Siebel CEO Speaks Out

Mike Lawrie took over as CEO of Siebel Systems Inc. in May, after spending 26 years at IBM, replacing company founder Tom Siebel. InformationWeek caught up with Lawrie at the company's user conference in Los Angeles this month.

InformationWeek: What are customers telling you?

Lawrie: They're beginning once again to focus on growth. We've been through a period here for four years where there has been a preoccupation with cost reductions. That agenda is clearly shifting. Once you begin to think about your top line ... you begin to think about the systems that you have in place to provide differentiation for your customers.

InformationWeek: Siebel just put out a very encouraging pre-earnings announcement, including improved licensed revenue and a big increase in operating income. What are the main things contributing to Siebel's recovery?

Lawrie: The value proposition for enterprise application providers is changing. People are interested in results. There are new markets emerging--areas like business intelligence and business analytics. You also see a fair amount of investment around security and privacy and scalability.

InformationWeek: Is there anything in today's customer-relationship-management market you would consider hype?

Lawrie: No. The CRM market has become very realistic ... in its approach. If you had come to one of these events six or seven years ago, I'm willing to bet there wasn't a keynote address with the five or six variables that were required for success [such as mapping CRM deployments to customers' specific business processes]. It was more about product. Well, the product did a lot, but it didn't do everything. It goes beyond the technology. That's jacks or better.

For a longer version of this interview, go to: http://www.informationweek.com/1008/lawrie.htm