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Navigor has launched Oracle’s Siebel-on-demand solution for SMBs in South Africa. Navigor hopes to push the new Siebel-on-demand offering as a solution for the CRM requirements of SMBs. The CRM is available as a rental option thereby putting it within reach of businesses of all sizes. Low entry costs, good broadband connectivity, no maintenance costs are some of the advantages that small businesses can hope to avail with the new Oracle offering.

Navigor will help businesses modify and categorize the CRM solution as per customer requirements. A little strangely, Navigor feels that convincing SMBs about the benefits of a hosted solution will be a challenge. It would be interesting to learn of other places apart from South Africa where SMBs need to be educated about the benefits of a hosted solution.

Xpertise, which is one of the leading IT training facilities in the U.K, has added Siebel training to its already impressive list of Oracle training. The company already has a strong base in CRM training and this new addition adds further to its reputation. The company views the new addition as a natural progression since it already has industry-leading experience in offering Oracle training.

Given that CRM is not an easy area to train in, Xpertise has built up its capabilities slowly and is now one of the key training partners for Oracle.

Vodafone did a little damage control early this week Down Under, releasing a statement explaining that the recent nine-day brown out of services in Australia was due to implementation of a CRM upgrade and was expected.

From May 17 to May 27 (but completed a reported nine hours ahead of time!), Vodafone upgraded its Siebel pre-paid billing system. During the quasi-down time, could not provide new products or services including voicemail, moving customers to new plans, change rate plans, or churn customers to or from pre-paid phone accounts.

With words like “dominant” and “rules” was Oracle/Siebel’s standing in IDC research reported last week. Said research had the CRM market divided into eight verticals: financial services; government and health care; manufacturing; retail; utilities; automotive; communications and media; and the always-popular other.

Siebel was reported as the leading CRM provider in the first five listed categories; one IDC analyst was quoted in CRM Buyer as stating that “Siebel really dominates … holding more than 20 percent” in financial services, the largest vertical. Winners in the final three categories were Reynolds and Reynolds; Amdocs; and Salesforce.com, respectively.

Conspicuously absent from the list of top dogs was SAP. As Tamina Vahidy at Line56 put it, “despite the great deal of attention garnered by SAP’s claim to have overtaken Siebel in CRM revenue about two years ago, SAP was not a leader in any of the vertical categories despite having a massive ERP presence in those verticals.”

Oracle’s kudos were to end quite soon thereafter, however. Just today, Gartner Research reported that “Oracle bought Siebel to become the market leader in 2005, but by year-end 2006, SAP will be the larger.”

Worse yet for Oracle, Gartner reckons that “SAP appears to be ready for single-figure revenue growth of its CRM products in 2006, at best. Oracle is prepared for a slight decline.” On top of that, say the Gartner folks, “we expect one or two challengers to emerge to compete with SAP and Oracle by 2008.”

Following SAP and Oracle on Gartner’s top 10 CRM vendor list are Salesforce.com, Amdocs, SAS, Microsoft, RightNow, SSA Global, Sage, and Teradata. This group of ten represents half the total CRM market.

IDC is a provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. Founded in 1964, IDC now employs 850 analysts in 50 countries. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG.

Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner, Inc. is a combination of four branches devoted to the gathering and analyzing of “technology-related insight”: Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events. Founded in 1979, Gartner now has 3,900 associates (including 1,200 research analysts and consultants) in 75 countries worldwide and serves 10,000 organizations.

Before the Call has received the call from Oracle. Representatives from Before the Call, an on-demand sales intelligence solutions provider, have announced that the integration of its sales intelligence suite with Oracle’s Siebel CRM On Demand has been successfully validated by Oracle.

Before the Call was launched in autumn 2005. Customers include industry leaders such as content manager Interwoven, automated customer service solutions provider Intervoice, and web-based volunteer management software provider AngelPoints. Before the Call is designed to increase the efficacy of sales teams, and the Oracle-validated integration promises to further assist by instantly building online lists targeting prospects using a broad set of criteria; enriching lead data with company and executive details from content partners such as Factiva and idEXEC; and lead ranking and scoring by a number of parameters.

