What I miss from Siebel 6.0

I know that this title makes some people shudder. Siebel 6.0, they say, is only perfect as a historical showpiece. I beg to differ, at least till the time required to complete this post. Sure, I agree that Siebel 7 revolutionized things around here. If something is not browser based, I would not be taking any bets on the application mortality. Nevertheless, this should no way undermine the beauty of v6.0 application.

Release in the year 2000, v6.0 aka Siebel 2000, brought in more stability and looked better than the earlier versions. Also significant was the concept of “integrated channel management” – one application to manage your sales, marketing and customer service across channels incl. web, wireless and call center. A few features mentioned below makes one fondly remember of v6.0:

• First and foremost aspect - the architecture, client-server worked like a charm. No IE, no fuss, no security concerns and no worrying about the next security patch killing everything except the manager. No worrying about different components that are at the mercy of different machines and operating systems
  
• Performance – Any Siebel 6.0 developer would laugh off performance testing and happily do some more customization
  
• Less network bandwidth – Everyone used local mode most of the time and everything ran on the local machine anyway. Even when you are connected to server you only need to ferry the data between application and db
  
• Deployment bandwidth – Deploy with zero downtime – of the local application that is. Take your own sweet time to bring up the server and let the users synchronize over the following week
  
• Usability – Responsive, access all available views through the menu (who says Sitemap is the right way?), an intuitive search and lesser screen refreshes – try navigating to the next set of records in a list
  
• Looks – Apply windows theme and change the application looks, customize it to work on VGA or revert to the way v99 looked. Also, show or hide gridlines, alternate row background colours and customize your tool bar (through options set at the individual level, not through Tools)
  
• Extendibility – You want anything not supported OOB? – just write some script, no worrying about server/browser scripting and the server-client round trips
  

Sure, there are not many points - v6.0 was no match for the "CEM" attitude of today. But for a time it did successfully held & expanded the forte of Siebel through the 'difficult' period for IT in the year 2000. All said, I have no love lost with the latest and greatest v8.0. After working on v6, albeit for a short time, I enjoyed the transition into the web & party model of 7 (& the accompanying hiccups - it generated lot of work :)), the robustness of 7.5, all the extras in 7.8 (still think it should have been the next BIG version of Siebel) and the user friendliness and wow-so-many-features that symbolises 8.0. And yes, all hail Fusion - I will be ready for it, whenever it comes!

Spying with Web 2.0!

As an IT consultant and business IT process evangeliser, do you think you have the toughest role in managing information? Do you think you have a big problem in your hands in getting your team to "talk to each other" and believe all your problems would just vanish if there is effective dessimation of information? If yes, you need to go through the ten pages of gruelling information sharing problems faced by the defence agencies in United States. Chances are you have been through it, but I recently stumbled on this article and wanted to share that in this space. With the dynamic and ever-changing face of today's terrorism, what one can do in terms of harnessing collective intelligence to put up an effective counter-strategy?

The story gives an interesting anacedotes on what was happening circa Sep-2001 and what is relevant now. Back from the days when the bosses digested information to analyse what is important and not, the focus has moved towards grass-roots analysis. Agents in multiple agencies write and comment about the situations, threats and intel. A series of tools - WIKI, Chat Rooms and Blogs provide the platform. The number of comments will enable them to connect the dots and do a comprehensive analysis of the developments. This is crowdsourcing in some serious action. An important takeaway - "Social tools will not succeed unless the people aren't social". Though it so stares you in the face for all Web 2.0 initiatives, the benefits derived from the system when it achieves critical mass is simply stupendous.

A good takeaway hidden somewhere there for all of us non-spies?

Customer Service Experience: Role of IT

How many of you know that ICICI offers you privileged banking if you maintain a "salary" account with them? I for one certainly didn't, and I am sure many of my friends share my experience. I came to know that I was a privileged "Gold" (or whatever) card customer when I lost the privileges since I changed my main account. 

I don't normally care about this or that privileges that companies say they offer to their customers. However, these ones are supposed to have prioritized servicing at all of their branches. If you are like me you will visit the branch once in a decade, may be, and it is then you actually find out the queuing system! The branch near me has this token servicing system based on FIFO and availability of manpower. If you are planning to visit the bank on the way to office, you are certainly getting pricked at personnel not in office even by 09:30 hrs (promised time: 08:00) and the seemingly hundreds having a token number lesser than you. Now you would love that silly privilege, wouldn't you?

