Siebel CRM Tutorial

Getting exponential business growth in terms of revenue requires efficient customer management. It is not important only for satisfying and retaining customers, but also to capture new customers. This makes the Customer Relationship Management System important. It allows us to manage the customer’s data and improve the business processes so that we can achieve higher conversion rates. 

The piece of information in this article will help us to easily get a deep understanding of the Siebel CRM, its features, and how it helps to retain customers. 

Table of Contents 

• Overview of Siebel CRM 
• Key Features
• Siebel CRM Architecture 
• Client Components
• Server Components
• Siebel Enterprise Server
• Database Components
• FAQs

Overview of Siebel CRM 

The Siebel CRM is the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) developed by Oracle Corporation. It provides a wide range of suite of tools and functionalities to manage customer interactions across sales, marketing, and service channels. It can be deployed on the cloud as well as in the private cloud environment. It includes various configurable modules and workflows that enable the users to automate sales processes, execute targeted marketing campaigns, and enhance customer service operations.

In addition to this, it is customizable and flexible in terms of integration support with other enterprise systems through web services, APIs, and middleware technologies. However, the Siebel CRM System is limited to the above features. Let us learn more about it. 

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Key Features

• It allows us to automate the Sales Processes: 

Siebel CRM helps us to automate the sales workflow and reduce the repetitive tasks related to lead management, opportunity tracking, quote generation, and sales forecasting. For example, we can assign leads generated from marketing campaigns to the sales representatives based on predefined criteria. 

• Users can implement the Marketing Automation: 

Siebel CRM System allows us to personalize customer interactions. It means that we can design, execute, and track multi-channel marketing campaigns. We can also perform campaign planning, audience segmentation, content personalization, and campaign performance analysis.

• It allows us to manage goods and services using Siebel Commerce: 

Siebel simplifies the process of buying goods and services from product discovery to order fulfillment. Thus, businesses can easily manage their product catalogs, pricing, promotions, and orders. It also supports dynamic catalog publishing to improve the overall customer experience. 

• It enables parallel application development: 

We can use parallel workspaces to develop the applications parallelly. It means that multiple developers can work on the same object at a time. It also has version control to track the changes or versions. This maximizes the productivity of the development process.

• It provides performance metrics for evaluation: 

It has its own Siebel Application Response Management (ARM) to identify the problems track the performance data and execute the requests. It has various performance measures like Web Server Time, Infra-Network Time, Siebel Server Time, Database Time, and Application-Specific Time. Thus, we can measure the efficiency easily. 

[ Click here to learn What is Siebel CRM  ]

Siebel CRM Architecture

The Siebel CRM has multiple components that coordinate with each other to execute the workflow. The following image will help you to understand the various components and there organization within the Siebel CRM System. Let us learn about all these components in detail. 

The architecture of Siebel CRM System 

Image source - https://docs.oracle.com/cd/F26413_09/books/DeplmtPlan/images/ArchInfra_V.gif 

Client Components 

• External Web Clients: These are the users or systems outside of the organization's network that access the organization's web-based applications or services. They use standard web protocols such as HTTP or HTTPS to access Siebel CRM. For example, the customers, partners, vendors, or any other external stakeholders. 
• Internal Web Clients: These clients typically connect to the organization's web servers using the organization's local area network (LAN) or intranet. These clients include employees, contractors, or departments within the organization who need access to internal web applications. 
• Mobile Web Clients: They access web-based applications or services using mobile web browsers on smartphones, tablets, or other mobile devices using the organization's web servers over the internet or cellular networks. 

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Server Components 

• Web Server Load Balancing: This process distributes incoming web traffic across multiple web servers. This is implemented using the Application Delivery Controller (ADC) or Load Balancer. It aims to prevent server overload and improve response time. 
• Siebel Server Load Balancing: This is a technique to distribute the incoming requests across multiple Siebel Server instances so that we can optimize the performance, scalability, and fault tolerance of the CRM application. 
• External Applications: This component includes third-party software, custom-built applications, or other enterprise systems such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems, marketing automation platforms, or billing systems. 
• Siebel Remote Synchronization: Siebel Remote Synchronization is a feature of Siebel CRM that enables remote users to synchronize their local data with the central Siebel database. This helps them to work offline and access CRM data while disconnected from the network. 

