It is always worth commending companies that are truthful in their advertising. Which is why Jyoti Banerjee is disappointed that Siebel's rather truthful advertisement is also an own goal.
Ad hoardings around Heathrow are currently featuring a message from CRM vendor Siebel on the lines of "Big CRM solutions for small companies." It is not surprising that Siebel has joined the gang of enterprise application vendors keen to sell their wares to small and mid-sized businesses. After all, the number of enterprise organisations that have not already succumbed to the siren-call of a CRM solution is a tiny one. Growth prospects in that market are not great. However, there seem to be millions of SMEs, most of whom would not know how to spell CRM let alone own one - surely, the argument goes, they are ripe for purchasing the stuff.
I don't question that argument at all.
What I struggle with is the idea that any SME might be remotely interested in what Siebel calls, with disarming honesty, a Big CRM solution. What customer after enterprise customer has proved is that Siebel's big CRM solution is big on all sort of fronts: money, big-money consultants, people to install it, people to train your users on it, etc, etc. Even some companies with deep pockets have found that they were not prepared for the cost and expense.
Mid-market companies are usually pretty pragmatic. They don't buy stuff just because it is there. They also rarely buy on a whim. They buy stuff because they need it, they have figured out that they can afford it, and they know exactly what they can expect in terms of a return.
Usually, this means that all enterprise software is discounted immediately as unfit for purpose.
Ask SAP, the doyen of business software applications for enterprises. Their first two attempts at going after the mid-market focused on direct sales of templated versions of their Big ERP packages. The market could not care less. Their third attempt at the market has been based on around a software application that they acquired - this application was aimed at the mid-market right from conception. The combination of right product with the development of a mid-market reseller channel has meant that SAP suddenly is a more credible supplier to the mid-market.
Van versus Jumbo
The analogy is like this. A mid-market company has a choice of buying a small van or a Boeing 747 to deal with transport issues. On pretty much all counts of specification, the jet blows away the van. It can carry more luggage, go faster, take more people, and get from London to Australia about six months before the van can. Obviously, the van is a lot cheaper. If enterprise software vendors are given the job of selling 747s against vans, they would do two things: they would slash the price of the jet to that of a van (to take away the price objection) and they would slash the feature set, such as removal of the wings (to take away any other possible buyer objection there might be).
What they don't get is that mid-market companies don't want the costs and hassles that go with aircraft ownership - leasing, hangar space, landing and take-off sites, avionic skills in mechanics, ownership of a oil field, etc. Also, the Jumbo is pretty useless getting today's delivery three miles up the M1.
Nobody is going to compare a Jumbo with a van as alternatives. And neither, dear Siebel, is any mid-market company going to compare Big CRM with small-scale packaged solutions.
It is worth making one other small point. I have so far ignored whether Siebel has actually created a whole new application for mid-market enterprises. The reason for ignoring this important point is because it is a while since I have spoken to anybody from the company and so I don't know the answer. If it has created a whole new application, then the messaging will kill the product. If it has not, then the mid-market's lack of interest in enterprise apps will kill it. Larry Ellison understands this. When going after the SME market, he created a whole new company called NetSuite (not just a new application) rather than use and devalue the Oracle brand in a market that it was never intended for. Possibly, Siebel may change its mind on the mid-market once Oracle's take-over is complete.
For all these reasons and more, Siebel's truthful ad is such a waste of hoarding space.
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