My next question - even if you know such privileges existed, do you really believe things will work out smoothly? I invest in Indian stock markets and can take a safer bet that it probably would, after painstaking arguments and escalation to the manager. In due course, people just end up with the glossy card and nothing more.

Now, what is this content doing in this blog you ask? Well, Andrew McAfee's recent blog post (http://blog.hbs.edu/faculty/amcafee/index.php/faculty_amcafee_v3/why_some_business_innovations_cant_get_off_the_ground) got me thinking of similar instances in our day-to-day lives. This whole experience could have been much better if the IT system enforces the privilege rule or the token issuing system somehow is tuned to recognize the type of customer. Regardless of the employee mood, the privileges are always extended to the most valued customers. The bank successfully gets its message across.

One good example I have seen is my recent experience with Big Bazaar. I use Sodexho Meal Pass to buy groceries and those who have used it know how clumsy it is to handle and at the same time, trying to avoid the steely look of people in the same queue. More important perhaps, shops do not hand over cash change if you use those coupons. This particular day, I handed the counter sales-person coupons worth Rs. 1700 against the bill amount of 1698.25. Like all other good software the system did not like the Rs. 1.75 more. The person at the counter confirmed with me his inability to hand back change and entered a dummy card number to redirect the extra 1.75 to a Children's Fund. To top it, this counter guy was no old hand, had an id card of a trainee. Simplicity and effective enforcing of business rules, must-have elements of a great software. Specific to CRM, it enables organizations to reaffirm commitment to the customer is each transaction or at each touch point. If you are implementing CRM, you now know the importance of all those pesky business rules that you grudgingly customize.

Siebel: Sensitizing Case Insensitive Queries

There was a time in the not too distant past - whenever users ask for certain fields to be case insensitive, developers had an answer - "look it's not like we can't or won't do it - it is just that the performance takes a beating". Now things look a lot easier.

The Problem

Siebel applications are case sensitive by default. Although we would certainly like to see them as another Google search - enterprise search was never really a Siebel forte (hold, I did not come to Siebel 8.0 improvements and Oracle Secure Search!). Now, searching for accounts or contacts would require the users to have a general idea or adhere to a framework of naming convention. An "ABC Company" here and "Abc Company" there, albeit a typo, result in frustration for the users. If you can have your whole application case insensitive you just turn on a switch and you lead a peaceful life. But unfortunately, not many of us are blessed with small databases or user-base and the kind of queries that requires users to take coffee-breaks are not encouraged.

Tackling case-insensitive queries assumed monstrous proportions in some implementations. Users have to get their work done. So there were a few work-arounds:

• Force case sensitive queries for desired fields by prefixing the queries with "~". Might have user-training problems, users are not happy with the extra typing (you have to really search for the damn character). Again, this might lead to the coffee-break problem, although in a much smaller scale
• Force a single case (like all caps) for certain fields like account or contact names. Again, not a beautiful solution, requires lot of user discipline

Then, there were developers - they have to maintain a certain level of user-satisfaction in the interest of their jobs and so were more work-arounds:

• Tell users to use ~ in their queries. Create indexes (like functional indexes) to manage performance loads
• Make selected fields case insensitive and manage performance through indexes
• Force case on fields and enforce user discipline
  
• And another interesting solution, which is now mainstream - enabling case-insensitivity through a redirection approach (you have to go through the entire article)

How Siebel Helps?

Enter CIAI (Case Insensitive and Accent Insensitive) wizard in Siebel 8.0. In there, we have a more streamlined way of dealing with enabling case-insensitive queries for specific fields.

What you do, as a developer, is pretty straight-forward:

• Select columns of interest
• Invoke CIAI wizard
• Select all indexes that need tuning
• Let wizard do it's thing

What you do, as a user, is more simple:

• You use the enabled fields to query - no case, no nonsense
  

What CIAI wizard does is not so simple:

• Change default insensitivity property to "DB Case & Accent" for the specified columns
  
• Optionally, create child columns that are same as parent (or previoulsy specified) columns except for the force-case part. In the background, all values are stored in one case
• Optionally, delete index including parent columns and recreate indexes for the child columns
  

Now, the object manager reroutes the queries on specified columns to the case-insensitive columns that in-turn use the case-insensitive indexes to return results that are case-insensitive. I bet you don't want to hear the term case-insensitive again (there you go!).

