CRM
Oracle Announcements Forecast Coming Changes in CRM Development
Keynote speeches at Oracle OpenWorld (which wrapped up yesterday), didn’t necessarily announce radically new concepts, but that certain strategies were promoted at this well-attended event speaks to the certainty of future changes in Oracle’s CRM development. And of course, it will be interesting to see who follows in their footsteps now that this gauntlet has been thrown.
Oracle CFO Safra Catz spoke to some upcoming changes and Oracle’s recent acquisitions. One of her main points was that Oracle was a strong vendor in many industries, but perhaps had not been doing enough to connect their products so that the user wouldn’t have to do this task themselves. The company’s acquisitions are meant to mollify this situation, and make solutions work together. Joel Koppelman, head of project management at 2008 acquisition Primavera, spoke of customers’ demand for integrations to be prepackaged; something Oracle will produce more of in the future.
But it was Anthony Lye, SVP of CRM, who detailed the three strategies that will change the face of Oracle CRM. In a discussion with other executives regarding specific strategies for Oracle Siebel and Oracle CRM On Demand, Lye stated that the fundamentals in the coming year would be: executing the cross-channel customer experience flawlessly, tapping into the power of the social web, and delivering CRM data when, how and where users need it. More specifically, customers start and end in different channels, and are using more mobile data as well, and Lye wants to move toward seamless transitions. This is also important to the third point—supporting the user’s need to access CRM data from pretty much anywhere. And in terms of utilizing social media, Lye thinks it’s especially important that CRM foster customer-to-customer relationships, which is a less-discussed reason for racing to social networking.
