Siebel CRM On Demand Continues to Gain Worldwide Momentum
Customer Wins, Analyst Reports and Award Underscore Recent Accomplishments
Barcelona, Spain - April 19, 2005 - Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: SEBL), the leading provider of customer-facing solutions, today highlighted at Oracle User Week 2005, Barcelona, the continued growth of its Siebel CRM On Demand business. As disclosed in the company's preliminary first quarter earnings announcement and conference call on April 5, Oracle Corporation is projecting an estimated growth rate of 245% in year-over-year Siebel CRM On Demand total contract value, and an 18% quarter-over-quarter growth rate in subscribers for the quarter ended March 31, 2005. Based on this estimate, Oracle now has more than 33,000 Siebel CRM On Demand subscribers. These strong results have been driven by customer wins across organizations of all sizes in multiple geographies, with many new customers in Europe as well as North America. In addition, Siebel CRM On Demand has continued to be recognized by leading industry analysts, and recently won a prestigious IBM Beacon award.
"We have delivered the industry's only complete pre-built hosted solution built on Oracle's proven technology platform," said Bruce Cleveland, Senior Vice President and General Manager, OnDemand and SMB at Oracle Corporation. "While our solution provides full customization capabilities, our approach is unique because we deliver 85 percent of the customizations and embedded best practices that we know customers require, out-of-the-box, with Siebel CRM On Demand. In contrast, other generic hosted vendors provide very basic offerings that force each customer to undertake time-consuming and expensive customizations. Oracle's commitment to hosted CRM and to our customers' success is underscored by our business momentum and recent industry analyst reports. We will continue deepening this commitment, and delivering best-in-class pre-built CRM solutions for our customers."
Strong European Presence Just One Year After European Launch
In just one year since Oracle Corporation launched European language versions of Siebel CRM On Demand at Oracle User Week in Cannes, France in April, 2004, the company has built a strong customer base in Europe with its hosted CRM solution. In the past quarter, Siebel CRM On Demand has been selected by an impressive number of new customers across Europe, representing companies of all sizes and industries, including:
- Allied Worldwide (UK), a worldwide IT co-sourcing company focused on delivering flexible and innovative solutions in an increasingly demanding global environment, to deliver high performance business solutions against ever decreasing time scales;
- Area (Finland), one of the largest travel agencies in Finland, which provides leisure and corporate customers with a broad range of travel services, employs 300 staff members, and operates a network of 20 offices;
- Maskina AS (Norway), an industry leader in the provision of IP telephony, enterprise mobile services, and platforms for advanced mobile communication services;
- Relational Tools (Spain), which serves acquirers, issuers and retailers in the development and operation of sophisticated bank and cash card systems;
- SLIB (France), a software company that specializes in securities and stock exchange activities.
Located in Madrid, Relational Tools selected Siebel CRM On Demand because of its robust feature-set that allows the company to focus on the execution of sales, marketing and services. "The Oracle Analytics were vital to giving us a 360-degree vision of our customer, and for linking marketing, sales and services with best practices," said Miguel Lozano, Managing Partner, Business Development, Relational Tools. "Being a software company ourselves, it was just as important that we were able to deploy rapidly with little customization and almost no upfront costs."
Key to the momentum of Oracle's hosted CRM solution has been the company's rapid pace of innovation, which has enabled the delivery of major capabilities at a five-to-ten times faster rate than other hosted vendors. Since its launch, Siebel CRM On Demand has released seven upgrades that include the industry's first and only real-time and historic analytic capabilities; a unique Sales Process Coach for replicating sales success; the first and only pre-built vertical editions for Financial Services, High Technology, Life Sciences and Automotive; and the first built-in call center solution available as an extension to Siebel CRM On Demand.
What Industry Experts Are Saying About Hosted CRM
For the second year in a row, Siebel CRM On Demand was recognized as a leader in the rapidly growing hosted CRM market, according to a March 2005 Forrester Wave reporti.
Several other important industry analyst reports from Yankee, Gartner and Beagle Research were published reviewing Siebel CRM On Demand's hosted strategy and product offerings.
Beagle Research -
"Evaluating the Options for Vertical Hosted CRM", Denis Pombriant, Beagle Research, January 10, 2005
Forrester Research -
"The Forrester Wave: Hosted Sales Force Automation, Q1 2005, Hands-On Evaluation of Hosted Sales Force Automation Vendors across 160 Criteria" by Liz Herbert with Erin Kinikin, Jessica Harrington, April 1, 2005
Gartner -
"Oracle Closes Function Gap for OnDemand CRM", Joe Galvin, Vice President, Research Director, Gartner Inc, FirstTake from January 13, 2005
Yankee Group -
"With Release 6, Siebel CRM On Demand Vies for Number One", Yankee Group DecisionNote Product Review, March 18, 2005 by Sheryl Kingstone, Customer-Centric Strategies Program Manager,
skingstone@yankeegroup.com, 617-880-0273.
Awards
Siebel CRM On Demand also received the coveted IBM PartnerWorld Beacon award given to partners who deliver the best global marketing solutions. Siebel CRM On Demand was named as the winner of the "Global Solutions Marketing - On Demand" category in the annual IBM PartnerWorld Beacon Awards competition, honoring IBM Business Partners for their ingenuity, customer satisfaction and outstanding achievements in providing on demand business solutions.
About Siebel CRM On Demand
Siebel CRM On Demand is a hosted CRM offering delivered over the Web and accessible from an Internet browser at a fixed price per user per month. Customers can deploy Siebel CRM On Demand quickly, easily, and affordably without any up-front IT investments. Hosted by IBM, Siebel CRM On Demand delivers complete sales, marketing, and service functionality; built-in customer analytics; virtual call center technology; embedded best practices; and world-class hosting services and support. Siebel CRM On Demand is now available for purchase. For more information, visit www.crmondemand.com.
Media Contact:
Stacey Burbach
Oracle Corporation
Tel: (480) 377-3725
Email:
stacey.burbach@siebel.com
i. The Forrester Wave: Hosted Sales Force Automation, Q1 2005, L. Herbert (with Erin Kinikin and Jessica Harrington), March 31, 2005.
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