We can run CIAI wizard multiple times and even turn off the changes made in prior executions. Note that there are a bunch of prerequisites. More important ones - only certain table types like Data (Public/Private/Intersection), Extension etc. are supported and only char, varchar and CLOB data types can be configured for CIAI queries.

Interested to learn more? - Head to "Configuring Siebel Business Applications" in Bookshelf.

Find Search

Siebel applications provided a search functionality since ages, called "Find". This functionality is valuable in providing a better user experience and controlling user search conditions.

In the application, you will find Siebel Find at the top right corner - a binocular that opens up Find dialog when clicked. User can choose any component they want to search, fill in the appropriate fields and hit go. Search results are displayed in the same applet, that are drilled-down to reach out to the details. Easy to use and also easy to configure. Siebel Tools provides a Find object, which can be used to specify the search components & fields and drill-down target views.

All this, you would know and most probably even more. What I propose here and what I have seen in successful implementations is using Find as the only way to search for records. Now, when users have been using Siebel list applets for searching for some time now, they will find it annoying to open another dialog to type in stuff & click "Go". But they do provide certain advantages:

• The underlying business component that trawls for records based on search criteria may not be the same as the business component on the UI. This makes the search really fast. Searching takes most of the DB time, and reducing search cost is one of the ever tormenting problems in implementations
• The Find BC itself can be light with very limited and controlled fields that are not "Force Active" or "Link Spec" true
• Class of Find BC can be something light, like CSSBCBusComp instead of CSSBCOppty or some or the other Order BC classes
• Search spec on Find applet and BC can provide more controlled filter conditions, completely independent of UI filters
• Searches can be spanned through components. For example, if for some reason you have segregated Account and Partner at the BC level based on "Partner Flag", users are forced to do the search on two views. A Find component based on S_ORG_EXT (oops.. actually, S_PARTY) and without the filter criteria used in the two BCs, combined with dynamic drill-downs provide different destination views for the search results, will make things a bit easier
• With additional configuration (script available in Metalink3) Find can be configured to have certain fields as mandatory for search. For example, provide at least one field for search, Account name is required for account search. This can be used as an alternate way to forcefully use good performing indexes on the DB tables!
• The developers get to decide visibility of the filter conditions. There can be business restrictions to provide "All Accounts Across Organization" views to call center personnel - the fear of data theft (export in List applets work great). All the data may even look intimidating to new users. Using Find and combining with some other component (or the same one) can have developers defined visibility. Users will drill-down to a detail view to see more.

Siebel also enables searching through 3rd party tools (remember Fulcrum search?). In recent versions of Siebel, Oracle provides an enterprise secure search functionality that is separately licensed. These provide users more flexibility and will prove an addictive tool.

Siebel Architecture Roundup

Though we treat Siebel Architecture knowledge as the very basis on which we build more knowledge, it is surprising to find many people tongue-tied when answering specific questions about it. Here is my way of doing a roundup on the Siebel architecture – which actually implies that it is simplistic, useless other than to understand what goes on at a high level and ignores all complexities. This overview is a top-down look at what happens where. The highlight of this post may be this badly prepared diagram.

Core Components

First, a look at the various components involved. To start with, consider the most prominent client of them all – a PC web browser accessing the Siebel application server situated remotely.

 

Web server

Siebel application, in its present form, is nothing but an application server with add-on components to provide access, report & interact with other applications. Any application server needs a web server, which is the one that frontlines user fury. Siebel application is accessed by typing an URL in the browser. The URL (for e.g.: "http://crm.myorg.com/callcenter_enu"), consists of two parts - the IP/domain name for web server itself and the Siebel Web Server Extension (SWSE) instruction. SWSE is a component installed on the web server, which is responsible for identifying Siebel requests and forwarding it to the application server. In our case, SWSE will see the user request for the call centre application and forwards it to Siebel. The Object Manager will return HTML content, which is promptly routed to the browser through web server.

 

Important components here are:

• eapps.cfg – Configuration file that informs SWSE where to find the Siebel server and parameters like anonymous user details (required to display the login page), session time out parameters and the like
• Virtual directories  – Located in SWSE logical profile directory, these folders store files required by the various Siebel applications
• lbconfig.txt – Siebel native load balancer uses this file to recognize the various Siebel servers available and the components available on them

 

 

Aside:

• Web servers can be load balanced using hardware or software load balancers available in the market. The load balancing architecture also can be different from installation to installation. For a Siebel application developer, this is transparent
• Siebel itself can use native load balancing (version 7.7 onwards) or third party load balancing. While the former uses the lbconfig.txt directly, we can use the lbconfig information to write rules in case of load balancing using third party tools
• Take a look at the web server logs, it lists lot of URLs that let us understand how requests fly back & forth. All user requests are captured here
• Since SWSE is the gatekeeper for all user requests, it is the right place to go if we want to see the application performance in the last mile. In fact, SWSE provides a summary web page that lists the worst performing responses

 

 

Siebel Gateway (aka Name Server)

Any request forwarded by the SWSE to Siebel will pass through Siebel Gateway, which routes requests to various Siebel servers in the enterprise. A single gateway can serve multiple enterprises. Gateway keeps a tab on various Siebel servers in the enterprise and components available on the servers. This information is available in a volatile store depending on the status of various components. Requests for service will be routed to different servers based on which components are required to serve that request and where those components are able to take requests at that instant.

 

Important components here are:

• siebns.dat – All configuration information of Siebel servers is stored here. Siebel servers use this file at the time of start-up to find which components they have. Periodically the non-persistent information in the volatile store is dumped to this file

 

 

Aside:

• Gateway, though crucial, is not resource hungry
• When Gateway goes down, users are not kicked-out but no new logins are allowed. The existing users will not be able to start any new processes that have dependency on an external component
• siebns.dat file is notorious for data corruption, periodic backups as well as taking backups before enterprise changes will ensure a more peaceful IT team
• Though it looks like a bunch of text, manually editing siebns.dat is not supported. If there are no backups to fall back on, "Go Tech Support!"
• High availability is supported through resource clustering

 

 

Siebel Enterprise Server

A logical grouping of Siebel servers, Enterprise Server is not a physical entity. An enterprise server will function using a single instance of database. It is most useful to push common parameters across to various components on different Siebel servers. Remember that Gateway sends the requests to servers depending on component availability?  - well, then we don’t have anything more to deal with here.

 

Siebel Server

This is our guy in the group. Siebel server (more specifically one or the other Object Manager) receives user requests, pulls in data from database/from other sources, applies business logic, builds UI, merges data & UI and sends back information to requestor – whew!

Siebel server processes can be executed in interactive, background or batch mode and can be single or multithreaded. Siebel Object Manager is a component that resides in Siebel server that does most of the work. Different verticals & horizontals provided by Siebel CRM use different Object Managers, for example Call Centre OM, Sales, eService OM, etc, with each language having its own OM. That is the reason we have a "sales_enu" and a "sales_egb". Apart from this, we have OMs for external facing functions like Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). Object Managers in turn use other components in the server do execute various tasks. "Data Manager" worries about database interactions, "Assignment Manager" takes care of task allocation and so on. Components also work independent of user interactions - "Workflow Process Manager" takes care of validations & automations, "Transaction Router" & "Transaction Processor" manage remote clients and "Enterprise Integration Manager" (EIM) enables loading of external data in Siebel application.

 

Other Important components here are:

• Server Request Broker (SR Broker) and Server Request Processor (SR Proc) facilitate calls between different entities in the Siebel server. SR Broker handles synchronous requests, while SR Proc handles (server initiated) asynchronous requests. Both components are capable of utilising components within the server or those on other servers. This is termed as "resilient processing"
• Server Connection Broker is the intra-server load balancer, and manages spawning of tasks and threads of each component

 

 

Aside:

• Calls between different entities in the Siebel server is facilitated by Server Request Broker and Server Request Processor through Gateway. All communications within Siebel space use SISNAPI or Siebel Internet Session Network API
• Reports are not actually taken care in Siebel, rather those requests are passed on to "Actuate" reporting application. Actuate is tightly integrated to recognize Siebel data model, interact with database and produce reports
• Interactions with Oracle Business Intelligence happen through an interface, a well-defined one at that

 

Clients

The common web client defined above can also be of two types:

• High Interactivity Client – Installs and uses ActiveX controls on the client machine. Obviously, it requires Internet Explorer with suitable patches for IE and the operating system itself. Safe to consider it when the web clients reside on desktops under some degree of control
• Standard Interactivity Client – Zero footprint, works on more browsers but UI is nothing to write about 

 

Web clients can bypass server in a dedicated client mode. This mode uses Siebel Repository File (SRF) on the client machine and connects directly to the Siebel database.

Web clients also can function in a disconnected mode – for that we extract data for the user from the Siebel server and provide a copy of SRF on the client machine. The data in local database then needs to be periodically synchronised with the Server.