Siebel CRM On Demand Alliances at Oracle director Marshall Leisten hoped that “the integration is a huge potential driver of user adoption and sales effectiveness, because many of our customers appreciate not having to familiarize themselves with another user interface.” Pleasanton, Calif.-based Before the Call is a privately-held company incorporated in March 2005.

The Before the Call sales intelligence solution has hundreds of users from 26 customers; among clientele are Interwoven, Intervoice, Dorado Corp., and Virsa Systems. The Oracle Partner Network is a global business network of 16,000 companies delivering software solutions based on Oracle software. And Oracle is, of course, is the world’s largest enterprise software company.

BigMachines, Inc., a most excellently named provider of web-based configuration, quote, and proposal selling tools, today announced that the integration between its on-demand Lean Front-End solution and Oracle’s Siebel CRM on demand has been successfully validated by Oracle. BigMachines has also become a Certified Partner in the Oracle partner network. BigMachines LFE seeks to allow sales staff to configure complex products, manage complex pricing and upsell options, create rich quotes and proposals, and send error-free orders to ERP systems or order entry personnel.

The integration of BigMachines with Siebel CRM On Demand promises users the opportunity to populate quotes and orders directly with Siebel CRM customer contact data, and then link detailed quote and order information directly to CRM opportunities. BigMachines LFE can be configured to customer needs using on-demand or on-premise platforms, and can integrate with Siebel CRM on Demand or on premises.

Also of note from BigMachines was the reminder of the exclusive BigIdeas conference set for September 18-19, 2006 at San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency Hotel, a forum to explore lean selling processes using web technology. The Oracle Partner Network is a global business network of 16,000 companies who create software solutions based on Oracle software. Through access to Oracle’s resources, the Oracle Partner Network program provides partners with the resources they need. Partners who are “able to demonstrate superior product knowledge, technical expertise and a commitment to doing business with Oracle” qualify for the Oracle Certified Partner levels.

Founded in 1999, BigMachines, Inc. provides web-based configuration and quoting software and services to help companies streamline sales processes. BigMachines Lean Front-End solution digitizes selling processes and captures an organization’s tribal knowledge to provide online product selection, configurator, quoting, and ordering capabilities for new products and aftermarket parts. BigMachines LFE provides reporting capabilities and integrates to existing ERP, CAD, and CRM systems.

Another “Magic Quadrant” member has presented itself and surely to the surprise of few, it is Oracle. With over four million CRM deployed seats and over 150 million registered self-service users, Oracle was certain to have its Siebel CRM applications positioned in the “Leader Quadrant” of the Gartner “Magic Quadrant” in sales force automation.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant seeks to provide guidance for organizations seeking to purchase, replace or upgrade a sales force automation solution. Gartner positions a vendor in the “Leader” quadrant when its assessment of those companies reveals the company to be “performing well today, [to] have a clear vision of market direction and [to be] actively building competencies to sustain their leadership position in the market.”

Gartner, which uses client references as part of its evaluation of the service providers, undertakes this annual assessment to provide enterprises with data and analysis to help clients select their CRM service providers. The Magic Quadrant is a graphic representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. The analysis depicts how certain vendors measure up against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by the Gartner Group.

According to Gartner, “Quadrant Leaders” demonstrate market strength; broad installed bases using sales opportunity, solution and operations management among several industry segments; and the ability to affect market trends in all the categories of criteria on which they are evaluated. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant positions vendors in a particular market segment based on their vision and ability to execute that vision.

To be included in the 2006 SFA Magic Quadrant, a vendor had to demonstrate that it had customers that have deployed or are actively deploying opportunity management functionality within the past two years; is actively selling or marketing SFA applications to multiple industries and geographies; has proved deployable in sales organizations of over 100 users; has established or will gain market visibility and name recognition for SFA in the next year; and has professional-service resources dedicated to SFA.

The report “2006 Gartner CRM Sales Force Automation Magic Quadrant” can be found at mediaproducts.gartner.com.

