Best Practices in Siebel CRM Performance Management:

Monitor, Measure and Manage the End User Experience

executive white paper

Best Practices in Siebel CRM Performance Management: Monitor, Measure and Manage the End User Experience

Contents
Knoa Software is leading the performance management industry with end user experience monitoring solutions that reach beyond infrastructure and application performance to the monitor, measure and manage how end users are utilizing the application to optimize business process execution.
3 Executive Summary Why End User Performance Management is needed to optimize Siebel CRM apps 5 ROI Isnt Real Until Its Realized The ROI impact of issues with adoption and efficient and effective use 6 Traditional Performance Management Approaches Arent Enough Monitoring system and application health is no longer enough for service of business apps 7 Overview of Knoa Experience and Performance Manager A review of the architecture and functionality of Knoa EPM 9 Knoa EPM Use Cases Knoa EPM delivers results to the entire application team. This section details use case examples compiled from Knoas customer base 14 You Can Manage What You Measure The impact that real end user experience and performance metrics can have on the application management team 15 Could You Benefit From Knoa EPM? Four questions to help you evaluate the potential value of Knoa EPM for your Siebel deployment

Best Practices in Siebel CRM Performance Management: Monitor, Measure and Manage the End User Experience

Executive Summary
CRM solutions, like Siebel, automate complex business processes where high levels of application performance are crucial. Yet many frustrated execs find that despite the small fortune they have spent on products to manage servers, networks and applications, the business constituencies still complain about the performance, usability and availability of the Siebel CRM application. What is often overlooked is that application performance is just one of three key drivers of return on investment (ROI) from your Siebel application. An efficient infrastructure is critical. Its important to optimize the Siebel application for your own unique business environment, user needs and usage patterns. But, its all for naught if you do not build and sustain adoption and efficient and effective use of the Siebel application by your end users. How can you tell how if your Siebel solution performs for each person who uses it? How can you identify which users have difficulty executing which transactions? What does it mean when your end users say the system is slow? How can you pinpoint the actual issues with the real data you need to take corrective action? Knoa can give you the answers. Enterprises with mission critical Siebel deployments do not have accurate measurements of adoption, efficient use, and effective use of the application by the end users. Without these measurements, companies are unable to identify and resolve critical issues that impact the users ability to optimize business process execution. The result is significantly reduced ROI, and significantly increased cost of application support. Knoa Software is leading the performance management industry with end user experience management solutions that reach beyond infrastructure and application performance to monitor, measure and manage how end users are utilizing the application. Knoa customers not only know if core enterprise applications are delivering an acceptable user experience, but also, if application users are executing key processes effectively and efficiently the key to achieving business value and ROI.

An end user performance management package from Knoa Software is capturing the CIOs attention for its ability to boost worker productivity and optimize application performance. Knoas Experience and Performance Manage-ment suite lets IT departments measure response times, distinguish between system and user error and monitor work flows all in real time
Brian Gillooly Optimize IT

Best Practices in Siebel CRM Performance Management: Monitor, Measure and Manage the End User Experience

For all the investment in application management solutions, nearly two-thirds of companies (66 percent) rely upon help desk calls as the main indicator that end users are experiencing response time and/or availability problems. Forrester Consulting

Knoa Experience and Performance Manager (EPM) monitors enterprise applications from the perspective of the end user to capture the actual end user experience. Knoa EPM captures transaction response times as well as ecosystem and application errors along with a time-synchronized workflow from all users, at all locations, at all times, across the entire application. This information is used for alerting and proactive remediation of end user issues (whether they are system errors, user errors or performance problems). Knoa EPM also analyzes and aggregates information to provide actionable insight into process compliance, training requirements, adoption issues and a number of other management dimensions. Knoa EPM provides a complete picture of end user experience by focusing on both the experience the end user receives from the application and the performance the end user achieves working with the application. You can think of Knoa EPM as the third leg to the performance management stool infrastructure, applications, and now, end user metrics. Think about it! The infrastructure is monitored and measured and optimized; application execution across that infrastructure is monitored and measured. In a recent study conducted by Forrester Consulting an overwhelming 87 percent of IT executives either strongly agreed (50%) or agreed (37%) that the best way to manage the service of business critical applications is by measuring performance at the end user level and rapidly resolving significant performance problems. Clearly, theres a need for a change. In fact, the Forrester Consulting report found that change is imminent. Sixty seven percent of the surveyed organizations are either much more focused (27%) or more focused (40%) on the end user experience than they were two years earlier.

