EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This case is an excellent example analyzing complex organizational buyers' purchasing behavior and corresponding strategy a seller should take. In this case, Gregg Carman, Siebel Systems sales account manager, had spent six months negotiating a $2.1 million sale to Quick & Reilly. Carmen had overcome obstacles one after another in the process and was nearly approaching to the end of the deal before an even bigger challenge popped up. Marge Paine from FleetBoston, Quick & Reilly's parent, wished to deploy the old Siebel Systems/Scopus product at Quick & Reilly. Now Carmen had to develop a plan to manage the situation and decide whether he should offer Quick & Reilly a token discount.
I think Carmen should accommodate the FleetBoston situation for the purposes of keeping good relationship with FleetBoston, assuring customer satisfaction, and creating value for Quick & Reilly. Specifically, Carmen could propose to buy back the extra seats originally sold to FleetBoston, or offer Quick & Reilly a discount for the new Siebel Systems product, or allow Marge to transfer the old product if both FleetBoston and Quick & Reilly so choose.
Siebel Inner Reflection
Sunset on Siebel
Siebel Dinosaur Complex hall - Museum of the Rocki...These options, though not necessarily required by contracts, were compatible to Siebel core values and could satisfy both FleetBoston and Quick & Reilly's interests. Siebel may financially suffer a little bit in short run but since software systems update frequently, they would assure that both FleetBoston and Quick & Reilly do not feel lose by any means and guarantee future business from them accordingly.
Marketing to organizations is complex process and need to take into consideration many factors, economical and political, now and the future, which may far beyond one specific sale.