SAP mySAP.com CRM system and the Siemens Business
Systems group cementing this relationship by becoming a
mySAP.com Global Hosting Partner.
Siemens can now bring Trango's information routing
capability and the Siemens HiPath multimedia IP
communications products to the Quintus eContact Suite.
Should it wish to do so, Quintus can even reinforce its
support for older technologies, such as fax through the
Trango MessageBridge products. A Siemens seat on the
Quintus board and the formation of joint development teams
will help to ensure a mutually beneficial product direction,
while the Siemens sales force is coming up to speed to sell
the product into its installed base of some one million
customers in 160 countries.
As a provider of communications infrastructure, Siemens is
not unique in seeking revenue from the call centre
applications market. Nortel did this through the
acquisition of Clarify, Inc., for example, and it makes
sense for Siemens to do the same. Heavy investment in
mobile and voice technologies, however, made it important
for Siemens to select a vendor such as Quintus, which is
geared toward the new electronic touchpoints so that the
product can be readied for extended mobile and voice
channels swiftly.
It is also vital, however, that Siemens positions its CRM
products clearly. Involvement in mySAP.com CRM as an
infrastructure provider is fine, but the Siemens sales force
must be clear on which of the Quintus and SAP CRM products
will be promoted. Furthermore, any significant promotion of
the mySAP.com CRM systems will cause uncertainty among the
Quintus user base over their long-term investments.--Kevin
Lucas |
