Rob Smyth's Blog

There are two areas of interest for Public Services that Oracle is keenly involved in and have made our perspective available online.  They are
Transformational Government
and
Shared Services

I hope you find them of interest.

I have been busy!  I am on a two week training course called Siebel Essentials which is highly recommended.  There are lectures followed by hands on workshops.

The first volume (of 3) goes into the Architecture, Installation and Security of Siebel Applications and you learn about the UI, how to query data, how to install Siebel and how to set up users and companies.  This volume finishes with labs on Access Control and Access groups.

The second volume takes you through an understanding of the Siebel Data Model, its Business Components and Business Objects.  You then get to configure everything you could imagine using Siebel Tools. 

We have just started the final volume which concerns batch data loads via Enterprise Integration Manager followed by a large section on Business Process Automation and finishing with a section on Deployment.

We will have come a long way in two weeks.

Oracle's Case Management product helps government deliver quicker, better and more efficient case resolution. These applications provide speedy issue resolution, one-and-done request handling, and powerful tracking and analytics capabilities.
Case Management fills a hole between Service and Call Centre functionality at point of contact and Back Office HR, Financials and other types of applications.

This is a great area where government organizations can benefit from a type of functionality typically associated with more commercial organizations but where specific case types are built in for government organizations.

Here is a good example for benefits type cases:
http://www.oracle.com/customers/snapshots/agefiph-siebel-casestudy.pdf

Now that I have moved into the CRM team, I am demonstrating a whole new range of features that Oracle has compared with my old applications technology role.
 
Yesterday I showed how Oracle Marketing manages registrations through the Audience Workbench, and how Events can be managed through the Campaign Workbench.  All this and Fatigue Rules too.

The interesting thing is that a lot of the requirements from Marketing apply in Public Sector as well as in the commercial sector.  Agencies still want to know who they are sending mail to, how to keep their Customer database online and how to help individual marketing departments remain cost effective, while getting to the right individuals (this is called segmentation).  The main difference seems to be that there is a need to analyze the customers/citizens and look at what is working rather than turn the outcome of the marketing into Sales leads.

Try this link for more information on Oracle Marketing

So, what I have discovered so far is that for Public Services at least the key areas of interest for CRM type functionality is for Customer Data Management, Marketing, Service and Case Management.  In fact, I think when I have got round a few more customers I will probably find that there is an interest in everything CRM.  Waiting to see who the first interest in Sales comes from at the moment though.