By Siobhan Kennedy
Enterprise software vendor Lawson Software Inc made its debut in the front office application space this week with the announcement of a new sales force automation application which the company says will be available in the first quarter 2000.
Lawson is following in the footsteps of other ERP vendors, such as Oracle Corp, SAP AG, by building out its traditional back office software offerings to include web-based front office applications too. While the ERP market is still being squeezed by the pressure of Y2K spending and over-competition, the CRM and supply chain sectors are firing on all cylinders and Lawson – like every ERP company – is eager for a piece of the action.
What’s different about Lawson’s approach is its decision to build those applications for itself, from scratch. Some vendors, for example JD Edwards, have chosen to partner with CRM vendors and resell their applications, while others, notably PeopleSoft Inc with its purchase of Vantive Corp, have chosen to acquire vendors instead.
But the grow-your-own approach is the one customers favor the most, since it means they’re only dealing with one company whose products are integrated from the word go. That’s certainly the reason Lawson said it chose to develop its own CRM applications.
We believe CRM is a critical component to enterprises and we wanted to be able to offer customers the whole solution, said Joel Jorgenson, director of CRM product marketing for Lawson. If we’d partnered with someone to OEM their product we wouldn’t have any control over what the partner was doing and that wouldn’t be good for our customers. Jorgenson added that Lawson considered acquiring a CRM vendor but decided against it, given the close proximity to Lawson’s IPO next year.
Lawson’s first foray into CRM will be a sales force automation module, to be launched by the end of the first quarter 2000. It will be available in both client/server and web-enabled versions, although Jorgenson says Lawson thinks there will be a greater demand for the client/server product from field sales staff who don’t necessarily have access to the internet.
The first iteration will include all necessary functionality up to the point of sales; lead tracking, assigning leads to sales staff, stock tracking, inventory look-ups and basic product configuration capabilities. An updated version of the product, due mid-2000, will include functionality that will enable salespeople to take the sale right through the bidding, quotes and contract process, including more sophisticated product configuration tools, among other things, Jorgenson said.
He added that Lawson was also working on service and marketing modules, which will round out the CRM portfolio and enable the company to better compete with the likes of Siebel, Vantive and Clarify (now owned by Nortel). The modules are due some time in 2000, he added. All the CRM products will first be targeted towards Lawson’s professional services vertical customers, and then to its other vertical markets of retail and healthcare.
Jorgensen is realistic about Lawson’s ability to penetrate a market already dominated by well established front office vendors; a refreshing change given the relentless bickering between arch enemies Siebel and Oracle. It says it wants to sell into its own customer base first, and reckons that most of them will be happy to wait another year or so for the service and marketing components Lawson’s still working on. It may be a gamble, but it’s one the company is happy to take. We knew building our own offerings would take longer but we think the market is young enough for us to play a significant role, Jorgenson said. Our number one goal is to attack our 2,800 customers today and keep them from going somewhere else. We’re not that ignorant to think we can take Siebel head on right now, but we’ve talked to our customers and we think they’re happy to wait.
