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Siebel Basics
Siebel is the most popular CRM software available in the market. It was first started by Siebel Systems Inc, and later taken over by Oracle Corporation on 2006. So Siebel products are now Oracle CRM product.
Siebel Systems, Inc. was founded in 1993 by Thomas M. Siebel and Patricia House. The company grew very quickly and their revenue in 1996 was $39 million. It went public on 1996 and on 2000 their revenue surpassed $1 billion mark. On 2006 Oracle acquired Siebel Systems for $5.8 billion.
The major releases of Siebel include
- Siebel 98
- Siebel 99
- Siebel 6 (also known as Siebel 2000)
- Siebel 7 (Released in 2001)
- Siebel 8 (Released on 2007)- Current Version
There are still many companies working on Siebel 6 but most companies now are currently working in Siebel 7.x version.
There was a major change in architecture from Siebel 6 to Siebel 7. While Siebel 6 has mainly Client-Server model, Siebel 7 introduced Web based architecture which revolutionized the whole product having more advanced features.
Siebel provides industry specific versions of their CRM software called the Verticals like
- Siebel Automotive (used by auto companies)
- Siebel Energy (used by energy companies)
- Siebel Consumer Goods (used by consumer goods companies like Procter and Gamble)
- Siebel Financials (used by finace companies like Chase)
- Siebel Pharma (used by pharmaceuticals companies)
Many people might argue that it is too expensive to implement CRM applications and would instead like to develop their own home grown custom software application to help Sales. But there are many other reasons to believe as to why applications like Siebel CRM available outside market would be much more beneficial in the long. Home grown applications could become very complicated and would take a hell lot of time to implement it and they are often not implemented at its best level. Also supporting and upgrading home grown application will be a pain as employees leave and the knowledge base will be gone. Home grown applications will often prove expensive. But if an application like Siebel CRM is implemented, even a complicated implementation wouldn’t take long and the Return of investment (ROI) is really great.
Siebel has been implemented by most major companies like Chase Manhattan Bank, Yahoo, Procter and Gamble, Lucent Technologies, Home Depot etc.