[December 15, 2004] Oakwood Worldwide Leverages Best Practices with Siebel CRM Solutions to Improve Sales Efficiency Tweet SAN MATEO, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Dec. 15, 2004 -- 360-Degree Customer View Helps Sales Force Focus on High-Payback Accounts to Increase Profitability Siebel Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:SEBL), a leading provider of business applications software, today announced that Oakwood Worldwide, the largest global provider of corporate housing, has successfully deployed Siebel Sales and Siebel Call Center, bringing best-practice sales processes to its 300-member sales force around the world. Since completing the deployment in August 2004, the company has seen substantial improvements in sales efficiency. "Siebel Sales and Siebel Call Center are giving us a comprehensive view of each client and enabling us to identify high-impact, high-payback accounts so that we can prioritize our sales efforts and focus on the most lucrative opportunities," said Ric Villarreal, Senior Vice President and Special Assistant to the Chairman. "Ultimately, we will be able to provide better service to our clients and increase our market share." Prior to implementing Siebel CRM applications, Oakwood's sales force relied primarily on a home-grown contact management system for tracking prospects and customers and scheduling activities. During the past five years, Oakwood's customer profile has changed dramatically -- a service that was once primarily used by relocating employees has now expanded to include consultants and project managers on long-term assignments, trainers and trainees, film crews, government and military travelers, families displaced from homes, temporary office staffers, and other mobile professionals who spend a substantial amount of their time on the road. These changes, combined with shifts in the corporate housing marketplace, made it essential that Oakwood implement a strategic sales approach based on best practices. Specifically, management wanted to gain a 360-degree customer view and implement effective sales processes and tools to facilitate team selling and increase penetration in major accounts. Oakwood is already benefiting from Siebel Systems' sophisticated tools for managing opportunities and understanding customer needs. Account executives can now quickly identify top accounts, and better determine their customers' temporary housing requirements. In addition, Oakwood can more effectively determine how they can better serve key customers at top accounts with additional offerings such as maid service or Wi-Fi Internet connectivity. The Siebel solutions also help Oakwood's sales force by guiding them through a standardized set of proven sales steps that reduces the sales cycle and improves close ratios. "Now that our salespeople have consolidated customer information, they can walk into accounts with a better understanding of who the customer is and what the customer needs," said Villarreal. "They have much more customer-centric conversations and are better able to present the value Oakwood provides -- for example, a single point of contact, centralized invoicing, and consistent quality and service." Sales management also has better visibility into individual performance. Easy-to-access reports provide information on each account executive's activities, wins, and losses. Consequently, managers can provide training and mentoring to improve skills, thereby increasing individual success. The ability to integrate with other systems was a key factor in Oakwood's selection of Siebel CRM solutions. The company needed an offering that would integrate seamlessly with its tenancy management system, which handles reservations for its $3 billion portfolio of housing in locations throughout the U.S., UK, and Asia. The integration enables the smooth flow of information between these two critical business systems. Initial contacts are captured in the Siebel applications, where opportunities are managed to the reservation stage. At that point, the information is passed to the legacy system, which records the transaction and handles the financial aspects of the order. Information is then passed back to the Siebel applications to provide historical information to the sales force. Oakwood expects to achieve additional benefits in the future as a result of the enhanced visibility that Siebel Systems' solutions are providing into its overall business. For example, the ability to review both wins and losses will help uncover demand for products of a certain type or in untapped geographic areas. Management can leverage this information to develop strategies for growth and expansion, further enhancing business success. Siebel Systems pioneered the industry-specific application model and today delivers 23 industry applications and more than 100 industry-specific solution sets. These solutions, which include Siebel Hospitality, enable companies to establish a single, enterprise-wide view of their customers and execute key customer-facing business processes more efficiently and effectively. For more information on Siebel Hospitality, please visit www.siebel.com/hospitality-crm/software-solutions.shtm. About Oakwood Worldwide Founded in 1960, Oakwood Worldwide (www.oakwood.com) is the largest global provider of corporate housing and an innovative leader in apartment management. The company manages a $3 billion portfolio, with locations throughout the U.S., the UK, and Asia, encompassing more than 30,000 furnished and unfurnished apartments. Oakwood's award-winning properties are managed with a rich standard of quality, reliability, and personal service. About Siebel Sales Siebel Sales is a sales force automation product suite that consistently leads the industry in customer satisfaction. It provides innovations in opportunity, contact, activity, and account management as well as automatic quoting, product configuration, research, and support for popular methodologies. Siebel Sales gives sales professionals proven competitive advantages in pipeline visibility, sales effectiveness, and best practices. About Siebel Call Center Today's call centers focus more time and attention on knowing their customers and cultivating relationships to improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and maximize revenue and profitability. Each agent must now handle a wider range of tasks across multiple channels of communication, including telephone, email, fax, page, chat, wireless messaging, Voice over IP (VoIP), and Web collaboration. Siebel Call Center allows call centers to significantly reduce operational costs by enabling agents to handle blended service, support, and sales interactions seamlessly across all of these channels. In effect, agents become complete customer contact managers who support a range of products and services and provide solutions that consistently meet all customer needs. About Siebel Systems Siebel Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of business applications software, enabling corporations to sell to, market to, and serve customers across multiple channels and lines of business. With more than 4,000 customer deployments worldwide, Siebel Systems provides organizations with a proven set of industry-specific best practices, CRM applications, market-leading analytics products, and business processes, empowering them to consistently deliver superior customer experiences and establish more profitable customer relationships. Siebel Systems' sales and service facilities are located in more than 30 countries. For more information on Siebel Systems solutions and services, please visit our Web site: CRM - http://www.siebel.com/crm; OnDemand Solutions - http://www.crmondemand.com; Industry CRM - http://www.siebel.com/industry-crm; Call Center & Service - http://www.siebel.com/call-center; Sales Force Automation - http://www.siebel.com/sales-force-automation; Marketing Automation - http://www.siebel.com/marketing-automation; Business Intelligence - http://www.siebel.com/business-intelligence; Integration Solutions - http://www.siebel.com/integration-solutions; CRM Services - http://www.siebel.com/crm-services. Except for the historical information contained herein, this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risk or uncertainties. Future operating results of Siebel Systems may differ from the results discussed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements due to factors that include, but are not limited to, risks associated with customer relations, such as the availability of Siebel Systems' products and services, customer implementation of products and services, relationships with customers, third-party vendors and systems integrators, concentration of revenues in a relatively small number of customers, existence of errors or defects in products, ability to successfully manage growth, significant current and expected additional competition and the need to continue to expand product distribution and services offerings. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of Siebel Systems are included in Siebel Systems' Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at www.sec.gov. Siebel Systems assumes no obligation to update the information in this press release. Siebel is a trademark of Siebel Systems, Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other product and firm names mentioned are the property of their respective owners and are mentioned for identification purposes only. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]