Solution Provider

Vignette Corporation (Nasdaq: VIGN) is the leadingprovider of customer-driven Internet applicationsused by the most demanding and successful organ-izations to build lasting customer relationships.

Defying the Limits • 31

Customer-Managed Relationships“People talk about Customer RelationshipManagement, but as we go forward we’regoing to need to talk about customer-managed relationships.”Phil Tamminga, Partner CRM Service Line, Accenture

Since the emergence of CRM, both as a conceptand as a software category, many changes havetaken place. The sum of these changes is having adrastic effect on how businesses build lasting cus-tomer relationships. Technology has evolved signif-icantly; talented IT resources are hard to come by;customers are much more savvy and demanding.And the Internet has been a key driver.

The days of a large company dictating to its customers and prospects the time, manner,and channels through which they can interactwith the business are over. The customer is in charge, the Internet is more pervasive withevery passing day, mobile devices are providinga new level of customer convenience, and24x7 access is a must.

So how will organizations in the 21st centurybuild and maintain applications that accomplishtheir CRM objectives, but take into account thattheir customers now want to manage the relationship with them? And how will theyopen up the CRM infrastructure and customerintelligence they have today to make all of thataccessible over the Internet, as well as emergingmobile channels, across the entire value chain?

In our digital economy, customer-drivenInternet applications are needed to trulyaccomplish CRM objectives with thesedemanding customers.

Customer-Driven InternetApplications

“A lot of people think that the new economyis all about the Internet. I think it’s beingfueled by the Internet – but it’s really aboutcustomers. Customers are transformingentire industries.” Patricia Seybold, PrincipalThe Patricia Seybold Group

The objectives haven’t changed. In order to besuccessful, a company must effectively Market,Sell, and Service to its customers. This is trueregardless of whether that customer is a consumer or a business customer and is thecommon denominator across industries. In fact,more so than ever, as industry deregulation andcustomer demand transform entire industries andthe Internet removes geographic boundaries. Sowhat types of Internet applications are beingdeployed by organizations today to address theseseemingly simple goals?

As Internet application software has matured,there are four key applications that are beingbuilt over and over again by large organizations.These are:

Information PortalsInfo Portals were the earliest applications to belaunched on the Internet. Public portals such asYahoo! and Lycos and publishing portals such asC|NET and ZDNet set the standard in this space.However, the term Info Portal now encompassesa broader range of Internet applications rangingfrom the examples above to extranet applica-tions for large global organizations and to smalldepartmental intranets. An Info Portal is a collection of relevant information focused on aparticular audience of customers (Consumers,Businesses, Trading Partners, or Employees).

B2C StorefrontsB2C Storefronts are the primary place for retail-ers in any industry to sell products and servicesto consumers. They’re typically characterized bya heavy focus on product catalogs and shoppingcarts, but the more successful B2C Storefrontshave adopted many characteristics of InfoPortals to attract and retain customers and drivethem to purchase products and services online.

B2B StorefrontsB2B Storefronts are now being launched bymany large organizations to leverage the powerof the Internet to do business directly with keybuyer and supplier organizations, just as retailers

Vignette: Customer-Driven Internet Applications for Online Customer Relationship Management

http://vignette.CRMproject.com

have done with their consumer relationships. Infact, many companies are looking at these appli-cations to enhance, improve, or replace theElectronic Data Interchange (EDI) technologyand networks they have in place today.

eMarketplacesEarly eMarketplaces were seen as public onlinevenues where vertical industry players wouldcome together to conduct B2B business onlinein a manner that would level the playing field,decrease costs, and improve productivity.Idealists saw this as ultimately being as close toa “Perfect” or “Free Market” as could exist. TheeMarketplace application has already evolved toaddress not only these Public Exchanges, butalso Private Exchanges similar to the EDI tradinghubs of the past.

So, what are the problems faced by largeorganizations in rolling out these applicationstoday? First, most Fortune 1000-size companiesneed several of these applications to addresstheir business issues effectively. Second, each ofthese applications carries with it different busi-ness and technology issues that must beaddressed in selecting the right software toimplement and deploy the application. Finally,this can become an IT nightmare if each applica-tion or project ends up being driven by a differ-ent set of technologies.

And this doesn’t even address the problem of ensuring that the organization is deliveringcustomer-driven Internet applications to supportthe new CRM paradigm of customer-managedrelationships.

Fortunately, the Internet software space hasmatured and many industry experts believe that there are three key capabilities needed todeliver successful customer-driven Internetapplications: Content, Integration, and Analysis.

Competing in a Customer-Driven WorldIn the customer-driven world of the Internet,whether the application is an Information Portal,

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Solution Provider

32 • Defying the Limits

applications and enterprise systems. Vignette’scustomer-driven Internet applications integrateseamlessly with internal and external ERP, “tradi-tional” CRM and e-marketplace applicationspowered by leading software vendors such asSAP, Siebel, and Ariba.

Vignette Integration Solutions can help youbuild a powerful end-to-end collaboration solutionto enable the integration of your own enterprisesystems, while seamlessly linking them to your e-business applications with automatedprocesses. This enables you to enrich your e-business site with deep, relevant content andreach out to customers and trading partners with the right information, in the right format, atthe right time.

