January 17, 2017 | Bob Harland | Vice President, Global Oracle Services
Introduction
Last May, Spinnaker Support posted a blog featuring an interview with our very own Anthony Cefola, who leads the Siebel CRM Services practice. Anthony outlined why organizations around the world – from small to very large – were selecting Spinnaker Support for Siebel CRM Services.
Momentum is Building
Since Anthony’s blog was originally posted, Spinnaker Support has continued to sign new customers at a consistent pace. Spinnaker Support’s visionary approach, unique blend of Siebel CRM Service offerings, employee strength and diversity, ISO 9001:2008 certified processes, and attractive risk profile have combined to distinguish us from any other vendor in the industry. Siebel users choose us for one or more of our service offerings, including ongoing support, managed services, and technology/business consulting. We prove every day, customer by customer, that there is no Siebel implementation that cannot be advanced by Spinnaker Support’s Siebel CRM Services – regardless of version, product, level of customization, geographic location, in-house talent level, or surrounding technology ecosystem. Spinnaker Support customers realize better service for a fraction of the cost, no longer feel forced to upgrade to new versions, and aren’t trading in perfectly functional on-premise software for Oracle’s promise of cloud futures.
Third-Party Support is Our Bread & Butter – But We Are Not “One Trick Ponies.”
More than 75% of our Siebel CRM service revenues result from delivery of third-party support (maintenance). Customers who make the transition to Spinnaker Support, by replacing Oracle-provided support (or sometimes even by dissolving or downsizing their in-house resources), immediately realize faster response to ticketed issues, speedier issue resolution, full support for customized code, technology and interoperability advisory, and pricing considerations for unused software sitting on the shelf.
As an example, Anthony and his team were recently contracted to support a highly recognized Fortune 80 provider of aerospace, automation and control, and performance materials that operates in 70 countries. After a smooth onboarding and archiving process – with Spinnaker Support performing both heavy lifting and oversight – we now support 54 Siebel products for more than 6,000 users. Of note, we successfully supported this “largest of large” client while they were upgrading their Siebel and business intelligence (BI) versions.
So Much More Than Just Third-Party Support
From the inception of the Siebel CRM Services practice in 2013, the company wanted to offer services and skillsets to advance any Siebel implementation in the world. To accomplish this, we developed a unique blend of service offerings extending beyond third-party support/maintenance – to cover level three application and technical managed services, and a smart range of consulting capabilities. We knew that third-party support would be our preeminent service line because of the growing dissatisfaction with Oracle-provided support and the immediate cost savings we offer. But, the market still needed that single vendor who offered more. Managed services is becoming a bigger element of our business as Siebel users are frustrated with conflicts between support vendors and managed services vendors. In a growing number of cases, customers have consolidated with us for both service lines – reducing vendor count, stopping finger pointing, and simplifying the management of their technology stack. Furthermore, we offer small-to-midsize consulting engagements that customers appreciate – sometimes stand-alone and other times blended.
Examples of How Customers Engage
- A large consumer products company contracted us to provide a middleware solution to integrate an old Siebel version with a newer SAP version. Spinnaker Support led the project to develop the middleware solution, assisted SAP teams with their side of the integration, and configured Siebel via Tools and Scripting. Benefits included greater efficiency, more accurate order process flow and billing, higher productivity, and a happy staff.
- Spinnaker Support performed a “proof of concept” for an industry leading product marketing firm to validate whether a Siebel 6 server would sufficiently run on Windows 2008 operating system. We proved the concept, including a step-by-step playbook complete with insights and documentation. This customer subsequently made the smooth transition from NT to Windows 2008 while keeping their Siebel applications fully functional.
- For a multibillion-dollar financial services corporation, Spinnaker Support performed an evaluation of options for migrating off of an old SPARC 8i Oracle Database – without disrupting the operation of their existing Siebel version. Our recommendation to select Red Hat Linux 8i on the latest Intel hardware was accepted by this client. After the move, our client improved system performance several fold as processes that ran in minutes now run in seconds. Memory capacity was no longer an issue.
The Spinnaker Support Siebel CRM Services model continues to be embraced by Siebel users around the world – from all industries and company sizes. Momentum continues to build. What issues can we help you overcome?