Case Summary of Siebel Systems: Anatomy of a Sale

The case opens with Gregg Carman’s dilemma surrounding the negotiation of a $2.1 million
sale to Quick & Reilly. Their largest financial services client FleetBoston had recently acquired
Quick & Reilly and vetoed the purchase which put Carman in a difficult situation. Siebel
Systems was the world’s leader in CRM software and additionally pioneering the market for
ERM with a goal to build a high-technology company focused entirely on customer
satisfaction and enduring value. Independent research had even found that Siebel’s
customers achieved a return on their CRM investments within 9.6 months with increases in
average customer satisfaction levels, employees’ productivity levels and customer retention.
Carman was at the Siebel booth at a trade show in New York when he met Cathy Ridley from
Quick & Reilly. He didn’t know the size of the sale but he knew he needed to prove to them
that they had a superior product and convince them that they would collaborate by meeting
the right set of executives.
On the other side, Cathy Ridley was struggling with an outdated lead management system
and was failing to measure the lead conversions. She was on the lookout for salesforce
automation solutions to find a lead tracking and fulfilment system for all offices and
customers. She was impressed by the Siebel demo at the trade show but she also knew that
Charles Schwab, their closest competitor, was on the board of Siebel Systems.
The two features of Siebel’s selling process that stand out in the case are the use of the
targeted account selling (TAS) process and Carman’s observation of the two-part buying
centre; the project team and the senior management, each playing different roles. Carman
liked to build a rapport and consensus with the project team and sell senior management on
the benefits, he employed different approaches with different personalities. He believed that
the TAS methodology made the salesperson more effective by forcing them to structure all
the information they had on the customer and not miss out anything which could impact the
success of the sale. It was a multi-step approach which required them to assess the
opportunity, define the competitive strategy and relationship strategy, turn ideas into action,
test and improve the plan.
Based on Carman’s interaction with Cathy, it is evident that Carman was not comfortable
comparing his firm to a competitor till he knew his client well but he asked them to have a
look at Oracle which shows that he wants to help them find the right solution. He could’ve
further assisted them in this process by showing them the Gartner research which provided
greater clarity on the complete CRM solution and execution abilities. He showed them the
demo and worked on building a rapport which he described as “breaking down the vendor-
versus-customer mindset and eliminating the keep-it-close-to-the-vest attitude”. Clearly, he
was well-received as Cathy describes him as a charming and open personality but his tactics
may have been more effective if he had asked more questions to assess and qualify the size
and timing of the prospect instead of deferring it (budget/number of users etc.). Gathering
this pre-requisite information would help him in following up with other influencers in the
organisation and understand their buying behaviour.