Forrester concluded that best practices companies are intent on collecting metrics on the end user experience.

Best Practices in Siebel CRM Performance Management: Monitor, Measure and Manage the End User Experience

ROI Isnt Real Until Its Realized

The initial investment in CRM applications is high. Software licensing costs can range from $1,000 to $2,800 per end user. Implementation services are 2-3 times the software costs and there is investment in back-end infrastructure. Ongoing costs are high, as well. Software maintenance averages 20%, annually. Gartner reports that 60% of ongoing costs of a typical deployment are for support staff. ROI is only realized from this investment if the end users adopt the application and use it efficiently and effectively to improve the execution of core business processes which is very difficult to achieve. Consider this all too common scenario that afflicts many CRM deployments. Months after deployment a high percentage of the functionality is not being used. End users complain that the application is slow and doesnt work. Some users find the software cumbersome to adopt into their routines and create their own non-compliant work-arounds. Employee turnover slowly erodes the user base proficiency. Flying Blind Heres how one of Knoas customers described the problem that led them to deploy Knoa EPM. User adoption of our CRM application has been stalled by a number of factors affecting field productivity. There are complaints about poor response time, remote users cant access the system, and its not clear if there are system problems or if they are just using the wrong procedure. And across the board there are complaints that things take twice as long with the new system. In the absence of comprehensive and representative data, many discussions regarding application performance are based on reported user impressions, limited visual observations, and occasional stopwatch timings. This has resulted in extrapolations about the performance of the whole system that are inaccurate, and lead to decisions that are not in the best interest of the business. Enterprises with mission critical CRM deployments do not have accurate measurements of adoption, efficient use, and effective use of the application by the end users. Without these measurements, companies are unable to identify, and resolve critical issues that impact the users ability to effectively execute. The result is significantly reduced ROI, and significantly increased cost of application support.

One Version of the Truth. Knoa EPM gives the enterprise real metrics for adoption, efficient and effective use of the application. With end user metrics, companies are able to identify and resolve critical issues that impact the users ability to effectively execute, and hamper ROI realization.

Best Practices in Siebel CRM Performance Management: Monitor, Measure and Manage the End User Experience

Traditional Approaches to Performance Management Arent Enough Anymore

CRM applications like Siebel are complex. Its the flip-side of the flexibility they provide to meet a wide variety of customer needs. Each Siebel customer has their unique business environment user needs, usage patterns, customizations, system components, architectures and platform environments vary widely. In the face of this complexity, it is becoming increasingly difficult for measurement and metrics taken at the infrastructure level (system, network or transaction management) to provide a true perspective of the end user experience with the application. In a recent study conducted by Forrester Consulting an overwhelming 87 percent of IT executives either strongly agreed (50%) or agreed (37%) that the best way to manage the service of business critical applications is by measuring performance at the end user level and rapidly resolving significant performance problems. Knoa believes that the application is not performing from the end users perspective whenever the end user is unable to effectively execute the key processes required for their role. In our vision, application performance, from the end user perspective includes: Slow transactions Cumbersome Navigation System Errors Non-intuitive user interface which causes excessive user errors Knoa EPM goes beyond the response-time dimension to monitor and capture metrics on the entire end user experience including system and user errors as well as the user navigation and interaction with the application (workflow).
Received Error Messages Site Navigation Issues Transaction Execution Issues Login Issues Content Issues 31% 31% 31% 40% 37%

Snapshot of the End User Experience with online transactions

(Source: USA Today, 2006)

The monitoring capabilities of traditional performance management products provide a significant amount of insight about application health (e.g. transactions that are failing; aggregate transaction response times, application availability). Knoa EPM extends performance management to a whole new level by monitoring and managing the health of the end-user population. Has the application been adopted? Are the end users using the application proficiently. Is the application enabling the end users to efficiently and effectively? After all, adoption and efficient and effective use are the keys to ROI from the application investment.

