Siebel
Sees Farther on Shoulders of Giants
S. McVey - March 10th, 2000
Event
Summary
Siebel Systems recently announced joint marketing agreements with the
top two supply chain management vendors, i2 and Manugistics. Both alliances
will involve integration of Siebel's customer management interface applications
with best-of-breed fulfillment capabilities to deliver improved customer
satisfaction.
i2
will use customer profile data captured in Siebel's call centers, over
the Internet, or through other channels to offer personalized product
and fulfillment services to customers. i2's Internet Fulfillment Server
is the planned point of integration between Siebel eBusiness Applications
and i2's customer relationship management and back-end optimization software.
Manugistics
will use demand and replenishment data, collected through customer interactions
tracked in Siebel applications, to update Manugistics NetWORKS Demand
and NetWORKS Fulfillment solutions. NetWORKS will in turn provide inventory
information directly to Siebel Call Center and Siebel eSales users when
placing orders.
Market
Impact
The alliances make sense from many perspectives. i2 and Manugistics will
connect their supply chain management suites to Siebel eBusiness in slightly
different ways, but both alliances expand the overlap between CRM and
SCM. From the front-end perspective, a tightly integrated solution can
enable call center personnel to speak confidently to customers by giving
them access to real-time inventory and availability of alternatives in
the event requested items are out of stock. Looking from the back-end,
CRM data gives plant managers insight into a customer's buying preferences
so that trends and desired product configurations can be better anticipated.
Siebel
has made good choices in i2 and Manugistics, whose combined customer bases
exceed 1500 corporate licenses. Both have implemented solutions for joint
customers so some of the groundwork is already in place.
User
Recommendations
Users should applaud the new alliances. If nothing else, the interchange
of ideas between the parties will hasten understanding of issues surrounding
the combination of SCM and CRM. Of greatest benefit to users would be
for the collaboration to solve problems at the technological and strategic
levels, something that is suggested in the announcements, but is too often
abandoned due to aggressive product release schedules. In this case, users
will have to wait until mid 2000 to see if the two alliances deliver.