Siebel Software Gets A LiftSiebel Software Gets A Lift

Siebel Systems Inc. has signed Alaska Airlines as a customer of its fledgling business-intelligence technology, which could help Siebel convince others that it's more than just a customer-relationship-management vendor.

Siebel, which this year began marketing its analytics software as a business-intelligence product independent of its CRM platform, said last week that Alaska Airlines will use the software to analyze customer data coming from the airline's custom-built CRM system and other sources, including its call center.

It's a watershed deal for Siebel, says Denis Pombriant, a Beagle Research Group analyst. "It's clearly an important area for the company to be able to supply analytics that work off of other data sources," he says. He expects Siebel to reveal additional analytics-only deals toward the end of this quarter.

Alaska Airlines will integrate the Siebel analytics software with its customer data sources. The software also will pull and examine passenger information from the Sabre Holdings Corp. distribution system the airline relies on for many of its bookings. Alaska Airlines expects the analytics capabilities to help it get to know its customers better and improve target-marketing efforts and promotional campaigns.

Alaska Airlines CIO Bob Reeder says deeper analytics capabilities will help the airline better contend with the growth in online ticket sales. "As the distribution channel shifts and more people buy directly from us, we have more information to work with than we used to," Reeder says.

Alaska Airlines chose Siebel analytics over other established business-intelligence vendors, including the former Brio Software, acquired in 2003 by Hyperion Solutions Corp. Analyst Pombriant notes that Siebel has years of expertise in extracting value from customer information. Says Pombriant: "It's not just a BI tool [Alaska is] buying."