Integration between systems is hot these days, especially with the emerging packages like Fusion. Yet organizations are still inclined not to use them and develop their own ways of integrating. Sometimes this means totally new products, other situations you will see different packages being tied together. Is one better than the other? Not necessarily, there are several reasons for going into direction A or B.

In this post I would like to talk about a way of integrating PeopleSoft CRM with SAP HR. The requirements for this integration were the following:

• Single Sign On between the two systems
• PeopleSoft CRM used as HR Helpdesk on the support end of the organization
• SAP HR for normal HR related business done by the HR department
• Two work lists to work as one
• SAP HR pages shown within PeopleSoft CRM as it was one application

Several options were investigated and the final decision made was to use an Open Source application called Central Authentication Server (CAS) as the point of single entry and single sign on solution. This package supports several ways of interacting with applications about user credentials.

For the more graphically minded people:

The way CAS works is like many other authentication systems. The user logs in using their credentials, CAS then checks that against the authorization package configured within itself (note – CAS is an Authentication service, it does not regulate your authorization). When the user credentials are good, a ticket is initialized and the user is sent to the default application tied to CAS. The application the user is being redirected to then checks if a valid ticket is present with CAS. When this checks out, the application lets the user in and CAS removes the token so that it can’t be used for a second time.

Better late than never is a famous saying and was one of the first things that came up in my mind when I first saw the Oracle Siebel CRM Desktop (released in Fix Pack for Siebel CRM). My actual first thought was: Nice! This looks great! and was immediatly followed by: “this is something we have been waiting for for years!”. I am aware of the fact that this might sound a little bit to enthousiastic. Fact is that I really mean it. And yes; Siebel CRM Desktop still has to prove itself in production. The start, however, is promising.

The recent launch of Oracle Sales Prospector, an Oracle CRM on Demand solution that seamlessly integrates with Social Networks such as LinkedIn and other Web 2.0 tools, proves that Social Media and 2.0 technologies are slowly being adopted by companies around the world.
Recently Logica’s CRM / Siebel team was invited to organize a workshop on Business-to-Business marketing for the Student Marketing Organization of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Marc Verkuijl, Siebel Teamlead, and myself, took some time to talk to 30 Business Administration and Marketing students on CRM, Marketing and the concept of Marketing 2.0, from a business-to-business perspective.
The primary objective of this workshop was to create awareness on Logica’s Siebel CRM offerings and career opportunities for recent graduates or students that are about to graduate. We ended up debating B2B marketing 2.0 with approximately 30 students.

A short video (10 minutes) on the B2B marketing event (in Dutch)

The slides used to introduce the concept of B2B marketing 2.0 and start a debate on whether Social Media add value in the B2B market.