PeopleSoft Taps a New CRM Leader

PeopleSoft today announced that George Ahn, a former Tibco, Siebel Systems, and IBM veteran, will spearhead its PeopleSoft CRM solutions. George Ahn replaces Joe Davis as PeopleSoft's vice president and general manager of PeopleSoft CRM. Davis left in early March to become the president and CEO of CRM analytics firm Coremetrics. Ahn joins PeopleSoft from Tibco Software, where he served as executive vice president and chief marketing officer. Tibco focuses one of the most sensitive issues to CRM customers: integration. Tibco's business integration software enables users to integrate, manage, and monitor enterprise applications and information delivery. Additionally -- and especially relevant to Ahn's new post -- Tibco specializes in real-time enterprise capabilities. Integrating in real time such applications as CRM and ERP allows, for example, customer service reps immediate, up-to-the-moment access to customer and account data to enable on-the-fly business decisions like whether to upsell and what item would be the best match for a specific customers' needs. Ahn could not yet comment specifically on how his experience at Tibco might drive PeopleSoft CRM's future innovations, except to say, "We are very focused on the real-time enterprise." Additionally, he says there are two paramount trends that PeopleSoft will continue to respond to: total cost of ownership and a fully integrated suite of applications. The function trend war, he says, is losing out to the overall customer experience and the total cost of ownership, which includes implementation and upgrades. "That's what our CIOs are asking us for," he says. Regarding the fully integrated suite of applications he says, "Standalone CRM is going to continue to struggle to compete. Customers want a full suite of applications -- they want one relationship with one strategic partner." Prior to TIBCO, Ahn served as general manager of Siebel's mid-market and sales force automation divisions, handling product strategy, product management, product marketing, and distribution strategy. Ahn was with Siebel for three years. Prior to Siebel, Ahn worked at IBM for 13 years, where he held various positions including, director of worldwide software sales for small and medium business. Separately, PeopleSoft today introduced the expansion of its PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne Rapid Start program to customers using Intel-based platforms, such as IBM eServer xSeries and HP ProLiant. Previously, the solution was only available to those running IBM eServer iSeries platforms. The EnterpriseOne Rapid Start program, which is designed for mid-market enterprises, aims to facilitate the deployment of PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne applications. PeopleSoft Rapid Start also uese PeopleSoft Accelerated Implementations, a predictable, fixed-time, and fixed-cost deployment framework.