Best Practices in Siebel CRM Performance Management: Monitor, Measure and Manage the End User Experience

Knoa Experience and Performance Manager

Knoa EPM gives the Siebel support team a comprehensive "fact-based" perspective about the end user's experience with the application. Who's using it? What's the response time? Who's getting errors? How many transactions are being abandoned? Knoa EPM is the only end user experience management solution that monitors the entire end user experience from the perspective of the end user. Knoa EPM monitors the Siebel application from the perspective of the end user to capture the actual end user experience, as well as ecosystem and application errors, and a time-synchronized workflow from all users, at all locations, at all times. Knoa EPM uniquely captures a complete picture of the end user experience and behavior: Actual User-Experienced Response Time for key system transactions, such as navigating between application screens, save operations, execute operations, etc. Complete Quality of Experience, including system and application errors and user created errors Comprehensive perspective of application utilization which transactions are used, in what sequence, for how long, etc. Knoa EPM is based upon a passive monitoring engine that is deployed to the client workstation along with a template specifically designed for the target application. This client engine monitors end users interaction with the application. Knoa EPM selectively captures the actual steps, and the sequence of events in the users interaction with the application. In addition to this timesynchronized workflow, Knoa EPM captures a number of metrics around both the applications performance and the end users performance: All user errors All system errors Transaction response times This information, called track data, is transferred to the Knoa EPM analysis server which prepares a series of targeted analyses and reports. This information is viewed through the Knoa EPM Console, which presents a series of management dashboards and drill downs for analyzing and querying the performance data.

The combination of the user-base coverage and application depth provided by this approach is tough to beat. With this information, companies can manage the performance achieved by end users, as well as the experience that they receive.
Bernd Harzog CEO, APM Experts

Best Practices in Siebel CRM Performance Management: Monitor, Measure and Manage the End User Experience

A Unique Architecture for End User Experience Management

The insight into actual end user experience gives us benefits across the board, helping target response time issues, solve end user problems faster, identify usage and adoption issues and even make priority decisions on ongoing application investments.
Stuart Smith, Director, CRM Performance, British Telecom
Knoa EPM is based upon a unique architecture that was designed, from the ground up for user-centric monitoring and experience management. Key capabilities the architecture delivers are: Automated Discovery The out of box Knoa EPM solution automatically sees every Siebel transaction and the steps that the user is taking before, during and after the transaction. Knoa EPMs self-discovery capabilities eliminate, completely, the need for customers to design a data collection strategy, define transactions to the system or train the system to recognize new transactions. Automated Discovery means: No up-front requirements definition or project scoping Faster implementation using out-of-the-box templates lower overall cost of ownership Adaptable technology to easily support the most aggressive release/update schedules Global Coverage The out of box Knoa EPM solution gives you global coverage of the entire Siebel application, across all instances and systems in the field. This global coverage also gives you a comprehensive perspective on adoption and usage across the entire user population. Application usage Transaction usage Screen usage Function usage Active/idle time User behavior Non-Intrusive to Siebel Application The Knoa EPM system does not insert tags or instrumentation into the Siebel application, create any system events, or require any back-end processes that impact application performance. The Knoa components do not require integration with any components in the application landscape, whether frontend or back-end. Small Footprint/Low Impact Knoa EPM uses a Seibel-specific template to selectively record the significant user events that will produce actionable insight, without any discernable system overhead or impact. It is this light operational footprint that enables you to monitor and measure the user experience across the entire application landscape.

Best Practices in Siebel CRM Performance Management: Monitor, Measure and Manage the End User Experience

See the forest and the trees. Knoa EPM delivers results to the entire Siebel support team. Here are some real use case examples submitted by Knoa customers:

Knoa Use Case: Performance Management

Improve Siebel Application Performance Excessive application response time is one of the most critical performance issues encountered by the users of todays complex mission critical applications. Its also a huge support problem. With Knoa EPM you know the response time that was actually experienced by the end-user for every transaction, for every user, every time. A leading consumer packaged goods company had put millions of dollars over 3 years in a new Sales Force automation solution. The number one complaint from users was long response times for key functions, such as creating and saving CRM records. The QA/Performance team was only able to act on these performance issues once they escalated to critical levels. The company implemented the Knoa EPM system to detect performance fluctuations for key functions in real-time. Using an alert system that notified the IT team whenever response times in the field exceeded set tolerance thresholds, the team was able to preempt the escalation of performance problems in many cases. In addition, by being able to isolate performance problems to specific areas of the application, the team also reduced the time to resolve critical issues.