 

Other than web clients, there is Siebel Handheld for phones coming under the PDA bracket. Siebel is installed on the phone device and provides field force with a way to manage Siebel data. Handheld devices can be used in a disconnected mode and later synchronised with the Siebel server – directly using http/https requests or using a PC as intermediary. Technically, any phone with a browser can be used to connect with Siebel applications, but one look at the way the application looks on the tiny screen should put such considerations to rest.

 

Deal with Outside World

Lot of integration gurus have a lot to say about how enterprises need to build their processes. To simplify overtly, I tend to think of all integrations as passing through the service bus. All interactions with the external systems, maybe for provisioning, billing, supply chain management etc. will involve one or the other requests flying into or out of Siebel applications through the Service Bus - out into the big bad world. Haven’t heard of Service Bus? Relax, here it just refers to any standard middleware application like Oracle Fusion, IBM Websphere and the like

 

What Next?

• Refer detailed descriptions of various Siebel components in "Siebel System Administration Guide" of Siebel Bookshelf
• Install Siebel CRM
• Download Siebel installable files from http://edelivery.oracle.com
• Make install and carry out installation. Refer Siebel Installation Guide for UNIX or Windows
• Find demo license codes at http://licensecodes.oracle.com
• Go here for a better architecture image
  

Siebel Client-side Import - Used it yet?

Possible spoiler: Content below may be of academic interest rather than any commercial exploitation!

Most Siebel users will be familiar with "Import" and "Export" options displayed in the applet level menu in list applets. Although export is quite commonly used, import does not find many consumers. Client-side import refers to the functionality using which users, through the UI, can import data into Siebel application from a CSV file, ACT! Application export or any other defined file format.

Although we always "recommend" initiating and storing the CRM data in Siebel, that may be difficult to achieve due to logistic reasons like availability of application, disconnected mode of usage or data coming in from different sources. This gap is commonly addressed as an interface of some kind – submitting files for imports through an enterprise batch process, import using custom COM programs, interacting directly with the third-party enterprise applications etc. There are instances where allowing users to import the data quickly and start working on Siebel application may provide a better experience rather than forcing them through an enterprise EAI process running in a disconnected mode. Instantly uploading data will also enable users to connect closely with the application & assume ownership of the data. ( Hail Jargons! Anymore to add, anyone?)

Siebel out-of-the-box supports import of Contacts (according to an ambiguous statement in bookshelf that says “Siebel applications support contact business components only for client-side imports”). I am not sure how the other 25+ import objects are used, but this feature is certainly will not be on anyone’s priority list. After all, today organizations want immediate access to data from every employee and entering data in one or the other enterprise application is the norm. I did not bother to search in metalink and come out with use-cases, so do notify me if this is a repeat and I will tag this post accordingly.

 

Developers can easily configure components to enable Client-side import. An illustration below is an overview of enabling such an import for “List of Values”.

 

Enabling Client-side Import

 

Pre-build

• Verify whether the applet to which the import object will be associated has “Insert” permissions for the user (May be irrelevant here – new LOVs can always be inserted right?)
• Expose “Import Object” in the “Object Explorer” of Siebel Tools

Build - Tools

1. Create import object in Tools - Create a new “Import Object” based on same BC as the one that you see in UI. You will not see “Import” enabled in the UI if this is not the case

2. Create “Import Field” for all attributes that need to be imported
3. Create relevant Import Key Field and Import Aux Field. Import Key Field acts like the “User Key”, those are the fields used to identify uniqueness of the record. Import Aux Field will provide option to re-query if there is a duplicate found
4. Define “Import Source” to map the type of file that will be imported. This provides options to the user for selecting the type of map at the time of import
5. For each import source, create field maps. Note that one Siebel field can be mapped to a combination of columns in the import destination 

Use

1. Navigate to Administration – Data > List of Values. Click on Import from the applet level menu or File (from the application level menu) > Import
2. Choose file, input format, mapping source and conflict resolution type. All fields hopefully are self-explanatory. Auto mapping allows you to do mapping on the fly, while we have defined mapping rules for predefined mapping. Since we already have created mapping in Tools, we select that without a second thought and hit on ‘Next’

3. See the magic of mapping and hit ‘Next’ (again). This will trigger the import process. Import runs within the object manager itself (or by siebel.exe, as applicable)

4. Review import, check log file and sign off. I had introduced a duplicate to test the functionality, which promptly got rejected

Advantages

• Easy accessibility for the users, immediate response
• Does not really qualify as an interface :)
• Functionality can be configured quickly

 

Limitations

• Client-side import is supported for parent business components only, no complex hierarchies, no importing of parent & children in one stretch
• Has to be based on the same BC as the applet in UI – no ‘light’ BC concept here
• Needs ‘debugging’ skills from the users! The error report is not exactly user friendly, except for the summary

 

Final Word

• Do not forget to “Clear Cache”

 

Components & Version

Components realized on Siebel 8.0. There is nothing worthwhile to share here.

