By Diganta Tah, Director for Oracle CX, Cognizant Technology Solutions

Once I was meeting some important stakeholders of a telecom company who were planning to move from Siebel to the Oracle CX cloud applications. It was the final meeting before signing the deal and one of the key decision makers from the procurement team asked me “why doesn’t Oracle just put the Siebel application on the cloud? It could have made our lives so much easier.”   We educated the customer on the Siebel roadmap, a very important aspect to investigate before deciding to fully transition out of Siebel.

A reasonable percent of customers that we speak with indicate that a “Cloud First Strategy” is why they want to discuss Siebel transformation. But if cloud is the only requirement, then we should be aware that Siebel CRM is already Cloud Ready, and can be deployed on Oracle’s Private Cloud (IaaS) infrastructure.

However, for customers in specific industries, geographies, or with specific functional requirements and data regulations, Siebel On Premise or on the Private Cloud may be the best option. But where Siebel is replaced by or integrates with other CX applications, a strategy of co-existence may be the most pragmatic and practical way to build a customer-centric organization.

Paraphrasing the Croatian professor Eraldo Banovac’s words “The essence of coexistence is quite simple: live and respect how others live.” I relate this by advising clients that we can help them deliver superior capability by leveraging the strength of Siebel as well as the next generation CX applications.

Siebel CRM in the Cloud

Coexistence Makes Progress with Minimal Disruption

The practice of coexisting is to adopt functions incrementally at a pace that suits the organization. Oracle’s CX Cloud platform makes it possible for its modules to be integrated with other systems. Cloud applications can extend the capabilities of the core apps and augment existing product lines, allowing companies to modernize their investments as they see fit.

By taking an incremental approach, organizations also minimize the risks associated with updating an entire system. This way, they can take advantage of new key functionalities without having to incur many of the disruptions that come with full-scale deployments. In the meantime, their core systems continue to be updated and supported, while the Fusion offerings are steadily improved and expanded

As a best practice, organizations should follow this coexistence strategy. Otherwise, they should prepare for a comprehensive project rollout to migrate to a new system and part ways with the legacy completely. This means larger implementation costs and increased timelines. Co-Existence not only reduces IT investments but also enables organizations to build an implementation roadmap to adopt Oracle Cloud applications in incremental steps without going through a major overhaul.

Most of the time a traditional requirements driven or a fit-gap-analysis approach might not suit the purpose. To produce the blueprint for the co-existence Cognizant follows a unique approach known as CLOUDMAP TM for CX.

Oracle also recommends a similar approach to Siebel Evolution where they follow an “Extend, pivot, and transform” framework.

• Extend: Modernize your critical Siebel instances with Oracle’s CX ecosystem of leading applications by leveraging REST and preconfigured connectors to extend Siebel.
• Pivot: Seamlessly replace strategic Siebel functions with Oracle’s CX cloud, enabling agility and modernization with minimal disruption.
• Transform: Replace Siebel with an ideal CX footprint designed to business requirement with migration support

There might be no secret sauce for transformation nor there is “One Way.” It is a must to follow a time tested methodology that has the power to overcome the traditional challenges of any large modernization program. We need to ensure the change management aspects are taken care and all stakeholders work together. Think big but start small i.e., work in phases rather than a big bang release.

Oracle’s CX Platform is the only option where you get these great “best-of-breed” combinations to choose from and extend your existing SFA capabilities in new areas like Oracle Commerce Cloud or “Configure, Price and Quote Cloud.” Similarly, you could extend your Service application into Oracle Field Service Cloud or Advanced Knowledge Cloud.”

But of course the other most important thing that you need is a great partner to navigate the path along with you and choose wisely. So email me for immediate queries if you have questions about a Siebel Modernization journey.

Come visit us at Oracle Open World in San Francisco and review the several sessions we will present.

Click here to read more about Cognizant's CX solutions.

Diganta Tah is Director for Oracle CX, for Cognizant Technology Solutions. Currently he is responsible for the CX practice at Cognizant, helping customers to transform digitally, leveraging technologies like Oracle Engagement Cloud, Oracle Marketing Cloud, CPQ and Oracle Service Cloud.

Diganta has over 22 years of experience in the arena of Information Technology with more than a decade in Oracle's CRM products and Analytics. He has applied experience in Information Technology and verticals that include Financial, Pharma, Healthcare, Telecommunications, Retail, Logistics, Transportation and Travel Services.  Diganta holds a Ph.D in Decision Support Systems and has passion to conceptualize and deliver sustainable customer centric solutions.