All over the news first thing in the morning today was the big Siebel / IBM / Oracle brouhaha; of course, with names like this involved, who’s surprised at the prominence of this particular news bite? As is being reported everywhere, the Big Blue back-end powering Siebel’s CRM OnDemand hosted software service is “being ripped out” and replaced with Oracle’s own hosting infrastructure.

The announcement (and earnest near-violent imagery) came from Oracle president Charles Phillips yesterday in a conference call with press. Launched in October 2003, Siebel CRM OnDemand represented a joint offering with IBM, which acted as host to Siebel infrastructure and database software. Siebel was a nice big name SaaS client for IBM and likewise did the IBM name benefit Siebel. It was profit lust at first sight. As late as October 2004, Siebel and IBM were said to be connected together until 2009 via the building of a new service center.

Enter Oracle, exit previous Siebel alliances with IBM. Once he and his company were acquired in September 2005, Siebel product chief Bruce Cleveland was able to backpedal enough to state that the Siebel OnDemand system had no technical reliance on IBM infrastructure. Cleveland ultimately left Oracle last week and got on with InterWest Partners. Meanwhile, Siebel has migrated. And the Oracle beast still hungers. New Siebel CRM on-demand customers are already running on the Oracle technology stack, with others to be transitioned this summer. The move will be seamless and beneficial for users, pledge Oracle executives.

Solutions provider Empirix Inc. representatives were tickled pink to announce the bestowal of the 2006 CRM Excellence Award upon their Hammer Service Assurance testing solution for Siebel. Based on hard data, the award is presented to the company that has most distinguished itself in CRM by Technoloy Marketing Corporation’s customer interaction solutions trade publication; 2006 marks the completion of back-to-back wins for Empirix.

“We are excited to have earned this award from Customer Interaction Solutions,” said Empirix, Inc. product management vice president Duane Sword. We know from first-hand experience that CRM applications can be difficult to implement. Our Hammer Service Assurance for Siebel helps organizations successfully and confidently implement these business-critical systems.”

In press material, Siebel customer interaction solutions editorial director Tracey Schelmetic stated that the rollout of the customized Siebel Call Center application upgrade was “the smoothest we’ve ever had.” Empirix takes particular pride in the CRM rollout process, and Schelmetic says simply that “CRM rollouts are complex. They need to be well planned from start to finish to avoid pitfalls and achieve exceptional results … Empirix’s case study demonstrated the importance of thorough and proactive testing to ensure that end users will not be negatively impacted.”

Hammer Service Assurance for Siebel earned the award through its success in using Empirix’s patented Hammer transaction-engine technology to drive realistic, production-level caller and agent traffic against applications and networks, while simultaneously measuring how all contact center applications and infrastructure components react, collecting end-user focused metrics like time-to-answer, response times, caller-attached data, and screen-pop success rates.

McGraw-Hill Construction is now working with Oracle to integrate Oracle’s Siebel CRM OnDemand into its network. McGraw-Hill’s primary objective is to enable network users to efficiently manage their customer leads but with the integration of Siebel CRM OnDemand, McGraw-Hill’s customer base of design and construction professionals will also quickly be able to prioritize projects, identify customer needs, and track project status. As a bonus, personal productivity will be maximized due to the integration with Microsoft Outlook and PDAs. Design and construction professionals who use the McGraw-Hill Construction Network will now be able to serve their customers more efficiently with their enhanced access to intelligence, forecasting, trend analysis, and project data.

Along with the sales force automation capabilities that will be available to McGraw-Hill Construction Network’s Platinum subscribers, Oracle will join McGraw-Hill in planning and conducting marketing seminars and road shows that focus on lead management, targeted marketing and forecasting analysis. Rob Reid, group vice president at Oracle spoke in glowing terms of McGraw-Hill Construction’s innovative techniques for connecting people, projects and products in the construction and design industry and also predicted that McGraw-Hill’s subscribers will "now have a complete, end-to-end solution to prospect, manage and close more business on one platform." Oracle’s Siebel CRM OnDemand is an Internet-based CRM solution that is offered at a fixed price per user per month. OnDemand is affordable for most companies because it does not require an up-front investment in IT.

Go to: McGraw-Hill Construction, Oracle’s Siebel CRM OnDemand