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Knoa Use Case: Application Utilization

Link investment and effort to business impact With Knoa EPM you gain valuable, actionable insights into application utilization: Who is using the application and for how long? Which areas and functions are most used? Which areas and functions are least used? What usage patterns are creating strains on IT infrastructure? Knowing the usage profile for your Siebel application and your user base is the most fundamental step towards application and user performance management. The IT Support and Development team of a leading global financial services company received requests from their field users to implement a costly and extensive functionality enhancement for their enterprise sales application. The IT team dedicated considerable resources to implement this request and launch the new capability. After the enhancement was implemented, using the Knoa application usage data, the IT Team discovered that few employees actually used the new functionality. Based on this fact, and a detailed review of Business Operations based on Knoa data, they made a decision to discontinue support. Eliminating the module from production saved the organization tens of thousands of dollars in development time and resources.

Best Practices in Siebel CRM Performance Management: Monitor, Measure and Manage the End User Experience

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Knoa Use Case: End User Proficiency

Drive efficient and effective use by managing errors With Knoa EPM solution you can identify 100% of all user-experienced errors, whether they are caused by user actions or by any of the application layers. Knoa EPM also gives you the context in which each error was encountered and the path that the user took before encountering the error. This information is available in real-time for the end user support team. By implementing Knoa EPM, the IT department of a leading computer services company realized that a large percentage of the errors encountered by users were never reported to the Support Desk. In particular, a single error type, generated while executing searches, accounted for 25% of all errors generated by the companys CRM application. The productivity losses and infrastructure impact of repeated and failed queries executed by users amounted to thousands of dollars each day. Based on the Knoa data, the IT department promptly identified the issue, which was then addressed with a two-fold strategy: 1) provide targeted user training in order to avoid the error, in the short run, and 2) re-engineer the search functionality of the application to eliminate the error altogether, in the long run.

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Knoa Use Case: End User Support

Accelerate Problem Resolution with end user metrics and workflow Knoa EPM captures a complete record of end user behavior, before, during and after the transaction. This end user workflow data transforms the end user support process. A major electronics company was well into their deployment of a CRM solution. An inside sales reps in the Raleigh NC call center was experiencing problems. The information being communicated to the support team from the help desk was very sketchy and incomplete. In the past the CRM support team would spend hours on the phone with the inside rep, and often had to make a costly on-site support call to deal with issues like this. However, Knoa EPM enabled a dramatically different approach. Through the management console, they reviewed this ISRs recorded experience with the application. First the team looked at the metrics and found that the response time she was experiencing was fine well within the sub-3 second goal. Next they found that she was generating four times more user errors than her peers. Investing further, by looking at a recorded record of her actual interaction with the application, they found she was using an incorrect process to validate the customer information (a common process step in many different transaction types). With this insight, her supervisor was able to instruct her in the proper customer validation process and the problems with the system were quickly resolved.

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Knoa Use Case: Application Support/Engineering

Application Support/Engineering: Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that report user errors on an aggregate level were useful in resolving another vexing issue for that electronics provider. There were grumblings in the outside sales force that the opportunity management screen was really difficult, slow and cumbersome. When the KPI information for errors was reviewed, the application team noticed that virtually every end user was making the same errors on these screens. The first instinct was to schedule an e-learning retraining session. However, a closer review of the recorded work flow for a representative sample of users revealed that the errors were being caused when the sales reps were trying to put data in extraneous fields that were on the screen but not required for the transaction to execute. The fix was simple. No retraining was needed. The application team removed those fields from the screen and the errors were eliminated. The end-to-end transaction time improved by 25% as well.

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You Cant Manage What You Cant Measure.

