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Oracle
Enterprise CRM Portfolio

by Faulkner Staff

Copyright 2019, Faulkner Information Services. All
Rights Reserved.

Docid: 00016981

Publication Date: 1912

Report Type: PRODUCT

Preview

Oracle’s Enterprise Customer Relationship Management (CRM) portfolio of
on-premises and cloud-based software is designed to streamline customer
service for both large enterprises and their end-user clients. Branded as
Oracle Customer Experience (CX), Oracle’s CRM software tracks and manages
customer data and interactions across channels such as online chat, Web
purchases, social media, service calls, mobile applications, and in-store
purchases. Oracle has integrated numerous acquisitions of smaller CRM
companies into Oracle CX in order to remain competitive with
Salesforce.com, SAP, and Microsoft.

Report Contents:

• Description
  
• Related Faulkner Reports
• Vendor
• Applications
• Environment
• Support
• Pricing
• Competitors
• Web Links

Description

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Oracle’s Enterprise Customer Relationship Management (CRM) portfolio
includes more than twenty software platforms designed to streamline customer
service channels for businesses, industry users, and consumers.

Part of Cloud-based Customer Experience Platform.
Oracle now markets its Enterprise CRM software as Oracle Customer
Experience (CX) software, which focuses heavily on the cloud and includes a strong online marketing strategy, partly as the result of
Oracle’s 2012 and 2013 acquisitions of Eloqua and Responsys. The shifting
focus to Oracle CX was critical for Oracle remaining relevant in the CRM
marketplace. According to Gartner’s 2017 Customer Experience in Marketing
Survey, by 2020, 81 percent of marketers responsible for CX say they expect to be
competing primarily on the basis of CX.¹

Capturing the Customer Relationship. CRM software is not
new, but while the price of CRM software implementation was once
considered a risky investment, it is now a necessity. Consumers interact
with businesses across numerous channels: online chat, Web queries, social media, service calls, mobile applications, and in-person
visits and purchases. Businesses must capture records on each contact
while ensuring smooth, standardized interactions.

Tracking and Improving Sales Statistics. Successful CRM
is designed not only to improve record-keeping but to aggregate data to
track customer trends and inform business operations. Software can then be
customized to inform and support a company’s policies for customer
service, sales, and marketing during each interaction.

Oracle Strategy: Acquire and Integrate CRM Lines to Improve
Customer Experience. Oracle has remained a CRM leader for more
than twenty years. In 2013, the company was the third largest global CRM
vendor with a ten percent market share, behind Salesforce.com and SAP.²
Since its 2005 acquisition of PeopleSoft, Oracle has relied on the
strength of its acquired assets. CRM applications and back-end platforms
have not always been easy to merge. In addition, a CRM vendor’s assets are
likely already entrenched in the computing systems of multi-national
corporations. As a result, many of Oracle’s acquired CRM product lines
have continued to stand alone with unique software and support
requirements, although most have been integrated into Oracle’s Customer
Experience software platform. 

Customer Experience Products and Services. As the need
increases to capture and simplify customer relationships, executives at
Oracle are continuing their CRM strategy of acquiring cutting-edge vendors
– particularly makers of cloud-based software – and merging their product
lines.³ Oracle markets its Customer Experience cloud- and
premises-based software to meet specific business needs for managing
customer relationships:

• Sales
• Marketing
• Service
• Commerce
• Social
• Configure, Price, and Quote (CPQ)

Product lines include:

• Oracle Sales Cloud
• Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud
• Oracle Service Cloud
• Oracle E-Business Suite CRM
• Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM
• Oracle Siebel CRM
• Oracle CRM On-Demand

Oracle also continues to offer its PeopleSoft CRM product lines. In 2019,
Oracle launched CX updates, including new digital assistants, data
enriched B2B sales capabilities, and new capabilities for telecom and
media, financial services, and the public sector:

• Digital Assistants – Sales teams can use the Oracle
  Digital Assistant to create configured quotes using voice commands.
  Customer service teams can use the Oracle Digital Assistant for answers
  to questions stored in the knowledge repository. Service teams can use
  the Oracle Digital Assistant’s conversational UI to enable self-service
  on chat channels. Marketing teams can use the Digital Assistant to get
  help and support when using Oracle Responsys to create promotional
  campaigns. In addition, brands can increase customer engagement by
  enabling customers who receive promotions via Oracle Responsys to speak
  with the Oracle Digital Assistant to access additional information on a
  promotion.
• Account Enrichment – Oracle DataFox allows teams to
  better profile and classify a customer base and leverage data.
• Account Prioritization – Lets sales teams rank
  accounts and focus on prospects and key targets.
• B2B Sales Capabilities – Integration with Oracle
  DataFox delivers AI-sourced company data.
• B2B Campaign Orchestration – Helps ensure leads are
  connected to accounts through Oracle DataFox integration.
• Smart Talking Points – Provides real-time alerts on
  market changes of target accounts delivered by Oracle DataFox, offering
  personalized and contextual talking points.

