Siebel Systems Inc. formally launched Siebel Customer Analytic Applications 7.7 and Siebel Enterprise Analytic Platform 7.7 this week at its Siebel User Week show in San Diego.
The customer analytic application will expand the integration capabilities of Siebel Analytic Server and extend its reach through “guided analytics” to a broader, non-technical user within the enterprise.
By integrating multiple data sources to obtain customer information, call centre agents will be provided with advice on how to interact with customers and suggestions about special offers based on past product buys. Predictive analytics will be used to determine customers’ willingness to accept new offers, according to Lawrence Barbetta, group vice-president at Siebel eBusiness, in Minneapolis.
Barbetta said the explosion in the volume of data available and the equivalent explosion of users wanting to access that data has led to the need for a new architecture.
“The curve is steeper than Moore’s Law,” said Barbetta.
Barbetta suggested that solutions such as Siebel Analytics Platform 7.7 are the next generation of a business intelligence platform that spans multiple data sources, both internally and externally.
The Analytic Platform will give Siebel customers the ability to provide business intelligence information based on an employee’s role within the company. The platform will be available over a corporate intranet, as a Web-based application, or in disconnected mode on mobile devices, with users receiving “analytic alerts” on handhelds and cell phones.
One industry analyst said Siebel is moving from customer analytics to a broader, enterprise analytics platform.
“Siebel customers didn’t realize Siebel is in the BI market. This announcement let’s its customers know that [Siebel] has applications that compete with SAP and Oracle,” said Mark Smith, chief executive officer of Ventana Research in Belmont, Calif.
As part of the announcement, Siebel said the customer analytic application will now have separate vertical solutions for 21 industries, including financial services, life sciences, communications, consumer goods and high tech. The vertical solutions will include guided analytics and best practices.
The company also added synchronization and disconnected capabilities for a mobile workforce and announced a global alliance with IBM Corp.
Siebel will collaborate with IBM on vertical industry solutions, especially in the retail banking, insurance, and consumer packaged goods industries. Barbetta said the alliance has already borne fruit with platform integration with AIX, clustering, optimization with DB2 and full WebSphere support.
Siebel Customer Analytic Applications 7.7 is available now for on-premises deployments, and with some limitations it is also available as part of Siebel’s On Demand hosted customer relationship management solutions.