Analysis“What we really want to do is delight thecustomer, just like our financial advisorswant to delight the customer.”Jody Weiss, Chief Architect Paine Webber

Many early Internet applications appeared to beextremely successful the for companies that

http://vignette.CRMproject.com

B2C, B2B, or eMarketplace, the key to success is an organization’s ability to build long-term,sustainable relationships with its customers.Vignette’s software enables organizations to:

• Manage and deliver relevant, timelycontent to communicate effectively usingany electronic customer touch point

• Integrate e-business applications to collab-orate within and among enterprises tomeet real-time customer demand

• Analyze the customer’s online experi-ence to comprehend and adapt to theirchanging needs

As a result, organizations have the power to cap-tivate their customers, to build market-share andimpact revenue by increasing the lifetime valueof their customers.

Content, Integration, and Analysis Vignette’s application services – content, integra-tion, and analysis – are the core of our platform-neutral approach that supports a variety of industry-leading application and commerce servers.

Content – Manage and deliver content toevery electronic touch pointThe ultimate goal of a customer-driven Internetapplication is to deliver the right information tothe right person at the right time, regardless ofdelivery channel – Internet, phone, PDA, etc. Inthe online world, content is the currency forcompeting in the digital age.

By implementing a Vignette Content Solution,organizations can communicate with their cus-tomers by managing and delivering personalizedcontent to any electronic touch point. VignetteContent Solutions automate and manage theauthoring and publishing of all digital assets toprovide the personalized information customerswant through any device or website. Digitalassets also can be aggregated and syndicatedvia a virtual network of websites, and deliveredover Web and wireless connections to a varietyof mobile devices and appliances.

Vignette has worked with over 1,000 of the most demanding and successful online

businesses to help them manage their contenteffectively, in a way that is specifically tailoredto their needs as well as enabled them to usethat content to power personalized, customer-driven Internet applications that scale with theirsuccess. Vignette offers the most comprehensive,open, and proven set of products and servicesto help businesses manage content, deploycontent globally, and exchange content withother businesses.

Integration – Integrate e-business appli-cations within and across enterprisesThese Internet applications, however, are notaddressing an isolated channel in your organiza-tion. The Internet is simply another channelthrough which any company moving forward willsell to its customers. Integration provides thelinks for the Internet application to legacy busi-ness systems, partner applications, and industrymarketplaces.

With Vignette Integration Solutions, individualor multiple organizations can collaborate andmeet the real-time demands of customers byintegrating content, transactions, and businessprocesses across internal and external e-business

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Figure 1 – Industry experts believe that there are three key capabilities needed to deliver successful customer-driven Internet applications: Content, Integration, and Analysis.

Solution Provider

George EllimanSenior Global Consulting Partner ManagerPhone 512.732.3764 george.elliman@vignette.com

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Defying the Limits • 33

launched them. They had high volumes of traffic,growing numbers of registered users, and lots ofpress to trumpet their success.

However, in many cases time told a differentstory. In some cases there was no real under-standing the ROI of the application or the life-time value of the customers that were being“captured.” Were they actually doing businesswith the company on a repeated basis? Werethey receiving a satisfactory level of service? Wasthe level of service they were receiving in linewith the amount of business they were generat-ing? No one knew.

Vignette Analysis Solutions provide a com-prehensive understanding of the customer’sonline and offline interactions with your busi-ness – enabling you to gain immediate andactionable insights into your customers’ require-ments, behaviors and needs. With this informa-tion and insight, organizations can build, man-age, and continuously improve the lifetime valueof the relationships with their customers.

The Vignette AdvantageVignette is the leading provider of customer-

driven Internet applications used by the mostdemanding and successful organizations to buildlasting relationships with their customers.Recognizing that CRM requires the ability tosupport customer-managed relationships at anenterprise-scale over the Internet, Vignette hasintroduced the Customer-driven ApplicationsModel for E-business Organizations (CAMEO).CAMEO provides an enterprise-class solution fororganizations wanting to deliver customer-drivenInternet applications.

CAMEO provides an open, scalable solutionfor large companies looking to enhance their

CRM solutions with customer-driven Internetapplications. An open environment supportingboth Java and Microsoft environments and stan-dards, CAMEO is based on proven technologydeployed in over 1,000 companies worldwide.

CAMEO provides the ability to deploy sell-side market solutions (Info Portals, B2C, B2B,and eMarketplace applications) that provide theability to effectively Market, Sell, and Serviceyour customers. Vignette provides Content,Integration, and Analysis application servicesbased on open, scalable technology. And the

Vignette technology will co-exist seamlessly withyour existing infrastructure, including industry-leading application and commerce servers.CAMEO also provides the ability to integrate withbuy-side solutions to provide a total customerexperience.

CAMEO advantages include:• Rapid deployment to accelerate time-

to-results• Adaptable design allowing you to respond

easily to changing e-business strategies• Modular approach to maximize current

and future investments• Powerful solutions to ensure the perform-

ance of your e-business

SummaryCustomer Relationship Management (CRM) has evolved and customer-managed relation-ships are the rule today. To enhance your CRM applications and strategies for the future customer-driven Internet applications are a must.

Vignette understands that e-businesses livein a world where customers are in charge andwhere success is being driven by the ability to create lasting and profitable long-term relationships.

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http://vignette.CRMproject.com

Greg Peters Chairman and CEO

Tom HoganPresident and COO

Dan LautenbachSenior VP of Global Sales and Operations

Mike HallVice President, Worldwide Marketing

VignetteCorporate Headquarters901 MoPac Expressway, Building 3Austin, TX 78746-5776Phone 512.741.4300Fax 512.741.4500www.vignette.comusinfo@vignette.com

Figure 2 – Vignette’s CAMEO provides an enterprise-class solution for organizations wanting todeliver customer-driven Internet applications.