Siebel's Cleveland Reaffirms Commitment to Hosted CRM

From Al Bredenberg's VoIP and CRM Blog:

In a communique released today, Bruce Cleveland, senior vice president for products at Siebel Systems, claims leadership in the hosted CRM space for Siebel's CRM OnDemand product and emphasizes the company's commitment to the space.

Evidently triggered by the release of Siebel's quarterly financial results, today's message says that in the second quarter CRM OnDemand achieved total contract value (TCV) of $20 million versus only $10.6 million in the first quarter with year-over-year growth of 249%. Total user count grew to an estimated 40,000.

Cleveland's message includes some comments about what makes for a successful CRM implementation:

"A successful CRM project requires great technology but technology alone is insufficient. Senior executives want to see measurable business value from their CRM solutions—to grow their existing customer base, to retain their best and most profitable customers, to target and acquire new customers and to provide unmatched customer service. A hosted, on-premise, or hybrid approach to CRM is simply the delivery model to reach these desired business outcomes and not the root cause of success. As such, we have seen large enterprises select our hosted CRM solutions, while we’ve seen mid-sized companies purchase our on-premise software."

Cleveland cites Siebel's in-progress implementation of CRM OnDemand for Pulte Homes, the largest U.S. homebuilder, as a prime example of the relevance of a hosted solution for even a large company. He quotes Pulte CIO Jerry Batt explaining the choice of CRM OnDemand for the project: "We selected Siebel CRM OnDemand based on Siebel Systems’ thought leadership in front-office applications and the company’s domain expertise in working with large companies to solve complex business problems. We also valued the breadth and depth of Siebel’s world-class toolset, its impressive R&D infrastructure, and its strong built-in analytics capabilities."

Cleveland's message also cites recent endorsements by analyst firms Forrester, Gartner, Nucleus and Yankee, as well as customer wins over rival Salesforce.com. He claims "a 58% overall win ratio" over Salesforce.com in the second quarter.

Follow this link to read Al Bredenberg's VoIP and CRM Blog.

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