Overview of Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing

This chapter provides an overview of Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing, and it lists the key features. It includes the following topics:

About Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing

Oracle’s Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing can be used to help component manufacturers sell products in the channel and to end customers, as well as to manage Market Development Funds (MDFs).

When Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing is used to sell components to manufacturers, the companies involved in the sale are the:

Component supplier. This company manufactures components that are used in the production of final or assembled products. For example, it might manufacture semiconductor chips, specialized light bulbs used in automobiles, or ball bearings.
Original equipment manufacturer (OEM). This company manufactures the final products that use the components. For example, it might manufacture computers or automobiles.
Distributor. This company sells the component supplier’s products to the OEM. For example, it might sell semiconductor chips to computer manufacturers or specialized light bulbs to automobile manufacturers.

Component suppliers generally have their own sales force, which sells directly to OEMs and concentrates on strategic accounts. Component suppliers usually use distributors for sales to smaller accounts.

When Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing is used to manage MDFs, the companies involved are the:

Brand owner. The company owning the brand.
Partner reseller. A company that sells a brand owner's products to end customers.

Overview of Design Registration and Win

Selling components to OEMs requires a substantial amount of design work by the OEM, and the sales cycle for the distributor is long and requires significant investments of resources.

To protect themselves from competition during this long design period, distributors use Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing to register designs. If the registration is approved, the distributor typically receives financial incentives from the manufacturer, such as special off-book pricing. Distributors without registration do not get those incentives, so it is unlikely that they would invest their resources in this project.

If the distributor or salesperson successfully convinces the OEM to use this component in this product, then the distributor or salesperson uses Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing to change the status to design win.

The goal is to give the distributor an incentive to spend time with the OEM, designing the supplier's component into the OEM’s product. After the distributor owning the registration gets the design win, the manufacturer will typically grant them additional margins through a special pricing authorization (SPA). Competing distributors will not have the same cost base as the distributor owning the registration, so they cannot offer the same price to the OEM.

For more information about design registration and win, see Design Registration, Opportunity Management, and Design Win

Overview of Special Pricing Authorization

In some cases, a distributor may need to apply for a special price below the usual book price for a component, in order to protect its margin.

Special pricing authorization is generally used in the high tech and industrial manufacturing industries. Siebel Partner Relationship Management (PRM) supports special pricing authorization as follows:

The distributor negotiates with an OEM who is willing to offer a certain price.
That price would reduce the distributor's margin below its typical level.
The distributor applies for a lower book price to restore expected margin.
The component supplier decides whether to approve the special price.
If the special price is approved, the distributor ships components and then claims the difference between book price and authorized price.
The supplier approves the claim and pays the distributor the difference between the book price and the special price.

For more information about special pricing authorization, see Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide

Overview of Market Development Fund Management

MDF Management allows companies and manufacturers to:

Set up co-op or MDF incentive programs.
Identify participating partners and automate creation of partner program accounts.
Manage the fund request pre-approval process.
Manage claims against pre-approved fund requests.

For more information about MDFs, see Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide. The sections about the advanced MDF option is most relevant to the high tech and industrial manufacturing industries.

Key Features of Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing

Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing includes an employee application and the Partner Portal.

Siebel High Tech and Industrial ManufacturingEmployee Application

Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing incorporates most of the features of Siebel applications, including the partner management features from Siebel PRM, such as the Administration - Partner screen.

It also has the following screens that are specific to the high tech and industrial manufacturing industries:

Design Programs. Used by the component supplier’s internal salespeople to enter opportunities and related information about the opportunity.
Administration - Design Opportunities. Used by the component supplier to review newly submitted design registrations.

For more information about features used to manage partners, see Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide.

Siebel High Tech and Industrial ManufacturingPartner Portal

The distributor or partner only needs a supported Web browser to view the Partner Portal. The High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing Partner Portal includes all the screens from the standard Siebel Partner Portal plus the following screen that is specific to the high tech and industrial manufacturing industries:

Design Programs. Used by the distributor to submit design registrations and related information about the opportunity.

For more information about the Partner Portal, see Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide.

About Modules and Options

Many Siebel Enterprise Applications modules can be purchased and used with Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing

For information on the optional modules that can be used with Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing, contact your Siebel sales representative or local Siebel sales office.

The exact configuration of Siebel applications screens, views, and fields depends on your company’s configuration of the application.

For introductory information on using the Siebel applications standard interface, see Siebel Fundamentals.

Differences Between Siebel PRM and Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing

This section summarizes the most important differences betweenSiebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing documentation and Siebel Partner Relationship Management (PRM), for both the employee application and the Partner Portal.

This section is meant to be used as a supplement to the documentation for Siebel PRM, which is in Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide.

The key differences are:

Cross-references. Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide often refers the reader to Siebel Applications Administration Guide for more information. For Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing, in addition to that book, the reader should see the other chapters in this book.
The Partner Manager. Instead of using the partner manager to work with partners, you use Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing. This product has the partner-specific functionality of Siebel Partner Manager plus this added functionality.
- Support for complex opportunities, with the design program as the parent opportunity and the design opportunity as the child opportunity.
- Support for design registration and win.
Partner Portal. In addition the standard Partner Portal screens, the Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing Partner Portal includes the following functionality:
- Support for complex opportunities, with the design program as the parent opportunity and the design registration as the child opportunity.
- Support for design registration and win.
Adding New Partners. The process of adding new partners is slightly different in Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing than in Siebel PRM, because you must specify a partner manager for the partner company. For more information, see About Setting Up Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing.
Sharing Data with Partners. For information about sharing design programs and design registrations, see Design Registration, Opportunity Management, and Design Win.
Scenarios. In addition to the scenarios described for Siebel PRM, Siebel High Tech and Industrial Manufacturing can be used for the scenarios described in Design Registration, Opportunity Management, and Design Win.