Questions Knoa Answers for British Telecom Is the application performing effectively? Are end users able to effectively and efficiently execute critical business processes in other words, has the training program led to real results? Can we provide objective, real-time data on the user experience to allow the help desk and key users to resolve users questions rapidly? Can we maintain an electronic audit trail that tracks the completion of key transactions? What is the impact of ineffective procedures on operations?
Its rule #1 in the management handbook, isnt it? And the rule that is the driving force behind the investment in CRM applications in the first place. But, without a strategy to measure end user adoption, and without a strategy to gather insight about end users experience and actual performance with the application, many IT organizations are left with the reality that they cant manage and improve end user adoption and build end user proficiency. Knoa Experience and Performance Manager accurately determines how each employee actually uses the application and provides input to comprehensive reports that you can use to pinpoint training needs, adjust business processes, and ensure that your end users are using the application to deliver all the value you expect from the application. As an added benefit, Knoa also measures and reports critical information about how your users experience the applications actual performance. Application Support teams have real-time metrics to proactively address response time issues problems Help Desk personnel have immediate visibility user into actual user interaction with the application, so they can quickly resolve issues with minimal disruption to the end users Training organizations can pinpoint which specific application areas (and which specific users) require additional training Application and Process Engineering can spot cumbersome work flows and errors that are affecting end user satisfaction and efficiency The CIO has comprehensive metrics from the entire application landscape to support reporting to the business on SLAs and insight into application usage and performance to make intelligent decisions about where to deploy resources to improve the application performance and effectiveness The business executives have actionable insight to drive the highest possible levels of adoption, efficient and effective use of the application which is the key to a business return on the investment

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Can Knoa Experience And Performance Management System Help You?

Are you certain that all of your end users are actually using the functions of the application required to execute their role? Knoa EPM captures and reports real metrics about application usage. Who is using which transactions? How long are they active? How long are they idle? Knoa EPM gives you the ability to pinpoint and analyze user adoption issues that are hindering the achievement of business results. Do your end users ever use system performance as a key reason why critical objectives are not met on time and on budget? One of the benefits of Knoa EPM is that it gives you the ability to correlate business outcomes with efficient, effective application usage. Knoa EPM system captures and reports real metrics about the end users experience with the application, you will now know if the users were experiencing long transaction response times or if there were a lot of system errors presented to the end user. You will also know if the end users themselves were causing a lot of errors by their own behavior. You will then know where to apply corrective action. Perhaps it's a user training issue, or perhaps the errors are being caused by a cumbersome or confusing user interface that can be corrected. Do you suspect that there are a lot of problems and issues that are never surfaced to the help desk? Well, youre probably right. It is often reported in surveys of the service management process that 70-80% of all end user problems are not reported because the end users ignore the errors, abandon the transaction and/or find workarounds. In fact, Forrester Consulting recently reported that an end user typically experiences a problem 6 times before they call the help desk. Knoa EPM gives you the ability to pinpoint and proactively remediate problems which impact the efficiency or the effectiveness of the end user population using the application to accomplish business goals. An EPM system will make sure you have visibility into all errors for all users, in all locations, all the time. When your end users do report problems to the help desk, do you find they are wasting a lot of time trying to answer questions and document or recreate the problems? Knoa EPM captures the actual work flow that the user experienced before, during and after the transaction. This information is immediately available to help desk personnel so there is minimal business disruption from issues with the application. Employee productivity impact is kept to a minimum when there is an issue (users spend less time on the phone with help desk and problems are resolved faster).

Sixty seven percent of surveyed organizations are either much more focused (27%) or more focused (40%) on the end user experience than they were two years earlier. Forrester Consulting 2006

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About Knoa
Knoa Software is leading the performance management industry with end user experience monitoring solutions that reach beyond infrastructure and application performance to the monitor, measure and manage how end users are utilizing the application to optimize business process execution. Knoa customers not only know if core enterprise applications are delivering an acceptable user experience, but also, if application users are executing key processes effectively and efficiently the key to achieving business value and ROI. Knoa is headquartered in New York, NY. For more information about Knoa, please visit www.knoa.com.

Expertise and Performance Management systems are becoming a priority for the business executive and CIO who need to drive the highest possible levels of adoption and efficient and effective use of core enterprise applications to drive a business return on investment. Only with the insight into end user metrics that an EPM system can provide can you really know if your core enterprise applications are delivering an acceptable user experience and if application users have adopted the applications and are executing key processes effectively and efficiently the key to achieving business value and ROI from the application investment.

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