It’s Always About The Customer

After spending most of my professional life in the Siebel arena, earlier this year I decided to give my career a swing. I started in 2000 as Siebel consultant at Ernst & Young Consulting (EYC) after completing my thesis at that same company, which soon became Capgemini Ernst & Young Consulting, and finally renamed again to Capgemini Consulting.

I remember the Siebel 99.5 bootcamp in Emeryville (January 2000) as it were yesterday. Three weeks of hard-core training. And how surprised I was being able to run Siebel from within the IE browser, while back in the office. Setting-up a sandbox environment was first-priority. Ordering a Dell server with facilities, and host the Siebel 99.5 sandbox from below my desk in the office. Those days…

Joining Siebel Systems on the 1st of January 2005, soon becoming Oracle. Remember too well the announcement on my Blackberry while enjoying the Portuguese Algarve sun from the side of a swimming pool. We’re talking September 12th, 2005. One of my rationales to join Siebel was the (smaller) size of the organization, well – that was a short-lived experience since, a little than half a year later the acquisition got completed.

Yet another reason I joined Siebel was its outspoken customer dedication going along with the It’s All About The Customer slogan. And customer dedication was serious business at Siebel Systems, no doubt about that. It was running through the veins of the organization. For example the quarterly customer surveys, and its output were taken deadly serious. Any gap between customer expectations and scoring on any given metric? Action plans got put in place and executed against! I have taken it’s all about the customer serious too. At least I always try 🙂 Because I too, believe that in the end it boils down to Tom Siebel’s add from the early 2000s:

Although not the only driver, the compassion Salesforce has with its customers is what made me reconsider. And customer compassion is there, at an extraordinary level! There has been said and written much, but I belief as well having 170.000 (!) visitors to Dreamforce16 cannot be neglected. Treat your customers well, very well – and they will give back. Impressive, very impressive, to see how strong the sponsorship is among customers is, how well the Salesforce’s ecosystem is organized and how successful the Salesforce.org’s 1:1:1 giving-back model is.

Although Salesforce’s products are by no means to be neglected, success by large is the outcome of the way you treat your customers. Being part of that culture, is what motivated me. And what motivates me 🙂

Given this change in professional career, this Blog becomes dormant. And sure, if you want to follow me further, follow me through

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– Jeroen