TMCnet News
A Brief Interview with Oracle's Mike Betzer Regarding Telephony@WorkEditorial Director, Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine Today, I had chat with Mike Betzer, vice president of service products at Oracle, about the company’s acquisition of Telephony@Work, which was announced early this morning. He answered some of my questions, which I’ve summarized below.
I asked him when the integration of the CallCenter@nywhere product into the Oracle (News - Alert) family would be complete, and he told me that in a way, it already is. “We’ve been using the CallCenter@nywhere product for 18 months. We know this product very well. So it’s easiest for us to integrate something that's well known to us.” “If you look at Siebel’s Contact On Demand, the underbelly of it is Telephony@Work. Also, integrations to Oracle and PeopleSoft are underway … we were already working those as partners; it will go even faster now that the entire IT organization is part of Oracle.” Betzer continued, “I think the one of the big movement we see in the world today is toward this whole on-demand, software-as-a-service model. We’re seeing it, and carriers are seeing it. It’s the way people like to buy. We’re hosting more products for more companies. It doesn’t necessarily mean multi-tenant on demand, just that a lot of companies want to be more responsible for a complete solution. We’re the only place today where you can buy a completely unified integrated solution from one vendor. Today, companies prefer to focus on operating expenses rather than capital expenditures. We’re looking to stretch and extend what CRM is for our customers and prospects.” I then brought up the CRM Conundrum. I asked, “Do you think that the unification of call center processes and CRM that you indicated was the goal of this purchase will help solve some or all of the problems inherent in past CRM installations?” Betzer responded by saying, “I would say that selling CRM or call center technology in a ‘one-size-fits-all model’ is going to be met with a lot of problems, because one size does not fit all. Historically, we’ve recognized that. That’s why the on-demand thing came about. Companies are different and want different things. Some want hosted, some want licensed, some want on-demand. You can’t serve all those companies — small, medium and large — with one model. That's why we’re really moved into this model.” “Another point about the CRM failures is that as companies turn to us to take care of their problems, we can help them end to end. Part of this [acquisition] is an extension of what CRM is. Where does CRM start? If you think of it as the foundation, where does it begin? CRM starts the moment the interaction starts. How do you do that if you don’t have a way to control the process? We can now literally control the 800 number, the ACD, the call routing, the analytics, the knowledge management, the CRM … all the way out to field service, where the guy installing the Direct TV is looking at the same screen as the call center agent.” I asked Betzer if he thought that all the worrying, pontificating and commentary that’s been heard in past years over hosted versus premise-based solutions and what’s better has been wasted energy, as the two models are not necessarily mutually exclusive and companies shouldn’t need to choose. He responded, “Absolutely. I used to run the On-Demand division of Siebel. A popular question we were asked was, ‘How is this going to destroy your base?’ So here we are, a few years later, and the answer has been ‘zero,’ or maybe five percent. It just doesn’t matter. Companies need options … they have different lifecycles and need different approaches.” I told Betzer that TMC’s Rich Tehrani hypothesized in his blog this morning that one of the reasons for Oracle’s purchase of Telephony@Work was to keep the CallCenter@nywhere product from falling into competitors’ hands. I asked him if there was any truth to this. “I was part of the team shopping for the leading providers before the decision was made,” he said. He indicated that since the CallCenter@nywhere product was so well known to them, there was a natural preference to acquire a product both familiar and admired by Oracle. I asked Betzer how this merger will affect Telephony@Work’s service provider partners, such as TELUS and Telstra, to name just two. “We will strengthen those relationships,” he said. “Oracle also has relationships with almost every carrier on the planet. We plan to continue to go to market with these carriers. We want to offer them the complete solution. Maybe they can’t sell the Oracle CRM, maybe they can’t sell the Oracle database products, but let’s make sure we are at least collaborating and selling them the additional components they need. We will continue to leverage those.” Finally, I asked him if the undisclosed financial terms will remain undisclosed (after all, it's my job to be nosy about such things). “Yes,” he said. Well, there it is. ------- The author may be contacted at [email protected]. |