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Example of Brand Owner Creating Opportunities and Transferring Them to Partners

This topic gives one example of how partners work with opportunities. You might use this feature differently, depending on your business model

All the other examples in this chapter assume that you are working with partners who use the Siebel PRM Portal. However, you can also share opportunities with partners who do not use the Siebel PRM Portal by using opportunity transfer to move opportunity data to the partner's customer relation management (CRM) system.

The brand owner can initiate the opportunity transfer. After the opportunity has been transferred, the brand owner can send updates to the partner that update the opportunity in the partner's system, and the brand owner can query the partner's system to receive updated information about the opportunity.

If the partner uses Siebel PRM or some other CRM system that supports opportunity transfer, the partner can also initiate an opportunity transfer, and then send updates to the brand owner's system, or query the brand owner's system to receive updates.

This business example for using opportunity transfer is similar to Example of Brand Owner Creating Opportunities and Assigning Them to Partners. It also applies to you if you generate opportunities through your marketing campaigns and you can clearly determine which partner follows up on each opportunity. However, it is appropriate when you are working with large partners who have their own CRM systems and do not use the Siebel PRM Portal.

This example shows how to transfer opportunities and send and receive updates manually. In practice, a brand owner can use Siebel Business Process Designer to automate the processes of transferring opportunities to partners and of sending and receiving updates.

This example consists of the following tasks:

• Setting Up ASIs for Opportunity Transfer (Brand Owner)
• Entering an Opportunity and Transferring It to a Partner (Brand Owner)
• Working on the Opportunity (Partner)
• Tracking the Opportunity (Brand Owner)

Setting Up ASIs for Opportunity Transfer (Brand Owner)

Opportunity transfer uses Siebel's Application Services Interfaces (ASIs) to synchronize your Siebel database with the partner's CRM system.

Before you can transfer opportunities, you must set up the appropriate ASIs. There are three ASIs used for opportunity transfer, one to initiate the opportunity transfer data, one to send updates to the partner's system, and one to query the partner's CRM system to receive updates. For more information on setting up ASIs, see Setting Up Application Services Interfaces for Siebel PRM.

Entering an Opportunity and Transferring It to a Partner (Brand Owner)

The brand owner gathers and enters information about the opportunity in the same way described in the previous example, Example of Brand Owner Creating Opportunities and Assigning Them to Partners. However, after entering the data, the brand owner clicks the Transfer Opportunity button, rather than assigning ownership of the opportunity to a partner company or partner employee.

To enter a new opportunity

1. Navigate to the Opportunities screen, then the List view.
2. In the Opportunities list, click New to add a new record to that list.
3. Enter information about the opportunity in the new record.
4. In the Organization field for the new record, select the partner organization.
5. Drill down on the name of the new opportunity.
6. Click the Transfer view tab.
7. In the Transfer form, click Transfer.

   A list of partners appears, including all partners who are set up for opportunity transfer.

8. Select the partner to whom you want to transfer the opportunity, and click OK.

   The opportunity is transferred, and the Transfer Status field is updated with a value that specifies whether the transfer was successful.

Working on the Opportunity (Partner)

After the opportunity has been transferred, partner employees work on it in the same way they would work on any opportunity in their CRM system.

When the opportunity is transferred, all the contacts, revenues, notes, and activities associated with it are also transferred to your partner's CRM system, and converted to the data used in that system. For example, if your partner's system uses the word "lead" instead of "opportunity," the opportunity appears to the partner as a Lead record.

Tracking the Opportunity (Brand Owner)

You can track a partner's progress on opportunities by using opportunity transfer to query the partner's CRM system and to update the opportunity record and related information back in the Siebel PRM Manager.

For example, if the partner's CRM system supports equivalent data, you can look at the Activity records attached to the opportunity, and look at the status field of each opportunity to see if the sale has been closed. If the partner has updated the revenue associated with the opportunity, you can use the Revenue record in your forecasting.

You can receive an update from a partner only if you already transferred the opportunity to the partner or if the partner transferred the opportunity to you.

To query the partner's database to update an opportunity

1. Navigate to the Opportunities screen.
2. In the Opportunities list, select an opportunity that has been transferred to a partner.
3. Click the Transfer view tab.
4. In the Transfer form, click Receive Update, and click OK to confirm the action.

   Siebel PRM Manager queries the partner's system for an update of the opportunity.