Oracle CRM Software Review

Oracle CRM on Demand Review

 

Oracle jumped into the Customer Relationship Management software market in a big way with its acquisition of Siebel Systems in 2005, and followed with a Software as a Service (SaaS) CRM solution in 2006. Oracle CRM on Demand includes a full cloud CRM suite of sales, marketing and service as well as several vertical market solutions which bring unique positioning to an increasingly crowded cloud CRM software market.

 

CRM on Demand's sales capabilities are fairly traditional when it comes to account, contact and opportunity management as well as productivity functions such as calendar and task management. Sales forecasting does deliver some advanced functionality with multiple simultaneous forecasts using up to four different forecast types across products and services. However, where the Sales Force Automation (SFA) software delivers unique value is with its sales coaching, closed loop lead management and embedded analytics.

 

The workflow tool brings real value to sales teams. For example, organizations with products or services which include warranties, contracts or subscription renewals may develop a workflow rule to email a customer 30 days prior to a contract renewal date and create a task for the sales person to reach out to the customer. Escalations can then be setup so that if the customer renewal is not completed by a specified date, additional resources can be applied.

 

Similar to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Oracle CRM On Demand uses Microsoft Outlook or a mobile device as an offline client to accommodate sales staff who are not in the office or without Internet connectivity.

 

The marketing software is a key strength for Oracle CRM. Most SaaS CRM software suites give little credence to marketing automation making it the weakest module among CRM suites. However, Oracle has elevated the marketing software to keep pace with sales and service as well as outpace the rest of the cloud CRM competitors in this category.

 

The Oracle Customer Service module is sufficient, but doesn't stand out. Further, with the Oracle acquisition of RightNow Technologies, it's clear that the RightNow solution will be the chosen product among the Oracle CRM software portfolio for cloud customer service software.

 

 

CRM on Demand support for vertical markets is particularly strong. In fact, while most cloud CRM applications use the same horizontal CRM software and customize a few fields or the services implementation delivery for their claimed industry support, Oracle's on-demand software has been more deeply configured to accommodate industry-specific feature sets and business requirements. For example, CRM for Life Sciences enables mass creation of planned sales calls, assessment types, sphere of influence and book of business support for samples and enhanced PDC assessments. Similarly, CRM for Insurance includes required features such as policy origination support (OPA integration), policy object enhancements (audit, custom object association, attachment and book support, dynamic layout support), books of financial plans, risk classification and premium calculations, claims adjudication and payment processing calculations, and self-service quoting for customers and brokers.

 

Top Oracle CRM on Demand strengths include rich SFA functionality, robust marketing software and deep business intelligence (BI). Oracle is the only SaaS CRM competitor on the leader board to embed sophisticated marketing and lead management automation, including landing pages, digital tracking, lead scoring, progressive profiling, nurture campaigns and distribution of sales ready leads. Marketing campaign automation permits marketers to schedule multiple-channel, lights-out campaigns using a visual business process design tool.

 

Similarly, CRM on Demand delivers the best Business Intelligence (BI) suite in the SaaS CRM industry. Dashboards are configurable and offer drill-down for investigative analysis. In addition to role-based dashboards there are industry editions, such as Insurance and Life Sciences, as well as Partner Relationship Management (PRM). The Answers on Demand ad-hoc analysis provides users with a tool for creating custom reports, and includes features such as interactive charts and pivot tables. But where Oracle CRM on Demand leaves the competition behind is with its data warehousing and OLAP (online analytical processing). Volumes of data can be reviewed among many measures, manipulated and analyzed in real time for learning and insight that just isn't going to be derived from packaged reports.

 

Top Oracle CRM weaknesses include a user interface (UI) and user experience that doesn't compete favorably with SaaS CRM competitors who have more creatively embraced consumer technologies, mediocre mobile CRM options, limited groupware and email options, a suite of social media tools that are still unproven and a weak online ecosystem on integrated third party products. Oracle CRM on Demand also suffers in getting attention (and resources) from within Oracle as other Oracle CRM solutions such as Fusion CRM are clearly more influential.

 

When evaluating Oracle CRM or identifying and recommending the most relevant and direct Oracle CRM on Demand competitors for comparison purposes, we typically consider the customer's IT platform (i.e. are they an Oracle shop), then align specific company objectives to Oracle CRM software functionality (to assess fit) and finally consider company size, user count, user types/roles, vertical market, geo-locations, internal resources, constraints such as cost and technical considerations such as integration and customization.