References

Siebel Object Types Reference, Page 199. Bookshelf for Oracle’s Siebel Business Applications Version 8.0 - B40099-02

Desi CRM Anyone?

This other day, while hunting for CRM news at work, I encountered a surprising Google ad – “ImpelCRM, the market leader of OnDemand CRM in India”. Wait a minute now – where was I when a player, hitherto unknown, is already claiming to be a leader? I do try to keep tab on the happenings in CRM market, and this would be too big a splash to go unnoticed. Something is indeed going on – I decided to check it out.

I am taken to this slow loading website that may not be termed “pretty”. Some last minute collage could be put up, no? The site also tries to install an ActiveX control – at least now I am not willing to risk installing it and checking out its purpose.

Anyhow, Impel CRM is the wonder boy and the promoters are from Kempapura in “namma Bengaluru” - PK4 Technologies, quoted in a listing site as “delivers software solutions in a revolutionary manner: by reducing team-size and increasing the use of tools and technologies”. “Adaptable, Affordable, Adjustable – CRM for India” goes the tagline. Why India I wonder? Well, I cannot be too skeptical, have to see what is going on.

The Company

PK4 Technologies, the Bangalore based company, was selected as one of the finalists in NASSCOM's 100 IT Innovators 2007 for its framework ZeroCode, an on-demand web application development framework that enables users to quickly build and instantly deliver browser-based applications. PK4 exhibited the product at Startup City trade show on 24-May-2008, held at the NIMHANS Convention Centre. Expectedly, “ImpelCRM is India’s only completely OnDemand CRM solution”. The release also says they have garnered lot of interest in the six weeks from launch. Whew, I have not distanced myself too much from the CRM happenings.

The Solution

Is a typical hosted CRM solution, datacenters are based in India. Vendor claims scalability to thousands of users. The application is customizable and “integrates with any system”. While writing about comprehensive CRM, the focus points have been provided as:

• Sales Force Automation
• Marketing Automation
• Customer Service Automation
• Partner management

Since most vendors claim whatever they do and that alone as CRM, we will try to drilldown into how Impel satisfies these functionalities.
There are “verticalised” solutions catering to Manufacturing, Healthcare, Government, Insurance and Real Estate. But the message I get is that their “product” fits into the various verticals – which I read as “You can use this product, but is not really tailored for your processes”.

Mobility

Accounts, contacts and opportunities can be added using SMS. All that and orders can be reviewed through SMS as well. Users can add or view accounts, contacts, opportunities and activities through the browser on mobile phone using “Impel Mobile SFA”, while “Impel Mobile Customer Support” lets users add trouble tickets and view resolutions. Getting mobile comes at a price, Rs.1500 setup and Rs.200 /month thereon. First 50 SMS are free while anything additional costs Rs.2/SMS.

Technology

Ajax and JSON technologies are used to auto fill data entry forms. Apparently, PK4 uses its ZeroCode under the hood. Will update further details if I find out any.

Service & Support

Impel guarantees a 99.99% uptime other than scheduled maintenance. Support is provided 8X5 – that is 8hrs/day on regular working days. Phone, email along with chat support through a bunch of Gmail, Yahoo IDs? Email support is unlimited, we are told.

Security

We are assured of data security through legal and procedural measures to limit access to data. Each customer gets a db on a virtual server and is not shared. Hosting is in Level 3 data centers. Servers are monitored real time and I suspect this is largely done by the data center, while Impel relies on SMS sent during disaster. Relevant data backups and replication are in place.

Cost

Is the pricing is confusing or is it just me? Probably, they could have best taken it to the end user and make it transparent to the first timer visiting the site. In short, the more you use it, the bigger discounts you will get ('Big Bazaar' CRM!?). It ranges from Rs.1000 per user per month at the higher end to Rs.700. Setup is Rs.1500 per user and mobility charges are extra.

