Siebel Systems Inc yesterday said it had acquired The 20-20 Group, an enterprise relationship management end-user training company. The Group provides face to face and computer-based training along with theme development and implementation and travel logistics management. Siebel said it would use the extra staff, although it refused to say how many had transferred over, to boost its end-user training team. A spokesperson for Siebel said the company had made the acquisition because the ERM market was expanding so rapidly that it didn’t have enough training consultants of its own to cope with the demand. People who use these applications don’t understand the depth of functionality and if they don’t, in the long run they won’t be successful. ERM is an umbrella term describing any type of software, like sales force automation for example, that enables companies to better interact with their customers. The spokesperson said some end- users, for example those working in a call center, weren’t typically the ones that had the most problems, since their whole job tied them very closely to the software, but others, like mobile salespeople, often didn’t understand the complexities of their applications. The spokesperson said Siebel already had well-established links with the 20-20 Group, so the acquisition made perfect sense. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