Siebel Enterprise Server 

• Siebel AOM: Using the Application Object Managers(AOMs), we can handle the incoming requests from client applications, such as web browsers or mobile devices, and execute business processes, validate user inputs, and retrieve or update data from the Siebel Database.
• Siebel Configurator:  It allows us to define the product configurations, select options, and generate accurate quotes or proposals for customers. It uses the product models and configuration rules stored in the Siebel Database to guide users through the configuration process. 
• Siebel Communications Server: It is a server that is dedicated to handling communication channels such as email, phone calls, and web chats within the CRM system. It has various features like automatic call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), and computer telephony integration (CTI) to handle the communication.
• Siebel Workflow: It is an automation tool that enables organizations to automate and streamline business processes across different CRM modules. It implements event triggers, timer-based schedules, conditional branching, and integration with external systems. 
• Siebel EAI: EAI means Enterprise Application Integration. Thus, it provides various integration adapters, connectors, and middleware technologies that enable organizations to exchange data, invoke business processes, and synchronize information between Siebel CRM and other enterprise systems such as ERP, marketing automation, billing, or legacy systems.
• Siebel Gateway: It manages the different server components and the interaction among them. It resolves addresses, routes messages, and coordinates interactions among Siebel Server instances, client applications, and external systems. 

[Click here to get frequently asked  Siebel CRM Interview Questions ]

Database Components

• External Data: External Data includes data that originates from various sources such as third-party applications, external databases, flat files, or web services. Integrating the external data helps the organization to get additional customer insights. 
• Siebel EIM: The Enterprise Integration Manager (EIM) helps us in importing, exporting, and manipulating large volumes of data in bulk within the Siebel CRM system. This helps us to perform data migration, data cleansing, and data synchronization. 
• Siebel Tools: These include the various graphical tools and editors for designing, configuring, and deploying customizations such as user interfaces, business workflows, data models, and integration components. 
• Siebel File System: It is the directory structure that contains the various files and resources used by the Siebel CRM application. For example, it includes the configuration files, log files, temporary files, and user interface assets. 

Siebel Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is Oracle Intelligent Advisor in Siebel CRM? 

Oracle Intelligent Advisor is a decision automation solution that allows us to automate complex business processes, rules, regulations, and policies. Using this, we can deliver the right business decisions across all the applications. 

2. What is the Pricing of Oracle Siebel CRM? 

The licensing cost of the Siebel CRM Base is 3,750.00 USD. However, this is not the standard cost. The different CRM Applications have different pricing for the license, software update, and Support. You can find the detailed list of Siebel CRM Pricing on the official website at https://www.oracle.com/assets/siebel-price-list-070614.pdf 

3. Is there any Official Documentation for the Siebel CRM? 

Oracle Provides documentation support that includes various information about the Siebel CRM System. Also, it provides documentation support for older releases of Seibel CRM. You can access the documentation at https://www.oracle.com/documentation/siebel-crm-libraries.html 

4. How many deployment options are available in Siebel CRM? 

You can deploy the Siebel CRM on your own data center (On-Prem) or on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Also, you can also deploy and run the Siebel CRM Instances on other Cloud services like AWS and Azure. However, the choice of the cloud service depends on the business requirements.

Conclusion 

In a nutshell, Siebel CRM allows organizations to manage their costumes effectively with various Modern Performance Metrics and Automation Tools. It can be deployed as the On-prem as well as the Cloud Solution. As it follows the multitier architecture, it includes various components such as Client Components, Server Components, and Database Components. All these various components optimize the performance in terms of scalability and fault tolerance. We have gained enough insights about the Siebel CRM to get started with it.