By buying Paragren for an undisclosed sum, Siebel is attempting to close one of the biggest gaps in its software suite. Analysts say the company's marketing suite has lagged behind its rivals' features. Its marketing up to this point has been fairly rudimentary. As part of the Siebel integration, sales and service personnel will be able to access data generated by marketing campaigns and customer responses.
Customers say marketing campaign management was overdue.
Sales management should be linked to marketing, says Janet Clarke, Citibank's managing director of global database marketing. Citibank had to integrate Siebel with Valex manually and painfully, so an integrated package would have been an improvement. The companies will integrate Aspect's E-Workforce Management Portal with Siebel Call Center to manage the queue. The package will ship in the second half of the year.