Siebel doubles up in Aisa

Terence Chan's obsession with customer service is bringing in the business for Siebel Systems. Despite last year's battered economy, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software giant registered over 100 percent revenue growth in South Asia. And it is anticipating a better 2002. "The need to build better customer relationships to improve loyalty and sales cannot be denied--even with a contrained IT budget," noted Chan. "Moreover, the Asian CRM market is only at the beginning of the growth curve," he said. Specifically, huge opportunities are expected to come from the financial services and telecommunications industries--areas which Siebel has been dominating globally. The firm will also actively pursue deals in emerging markets, such as government, pharmaceutical, high-tech, travel and transport. Last year, Siebel scored major wins with the Development Bank of Singapore, Virgin Mobile in Singapore, Malaysian National Insurance and telecommunications service provider Advanced Info Systems in Thailand. For the full story on CNet Asia see http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/applications/0,39001094,39042326,00.htm--CNet Asia's Irene Tham, Special to ZDNet News