My gripes

• The website itself needs a hand in content management and aesthetics. Though I am no website freak (you have seen this, yeah?), a more professional look & feel would do good. The server going down and coming back up in some time reminds me of the way we manage our CRM applications, but of course demoing it to users on the web can be disastrous.
• There are featured customers on the website, but we don’t know what they are doing with the product. Maybe, the company will do that as time progresses
• There are claims of ROI within 12 months. What is the data to back this up? Is it just that other products can do it and hence, we can do it? Or were they in business before the product launched?
• Lot of copied in posters, case studies & gyan – Just providing lot of information will not translate into “my product will do that”

What's Good?

Well, you may say I had time to waste to go through the vendor’s offering before it catches the eye of the people. But, that is precisely the point – I have nothing but admiration and appreciation for the team involved. I want people in India to stand up and notice. Launching a CRM product is no small feat and innovation is not that widespread in that area. Coupled with their technical expertise I am sure this will make its mark in the market. Hmm.., I want them to succeed.

• Created an impact with their ZeroCode (http://www.zerocode.com)
• Their blogs are cool (http://blog.impelcrm.in/?cat=11,12,13,14,15,18)

You want more? Check out their site. I couldn't find more because I was not given a "Try" license in my personal capacity.

References

http://www.impelcrm.in

CRM & Web 2.0

We hear great stories about Web 2.0 every other day – how people can share, be in touch and can in turn help humanity. Great tools, so how do we use that in CRM? Why CRM you ask – this is too good an opportunity to miss, people all around you are discussing your product and service, complaining about your service, expressing interest in business and you certainly treat that as a major channel for CRM. And this is not the only thing about that, but also utilizing the Web 2.0 tools to run business – among sales people, partners etc. After all, CRM is a movement by the people and for the people (there is no “from the people”, we in IT are not considered human enough).

Thoughtfully, people are not far behind in utilizing this opportunity. Vendors – large & small have been having a go at this great integration of Web 2.0 and social networking features in the mainstream enterprise. But first, why move on to Web 2.0?
Traditional CRM has been just an “upload” application for sales reps. There is no immediate visible benefits for them to do what is expected out of them
Sales force could choose not to be entirely honest with the CRM application, just entering loads of information is not everyone’s piece of cake
Structured organization and presentation of data works really well for IT, but is seldom human, but selling is

And what will happen to the end consumers. These are the guys who just don’t want to purchase a product just because marketing is telling them that they will get everything (yes, including the kitchen sink). They want to discuss with like minded people, get an overview of what they are getting into, check how the product fares in the market and the like. They may be doing that through blogs, forums and WIKIs, but good CRM should enable the organization to have a stake in it. A good discussion might prompt sales offers, a flame can be doused through prompt service – CRM using Web 2.0 can be one indispensable tool. Following is a brief look at what a couple of major vendors are doing about Web 2.0 in CRM.

Oracle

Oracle is one serious player in this segment. Oracle Social CRM (Siebel OnDemand in its new avatar), launched March 2008, is going to be a major step towards using Web 2.0 technologies in enterprise IT. The launch included a “blogger call” prior to disclosing information to public. A bird’s eye view of what we can do with it:

• Real time predictive analytics using not only the data available to the enterprise systems but also with external sources, making it one killer sales tool. For example, a CG industry could decide which sector to target a particular territory based on sales history for similar products in that territory, the recent consumer spend trends from a leading analyst and if need be, even the seasonal conditions that promote or discourage a product. This amalgamation of group behaviour combined with sales force knowledge is “social intelligence”. Get the application to adjust to inputs from users and take into account the factors lying out there that influence the buying behaviour
• Generating excitement about using a product often translates into better information being captured and in-turn being utilized in sales and services. A user friendly screen to capture product literature and display it ala FlickR
• Ability to form arbitrary groups like sales force from a particular region who share customers in the same regions etc
• Sticky notes feature to mark any object and have access to present and future information about that object in fingertips. Or if need be, expose it as a gadget in iGoogle or elsewhere
• Get involved in discussions in a centralized environment message centre

What have we covered here? – RSS feeds, WIKIs, forming of interest groups, expose information through widget APIs. The target audience includes large scale enterprises and not only your neighborhood SMB. Take a hard look folks, Oracle applications as a career option is surely working out :) . Though I would say, SaaS is making it more fun for the businesses.

SAP

SAP, the biggest CRM software vendor out there, did some major Web 2.0 enhancements in its SAP CRM 2007. Announced in Dec 2007, it was compared to iGoogle portal in the introductory summit. At this point in time, I am not in a position to say how effective their new interface is or whether CRM 2007 really helped them go past the bad UI issues of the erstwhile CRM applications.