History

When it bought PeopleSoft, Oracle included PeopleSoft CRM
in its existing CRM portfolio, as well as the assets of the
EnterpriseOne
CRM suite that PeopleSoft inherited through JD Edwards. Oracle
also offers Enterprise CRM to support sales
collaboration, claims settlement, discount/rebate management, marketing,
partner lifecycle management, and performance management. An earlier
purchase of Siebel also allowed it to enter the hosted CRM market (CRM
on Demand). Subsequent purchases focused specifically on
cloud-based and mobile platforms, in order to compete with Salesforce.com.⁴
This included Oracle’s 2011 purchase of one of its top CRM competitors,
RightNow Technologies. The move provided Oracle with RightNow CX
Service Cloud software for customer service, including call
centers, self-service options, social networks, and Web-based client
interaction. The 2012 purchase of Eloqua expanded
control of the online customer interaction through online marketing and
sales features. Through Oracle’s 2013 deal to buy
Responsys,
the company extended its cloud marketing capabilities and merged its new
assets with the Eloqua platform.⁵ In November 2016, Oracle
completed its acquisition of NetSuite for $9.3 billion USD, which has
helped the company expand its cloud computing strategy, as well as help it
appeal to midsize companies. The CRM is expected to reach more than $80
billion USD in revenues by 2025^.6 In 2018, Oracle launched CX
Unity, Subscription Management, and a SMB data offering for B2B marketers.PeopleSoft
CRM

The Oracle PeopleSoft CRM suite is a package of CRM
applications to manage an organization’s customer interactions, from
marketing to sales to customer service. The suite, targeting large- to
mid-sized enterprises, supports marketing initiatives, cross-selling
options, and integrated service management and field service and
maintenance for customer service. Major selling points of PeopleSoft CRM
applications are its:

• Scalability – Adjusts to fit industry and business
  processes. Delivers built-in “best practices” specific
  to an industry, a flexible customer data model, and configurable,
  tightly integrated platform.
• Customizability – Plans and executes different
  customer strategies, taking intelligent action across all channels. Sets
  value targets for each customer segment and tracks ongoing performance
  in real time.
• Usability – Fits timeline, budget, and user
  constraints.

Table 1 details Oracle’s CRM product lines.

Figure 1 depicts the Oracle CX Audience interface.

Figure 1. Oracle CX Audience Interface

Source: Oracle

CRM Service Areas

Oracle offers a streamlined portfolio of CRM products and services to
meet CRM needs across a number of industries. Table 2 looks at these
offerings in greater detail.

Applications

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Built for Size, Security and Stability. Oracle’s efforts
to ensure product security, stability, and interoperability are intended
to benefit large enterprise, industry, and government users. Products are
designed for cloud-based and on-premise software implementations at
multi-site and multi-national organizations.

Customer Experience (CX) Platform Applications. CX
services are designed for specific in-house applications:

• Sales – Analyzes sales data across all channels
  through analytics, integrated communications, team selling, and mobile
  features.
• Marketing – Designed to improve insight in marketing
  departments by aggregating and analyzing prospect data.
• Service – Enables self-service options for customer
  interaction such as click-to-call, chat, and virtual assistance.
• Commerce – Provides sales, ordering, and upselling
  options integrated with other customer service needs.
• Social – Manages social media content and
  integration.
• Configure, Price, and Quote (CPQ) – Quote, discount,
  and approval capabilities for customer service and sales
  representatives.
• Data Cloud – Offers data-driven solutions with
  targeted and meaningful customer interactions.
• Loyalty Cloud – Designed to provide customers with
  individualized experiences through seamless interactions.

Table 3 outlines potential vertical industry implementations for Oracle’s
CRM product lines.

Environment

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Oracle’s CRM portfolio is designed to integrate securely into large
enterprise environments. Table 4 outlines the general operating
requirements for an Oracle CRM implementation.

Support

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Oracle offers many different support offerings, and has pledged to former
customers of PeopleSoft “lifetime support” for their products as long as
they continue to maintain a license with Oracle. Table 5 details Oracle’s
support levels.

Pricing

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The pricing for Oracle CRM products and services is
configuration-dependent. Interested potential customers should contact
Oracle’s sales staff, by calling (800) ORACLE1 or
e-mailing oraclesales_us@oracle.com,
to explore deployment options.

Competitors

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In both the enterprise CRM and cloud computing realms, Oracle’s CRM
portfolio competes primarily with Salesforce.com’s Service Cloud and SAP’s
CRM software. Additional competing product lines include Amdocs Customer
Management, Aptean’s Enterprise CRM (merging previous CRM vendors CDC
Software and Consona in 2012), Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Teradata’s CRM,
Consona’s Service-Centric CRM software, Sage Software CRM, and SugarCRM’s
portfolio.

Web Links

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• Amdocs: http://www.amdocs.com/
• Aptean: http://www.aptean.com/
• Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/
• Oracle: http://www.oracle.com/
• Sage Software CRM: http://www.sagecrm.com/
• Salesforce.com: http://www.salesforce.com/
• SAP: http://www.sap.com/
• SugarCRM: http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/
• Teradata: http://www.teradata.com/

References

¹ Chris Pemberton. “Key Findings From the Gartner Customer
Experience Survey.” Gartner. March 16, 2018.

² Joanne M. Correia, et al. “Market Share Analysis: Customer
Relationship Management Software, Worldwide, 2013.” Gartner. April 16,
2014.

³ Chris Kanaracus. “The Year in Enterprise Software: Seven
Key Takeaways.” InfoWorld. December 11, 2012.

⁴ Anthony Myers. “Oracle Buys Responsys for $1.5 Billion,
Merges with Eloqua.'” CMS Wire. December 20, 2013.

⁵ Chris Kanaracus. “Ellison: Oracle Will Deliver World’s
‘Most Comprehensive Cloud.'” Network World. June 7, 2012.

⁶ Taylor, Mark. “18 CRM Statistics You Need to Know for 2019.”
SuperOffice. October 29, 2018.

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