Jason Stamper's Blog: April 2005 Archives

Siebel: Struggling With Its Own CRM?
April 29, 2005

Let me get this straight: Siebel claims to be the leader in customer relationship management software and services, and even has the tag-line 'Siebel, It's All About the Customer', yet it doesn't know what its own customers are doing?

On a conference call explaining why its results were so bad that its board decided to oust Mike Lawrie - the CEO who had been there less than a year - incoming CEO George Shaheen said he wanted to make some changes to the sales force because it is overly complex and bureaucratic, and he added that the company is not properly in touch with its customers' buying cycle and needs to better understand what is driving the relationship. Yes indeed - It's All About the Customer alright.

Siebel saying it doesn't understand its customers is like Nike's board saying they would be fitter but they don't have any decent running shoes, or Pizza Hut's board saying they are a bit peckish, and are popping out for a Chinese take-away. Or FedEx saying they were struggling to get stationery delivered to the right board members on time - you get the idea.

Little wonder it's being rumoured this afternoon that Oracle is in talks to buy Siebel for up to $5bn. It's not the first time it's been rumoured, and I wouldn't put it past Oracle, but if they do buy it they might want to consider purchasing some CRM software separately to help run the Siebel sales force.

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Posted by on 08:37 AM

BMC: Ouch, That's Got to Hurt
April 12, 2005

It's now clear that BMC's transition from a legacy systems management company to business service management (BSM) vendor is going anything but smoothly. It's just announced it will miss its guidance by up to $22m, and it's having to cut 825 to 875 jobs to rein in its costs.

The company said it will be refocusing its efforts and resources on what it still sees as growth areas, primarily in its service management business. "We have realigned to increase investment in our service management growth business, maintain profitability in our mainframe business and make the necessary reductions to improve profitability in our distributed systems management business," CEO Bob Beauchamp said in a statement.

The fact BMC got its guidance so wrong must be particularly hard for the company to swallow, not least because it has been arguing that better BSM tools increase a company's visibility of its operations. It doesn't look to have a lot of visibility into its own. It's now forecasting that it will earn between 8 and 12 cents a share, compared with its earlier prediction of 17 to 22 cents a share. The company said its workforce reduction plan will save it around $100m per year. Little consolation for the 800-odd staff who will lose their jobs because BMC was unable to forecast with sufficient accuracy.

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Posted by on 03:14 AM

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