• Easy to use applications with drag & drop functionality for lot of functions, building mashups were some of the key things outlines for the CRM application
• Widgets like weather forecast module and Google search bars

Salesforce

Where there is innovation, can Salesforce be left behind?

• Salesforce widget APIs have created good excitement (and also good business for a number of small players).
• Salesforce allows creation of RSS feeds
• Salesforce SOA gives a “Yahoo! Pipes” like program where businesses can consume services from Amazon, pull information from Google Adwords or MSN Adcenter
• ContentExchange (not CRM in the purist sense!) gives the power to manage content management of unstructured data as well
• Use tags to subscribe to information (termed web 2.0 folksonomy as against taxonomy in traditional applications)
• Plan for interfaces to WIKIs, interface with word processing services on the web like Google Docs, Zoho Docs

RightNow

RightNow incorporates support for Widgets, Videos, Forums and Blogs in its latest customer portal application August '08. Also present are collaboration tools like Chat and co-browsing.

It deserves special mention to the fact that Oracle & Salesforce are not only vendors, but major implementers of Web 2.0 in the way they run businesses. Oracle blogs provide useful information to one and all, while the forums are abuzz with customer problems, view and feedback. Utilising Web 2.0 in CRM is not constrained only to these major players. There are also numerous other players providing Web 2.0 capabilities in their product. For example HeapCRM, one of the smaller but earlier vendors to embrace Web 2.0, where every message in Heap can be subscribed through RSS and widgets provide access to data through iGoogle or in Mac OS & Windows Vista. What is seen here is a clear indication of the next-gen UI and functionalities that make CRM fun and at the same time, more effective.

The Verdict

In summary, there is lot of proliferation of Web 2.0 functionalities going on in CRM, no doubt beneficial to all stakeholders. Web 2.0 in CRM will enable employees and partners input useful information, share information within & external to organization and able to better sell and service customers. Add to it the end users who will better appreciate the “face” of the organization and the sales/service offers from organization by the very timing of it – ah.. next is what?

But hold, there should be a catch – there is always one for all good things in life.

• The biggest one – information security. Security threat not necessarily because of the software, but the very nature of Web 2.0 that encourages sharing of data. With easier profiling, comes the risk of identity thefts. This was already demonstrated to a bunch of salesforce customers targeted for phishing attacks
• The success of this whole model relies upon sharing of data among stake holders. But in reality, sales people may not be so forthcoming with contact & lead data. Although this makes it hard to determine effectiveness, we are still in a better position as compared to traditional CRM
• Management will find it hard to keep track of what is going on with the traditional tools at their disposal. A right mix of structured with unstructured should make things exciting

CRM Everywhere

CRM or Customer Relationship Management, simply put, is to manage customers. Wikipedia defines it as

"Customer relationship management (CRM) is a term applied to processes implemented by a company to handle its contact with its customers. CRM software is used to support these processes, storing information on customers and prospective customers. Information in the system can be accessed and entered by employees in different departments, such as sales, marketing, customer service, training, professional development, performance management, human resource development, and compensation. Details on any customer contacts can also be stored in the system. The rationale behind this approach is to improve services provided directly to customers and to use the information in the system for targeted marketing and sales purposes."

CRM is a term that has evoked resentment in the past, but what, as some people put it, is undergoing a transformation for the good. It had and still suffers from problems like demanding too much data input without being responsive to sales/service needs, considered a "management" tool to track whatever is going on rather than help create business and often just used as a centre for customer information. Hopefully, the perspective is undergoing major changes. CRM is no more just about storage/retrieval of customer information or ROI tracking, it is "all about the customer!".

CRM to me is a combination of front office & back office functionalities that enable organizations to "see" a customer. So we have many things under this umbrella - managing data, making sense out of it using analytical tools, helping organizations to effectively sell & service across channels and the list goes on. CRM is not software, but the way of putting customer at the heart of the organization.

Lousy post? I know the feeling, but I wanted something heartfelt about CRM to be the first post :)

Cheers!

Hello & Welcome!

Since I am lazy, I am going to post the same message posted elsewhere.

Well, I really don't know where I am going with all this. First came the idea of a website, a blog and a forum. Why not power everything by Google and bring it under one roof? Nothing innovative there - but it is something challenging for me nevertheless. If not anything, it will be a good indicator of how sustainable my ideas are.

Cheers!