Case Report

Siebel Systems: Anatomy of

a Sale, Part I and Part II

Submitted By:
Sonali Bhattacharjee PGP/21/198
Qn 1. How should Carman respond to the invitation to tell the Quick and Reilly executives what
he thought of Oracle? What features of this particular interaction influence your opinion? Would
your opinion of the right response change if the circumstances were different?

As per the TAS approach, which was always used by Siebel, the initial conversation should revolve
around assessing the opportunity, i.e. the need and capability of the consumer then defining the
competitive strategy as to the approach towards the customer. The third step revolves around
establishing a rapport with the consumer and developing a relationship strategy thereafter comes the
execution stage of turning the ideas into action and then testing and improving the plan. Carmen should
initiate a probing activity as this is the exploratory stage of KAM. Howsoever Carmen cannot
straightforwardly negate the query and therefore a mixed approach should be established. Looking at
the response given by him, he could have also added a few FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) questions to
know more about the consumer.

Under a different scenario like a sales lead, the approach would have to be strictly as per the TAS
mechanism, it is solely because of the setting of the scenario, i.e. a trade show where the prospective
leads come with all sorts of queries to test the grounds a mixed approach can be used but still with the
TAS steps in tandem.

Qn 2. How should Carman qualify the prospect? Should he ask "What is your budget?" Should
he suppress his curiosity and leave it to the prospect to bring up information about the size and
timing of the opportunity? If he asks for information how will he use it?

In order to qualify the prospect, Carmen should probe more and Assess the Opportunity. He needs to
assess the customers need i.e. of lost leads or lead tracking in this case, then understanding the
customer’s business profile and financial condition without directly asking the question about budget
in the first go, which might require some research at the back end and cannot be done directly at the
trade show, howsoever if under a scenario that he was aware of the attendees of the trade shows he
could have done this research beforehand. Secondly he should do a self-assessment if they can do justice
to the client requirement and have a proper solution fit which in this case is available with Siebel. As
the client has already referred to a competitor, he should also ask questions and utilise the information
obtained to put forth the value proposition of Seibel in later on stage to win the customer.

Another approach that he should employee is enquiring or assessing the losses due to the unavailability
of this technology, as then he can do a cost benefit analysis for the client and come to a flooring figure
of the budget by himself.

Qn 3. Evaluate Carman's interactions with the customer up to this point. Is he doing a good job?
How effective is Siebel's approach?

Carmen’s approach has been not been the proper approach as of now. The reasons for this view are:

 He did not remember or take note of the number of customers which is in quite contrast to
Siebel core values which emphasize particularly “We approach the opportunity we have been
granted with great humility” and “we remain absolutely committed to our customers’ success
and work hard each day to listen to their needs”. Furthermore, this information is of utmost
importance for him to build a business case later on.
 The utmost important thing which carmen is missing out here is enquiring from the customer
and understanding his need. He could have asked questions like challenges with the current
 system, alternatives etc. Also, had he asked these question he could have altered the demo to
emphasize on the specific requirements Seibel were looking for.
The defined Siebel approach system is very effective as it takes a customer centric approach and is very
systematic in understanding the requirement of the consumer and there in turn proposing the right value
proposition.

Qn. 4. Put yourself in Zitzner's position as he picks up the phone. How should he handle the
conversation? What is his objective in this call?

In case of Zitzner, as he is a senior person in the hierarchy, should exchange greetings and make the
customer feel important. The directives shared by him are right but at the same time a small brief about
the offering, post understanding the customer requirement, can also be given. The major objective of
this call is to trap the lead and assess its worth for Bradley systems. Even under a scenario that the
assessment cannot be done immediately he should engage the customer and establish a rapport of
sincerity and schedule a future meeting for the key account manager or pass the buck to a sales
rep/KAM.