Siebel Soups Up Wireline Communications App
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By Erika Morphy
CRMDaily.com
March 8, 2002
Siebel director of product marketing Ian Turner told CRMDaily some 70 percent of orders can be lost in a typical order-management process. 'If an order gets rejected ... that means employees have to get involved, which can be expensive. It also slows down time to revenue and really upsets customers.'
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Siebel (Nasdaq: SEBL) has announced the availability of an enhanced version of its e-business app for wireline service providers, Siebel eCommunications 7. The application is designed to provide functionality in sales, marketing, service and other customer-facing business processes specific to the wireline communications industry.
The wireline release "is a great indicator of the depth of Siebel's expertise in vertical markets," Louis Columbus, senior analyst with AMR Research, told CRMDaily.com. "They are getting really good at this."
As an example, Columbus cited the business intelligence feature. "BI in this industry is very difficult to do because of the structure of the channels." The application also "pushes the envelope in order management," he said.
According to Siebel, the application will result in faster deployments and higher rates of end user adoption for the carriers.
The wireline app is the fifth release Siebel has made of its industry-specific applications as part of its Siebel 7 rollout. Other industry apps on the market include eEnergy, eGovernment and eConsumer Goods.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Changing Environment
The enhanced version of the wireline application reflects the changing environment for this particular industry, Ian Turner, director of product marketing for Siebel communications, media and energy, told CRMDaily.
"Now wirelines are focusing on developing customer-centric organizations," he said.
However, that was not always the case, given the industry's history and structure. When the wireline carriers were monopolies, and even after deregulation, they tended to organize along product lines with little enterprise wide data or systems integration.
"After deregulation, they found themselves in a situation where they had always developed in silos and it was difficult to immediately change the way they did business," Turner said.
The wireline industry is changing its tune at this point, in part because of the recent economic climate.
"Over the past 18 to 24 months, wireline companies have been focusing on profitability, instead of revenue and on operational efficiency, i.e. cost cutting," he said.
Order of the Day
Siebel said its souped-up wireline application focuses on the pain points that carriers must address if they want to remain competitive.
The order management feature, for example, allows wireline providers to capture orders in a much more flexible fashion, Turner said.
"There have been huge problems in the past because these companies have had a plethora of order management applications, which has made it quite hard to capture and validate the order," Turner told CRMDaily.
Turner cited one industry statistic indicating that some 70 percent of orders are tossed out in a typical order management process.
"If an order gets rejected because it is missing bits of information or the data is incorrect, that means employees have to get involved, which can be expensive. It also slows down time to revenue and really upsets customers, as well."
Less Rejection
Siebel's wireline order management feature can capture orders through any channel, and allows customer to make changes during the process, instead of the system having to reject an order, he said.
It also allows wireline carriers to offer bundled products, "which is a growing trend in the industry," Turner said.
Safety Blanket?
Another feature is its business intelligence, or analytical capability, which helps carriers better understand their customer base, identify their most valuable customers and provide improved service, Siebel said.
When wireline providers do not have enough information about their customers, they tend to offer blanket promotions to a large population of customers, Turner said.
"Because they lack certain information, they usually wind up offering the same promotions to people who can go to other service providers and to those who don’t have access to other service providers," he said.
The analytical capability is enterprise-wide, he added, providing a company's sales, marketing and other departments access to the customer data. |
