Marketing Resource Management in Siebel 8.0

This is the second post about Siebel 8.0 Marketing, focused on marketing resource management. Our first post introduced the structural differences between Siebel 8.0 and previous versions (7.7 and 7.8). The use cases presented in this post are part of our CRM UP methodology.

Figure 1. Changes in Siebel 8.0 Marketing Resource Management

Siebel 8.0 introduces Marketing Funds as internal marketing budgets controlled by the single marketing departments of a company and not just by the central department. Siebel 8.0 provides independent managing of budgets for each department, so that your company has more flexibility in its organization. For example, a hotel chain organization can allow each hotel to have its own budgets and activities, or can decide to have budgets for each location and manage them at this level, instead of having just a centralized marketing department.
Prior versions of Siebel (7.7 – 7.8) already incorporated Marketing Funds as part of the general Marketing Plan. In fact, available funds were linked to marketing plans and there was also the possibility of assigning budgets to marketing activities. This helped the organization in planning and monitoring marketing budgets at a general level.

Figure 2. Use Case (based on the CRM UP methodology) presenting an overview of prior Siebel versions of Marketing Funds

In the Partner Relationship Management (PRM) application, Marketing Development Funds (MDF) were available for managing partner shared marketing activities such as joint funding, requests for funding or tracking the expenses. Actually there was a difference between the CRM and PRM options, as the second one provided more detailed overviews and monitoring of marketing funds.

This has changed with version 8.0, as this flexibility has been extended also to the CRM application.
The new version allows:

• Establishing budgets for each marketing department or cost center – based on the internal time line;
• Withdrawing money in order to pay for the marketing tactics;
• Transferring funds from one budget to another and monitoring current amounts for initial, allocated, committed and spent budgets.

Figure 3. Improvements of Marketing Funds in Siebel version 8.0 (based on CRM UP methodology)

By this, the enhanced functionality offers more details on funds and budgets (as the way they are spent) and analysis of all the activities and costs in the marketing departments.
The benefits of this approach are clear:

• Assign the budget and provide for the right level of spending authority while maintaining a consistent process and system record;
• Immediate overview over real-time financial situation for marketing tactics;
• And improved visibility facilitating fine tuning when conditions change.

In complex organizational environments, especially for global companies, it is often hard to monitor marketing funds and their usages not only because of the intricate organization but also because of the lack of a common information point over all the money and activities involved. Siebel 8.0, through the improved functionality, assures cross-organization visibility over the fund balance in a single place and with a single consistent process. In this way the company has control over the money and spending, together with a better understanding of its financial position, granting more flexibility to change by supervising the planning, approvals, commitments and actual spending.

Budget Requests were enhanced in Siebel version 8.0 so that several budget owners can contribute to the same marketing tactic and spread the money from an approved budget request across multiple tactics. These measures provide for a greater flexibility for marketing management and impact the budget request process.

It can happen that a marketing activity proposal of a local hotel marketing department corresponds with an action desired by the corporate marketing management. The two departments could decide to sponsor the activity together creating a joint campaign. The Budget Request enhancements now assure that this can be transparently supported by Siebel 8.0, as each department can contribute to the cost of the campaign.
Moreover, if a hotel receives an approved budget for the annually proposed marketing actions but, during the year, there are changes in the market affecting the plan, it can still spread the budget over the tactics, including a new promotion campaign. Figure 4 exemplifies the management of a fund by spreading the budget across a three tactics: a win-back campaign, an e-mail presentation campaign and a promotion marketing program.

Figure 4. A brief example of improvements in Budget Request in Siebel Version 8.0 (based on the CRM UP methodology).

Siebel 8.0 has also modifications for Purchase Ordering. Purchase Orders (POs) are approved purchase request with a defined amount and linked with a marketing purpose. Usually they are generated and managed in a procurement system. Nevertheless, organizations found it difficult to track the POs in relationship with the planned marketing activity. Siebel 8.0 steps in for covering this lack by proposing a way of approving and generating POs in a separate procurement system. There are two types of purchase orders:

• Blanket / recurring;
• One-time.
  

They both can be tracked and related with budget requests and marketing tactics (programs, campaigns and events). In this way the organization has an overview of the committed and planned expenses at any point in time.

Apart from enhancements involving Marketing Funds Management, Budget Requests and Purchase Order Management, Siebel 8.0 Marketing Resource Management brings two novelties: Marketing Initiatives and Collateral and Asset Management.
Marketing Initiatives are the Siebel concept corresponding to organizational marketing general objectives and strategies. They indicate the purposes that guide marketing activities and determine their focus.
The Marketing Initiatives features facilitate the definition and sharing of company and organization wide marketing priorities. It also allows associations between initiatives and budget (marketing funds) as well as marketing tactics in general (programs, campaigns, events).
A tourism and leisure enterprise can decide to define such initiatives related to seasonal activity evolution each quarter of the year or just once per year. It could define the objective of being the number one booking entity for summer offers in Toscana, Italy. This initiative has to be supported by an adequate budgeting, marketing plan and tactics. In this sense Siebel 8.0 allows associations between Marketing Initiatives and funds (budget), plans and various marketing actions – programs, campaigns, events – with 1:M relationship (1 Initiative :M funds/plans/tactics).

Figure 5. Marketing Initiatives in Siebel Version 8.0 (based on CRM UP methodology)

A new view, under the Marketing Plans screen, is available for managing Initiatives and creating relationships with other key-marketing concepts. Which are the benefits of this new concept?
Well, one point it's that it's easier for your internal departments and actors to collaborate and be informed as they have access to one unique point of information for a general overview over the organization wide marketing strategies. Moreover, the visibility between high-level themes and day-to-day details is improved.
It is also a better way for communicating and modeling corporate priorities in the marketing department and over all the other departments involved.
At a more detailed perspective, Marketing Initiatives are useful for keeping track of the marketing activities corresponding to each formulated objective or strategy, understanding the funding, comparing initiatives’ importance and priority with the allocated budget and effort, as well as analysis of met or failed objectives.
Siebel 8.0 also promises that the return on marketing investments (ROMI) is increased through the introduction of Initiatives because of all stated above, as it is easier to focus on the right priorities and to follow them up.

Collateral Asset Management is the second concept introduced in the Siebel 8.0 release in the category of Marketing Resource Management. In medium and large organizations, there are usually a lot of objects linked with the marketing activity used in the various marketing events – they can be gadgets for internal and external promotions, flyers, brochures, etc. Several departments as well as partners can make use of these objects to support their marketing efforts. Collateral Asset Management was created in order to facilitate the tracking of the physical inventory of marketing collaterals, monitoring the inventory and submitting request to replenish. The application not only provides a running inventory of each item, but it also includes proactive indicators when collateral or assets need to be replenished.

Figure 6. Collateral Asset Management in Siebel Version 8.0 (based on CRM UP methodology)

By using this new functionality it is easier to monitor inventory level and identify restock needs. It also allows securing better prices on production and fulfillment jobs as it facilitates planning ahead, so that the entire distribution process is more efficient. In fact, new objects or copies can be requested directly online, including location information for shipping and supplementary instructions.
Also the fulfillment process is supported by the possibility of tracking vendors as well as having multiple bids for each request: by this the lower price supplier can be easily chosen.

In our perspective, all these modifications that Oracle has performed and is presenting in the Siebel 8.0 version are improving the Marketing functionality and are transforming it towards a better support for (Marketing) Project Management. Think about the new possibilities of tracking each marketing step, actors and resources, as well as financial aspects and analyses of relationships among the important elements. Can we expect a new CRM from an improved PM standpoint?