Siebel Systems (A) Extreme View
Growing a company requires a strong business strategy to keep leadership focused on the ultimate end goal. Sales to new customers, sales to existing customers, and customer satisfaction are all important aspects to the growth model; but priorities must be set based on the company’s standing in the market. Given the current market opportunities, Siebel should continue to focus on growing their business even if that means losing unhappy customers in order to emerge as the market leader in the industry.
With the up and coming IPO, analyst believed Siebel Systems had the potential to grow from a $50,000 to an $8,000,000 business (Tempest 1998). Given Siebel Systems partnership with Andersen Consulting, whose …show more content…
Geoffrey Moore, author of Inside the Tornado, classified this point as the “tornado” and his belief was that “the company that gets the majority of the customers at the beginning of the rush is the market leader forever” (Moore, 2004). This was precisely that time for SSE technology and it was vital for Siebel Systems to get new customers through the sales process as quickly as possible and not focus on customer satisfaction according to Moore’s model. Had Siebel Systems already established themselves as the leader, then and only then, should the company shift their focus away from new sales. This model does risk Protech taking their business elsewhere, and that very well could happen, however the “tornado” market rewards risk takers and punishes …show more content…
Although I do agree with the approach that I took in the extreme position, which was to keep focus on new sales and not pull critical resources from their development teams or sales teams, I do believe that Siebel Systems should have invested money and hired additional resources .
The strategy of relying on an implementation partner was flawed. Although there are several benefits to be had from partnering with a well-respected company that comes with their own client base, Siebel Systems should have kept oversight of the implementation activities to ensure a smooth delivery. This was a critical time, with the market leadership title on the line, had Siebel Systems guided Freeman & Co. through the requirements gathering process and configuration setup, the end result given to Protech’s sales force could have been greatly improved. Enterprise wide ERP systems are complicated and pull together several different components of a business, so it is vital to use resources that have a deep level of understanding about the software and no one is going to know the software better than Siebel
Growing a company requires a strong business strategy to keep leadership focused on the ultimate end goal. Sales to new customers, sales to existing customers, and customer satisfaction are all important aspects to the growth model; but priorities must be set based on the company’s standing in the market. Given the current market opportunities, Siebel should continue to focus on growing their business even if that means losing unhappy customers in order to emerge as the market leader in the industry.
With the up and coming IPO, analyst believed Siebel Systems had the potential to grow from a $50,000 to an $8,000,000 business (Tempest 1998). Given Siebel Systems partnership with Andersen Consulting, whose …show more content…
Geoffrey Moore, author of Inside the Tornado, classified this point as the “tornado” and his belief was that “the company that gets the majority of the customers at the beginning of the rush is the market leader forever” (Moore, 2004). This was precisely that time for SSE technology and it was vital for Siebel Systems to get new customers through the sales process as quickly as possible and not focus on customer satisfaction according to Moore’s model. Had Siebel Systems already established themselves as the leader, then and only then, should the company shift their focus away from new sales. This model does risk Protech taking their business elsewhere, and that very well could happen, however the “tornado” market rewards risk takers and punishes …show more content…
Although I do agree with the approach that I took in the extreme position, which was to keep focus on new sales and not pull critical resources from their development teams or sales teams, I do believe that Siebel Systems should have invested money and hired additional resources .
The strategy of relying on an implementation partner was flawed. Although there are several benefits to be had from partnering with a well-respected company that comes with their own client base, Siebel Systems should have kept oversight of the implementation activities to ensure a smooth delivery. This was a critical time, with the market leadership title on the line, had Siebel Systems guided Freeman & Co. through the requirements gathering process and configuration setup, the end result given to Protech’s sales force could have been greatly improved. Enterprise wide ERP systems are complicated and pull together several different components of a business, so it is vital to use resources that have a deep level of understanding about the software and no one is going to know the software better than Siebel