I’m sorry but this is likely to be just a flat out lie. At least as of fairly recently nearly every customer of Synygy’s has had some sort of customized software build to address unique requirements of the client.

And as for the claim that Synygy has “never oversold..”, that one is also BS. At least from a technical perspective Synygy has oversold the capabilities of it’s software (perhaps that’s why they’ve changed course yet again and are now focusing on consulting services rather than their previous goal of being purely a software manufacturer). One rather infamous example of their “oversell” was when they told a prospective company that their software would run on Unix servers (at a time when it wouldn’t). Fortunately for that prospective client they asked for references who could verify Synygy’s claims. Only then did Synygy confess that they had “oversold” the capabilities of their software.

Mike - Thanks for the kind words. By the way, it’s Julien, not Julienne :-)

Nigel - Julien, not Juliene! :-) But to your point, yes you do expect some of that in a sales environment. I’ve never taken a selling 101 course, and maybe that’s what they teach, but I think it’s the wrong path (but who knows, maybe it does work and I’m just an idealist). This being said, what is told to a client during the sales process is one thing; but in my opinion what is said to the media is a completely different animal. You’ll have a very hard time convincing me that “negative” press is good because it creates buzz and awareness; as Seth commented, I also believe this is to the detriment of the entire SPM industry.

I don’t see anything wrong with the tactics taken by Mark and the guys par se, you expect it in a sales environment. You will always get landmines in different places from different vendors who want to help focus on their specific strengths and their competitors weaknesses - that’s just 101 selling. Different people approach sales and clients in different ways, ultimately getting to a trusted advisor position.

What Synergy have done with this press release is create noise and recognition.

- Noise in that we are all talking about it and creates awareness for both Synergy and Callidus.
- Recognition that Callidus is the leader, the 100lb gorilla in the space and that the TrueXXXXXXXX brand created is valid and recognised even when trying to replace it.
- Recognition that the market is maturing, including M&A activity with the Callidus purchase mentioned above and Merced acquiring Practique recently.

I’m somewhat biased, I just left Callidus after a number of really great years and signing some great customers. Customers that will come to an event and speak to other customers and prospects freely - this says it all to me as an individual and a potential customer. The atmosphere and environment inside Callidus is simply great, focused and fun!

Looking more at the facts, every vendor claims to be the leader in SPM/EIM/ICM - but what defines this and who can create a balance scorecard?

- Well - Callidus, Synergy, Oracle and Varicent all scored Positive in Gartners July 08 Marketscope, so perhaps this is just another way to try and differentiate and create free PR for Synergy
- Callidus is $100m+ public company, listed on NASDAQ - wart’s and all are there for everyone to see and scrutinise - you can see revenues, customers the lot. Not everyone has the same position. Mark maybe it’s time to remove the Kimono over there?
- They even publish the availability of their solutions here: http://www.callidussoftware.com/products/on-demand/
- Callidus in my opinion attract some of the best people in the business, including people who have moved from bigger organisations like Oracle. Good people go to where people are buying from and investing money in building the best product set.
- With the best people come some of the best partners. These include SI’s such as Accenture, Open Symmetry, SAP, Salesforce.com and everyone else mentioned here -http://www.callidussoftware.com/partners/ these are Top Tier players. In the interest of trying to be fair, Synergy partner with Colletti Fiss, HayGroup, Hewitt and others listed here: http://www.synygy.com/company/synygy-partners.asp
- Re Open Symmetry specifically, don’t they partner with others aside to Callidus including Practique, Varicient, Centive etc. The full list is here: http://www.opensymmetry.com/alliances.shtml From the outside, that would make them pretty impartial to me. What the customer ultimately chooses is different. In my personal experience, and I have worked with the guys in EMEA, they are uber professional and totally independent, as much as i didn’t want them to be at times as a sales guy – but providing you have done your job, it doesn’t make a difference, they will do what they or Accenture are bought in for – independent advice based on each individual customers unique specific needs.

@Mark, you are obviously the experts in this field – you have been doing it for nearly 2 decades as opposed to Callidus a mere youngster at 12 years, but I am and was proud to be part of the leading provider of incentive solutions on the market. They have amassed a blue chip customer base of almost 200 customers worldwide more than anyone else I believe, probably more than all other vendors added together in this space.

My 2c for what its worth, there are probably 2,000+ enterprises in which to sell to in this space. We should be focussed on bringing solutions to more of them as opposed to slinging mud to create a story…

Have a great weekend!
Nigel

Mr Stiffler, we’ve not had the pleasure of meeting and I’d really hoped it could have been under different circumstances. As a Director of OpenSymmetry in the UK, I’d love to have seen you out here. (BTW why aren’t you in EMEA?)

You’ve laid the boot into OpenSymmetry so I’m sure you’ve got plenty of examples and hard evidence.

I haven’t referenced the specific sentences of your article, but my following questions relate to it.

Simply put, please give me clear and precise examples in open forum or email me directly, where OpenSymmetry have provided biased advice to a client in a vendor evaluation. Furthermore, please provide an example of a client OpenSymmetry have taken through a vendor selection and subsequently carried out an implementation i.e. directly gained further work from.

I hope you are able to substantiate your claims as they are accusations that we take seriously and will address.

- John Stuart, Director, OpenSymmetry LLP

My conclusion on this thread, and even this entire Blog, is that Julienne is sincerely longing for a change in the SPM marketplace in which the above 4 sales principles are working to preserve the health of the marketplace, before the “Idiot Kool-aid” kills it.

Oh, by the way, in the interest of disclosure, I went from sales to management, and then came back to being purely technical again as a (real) Software and Data Architect. After a bad divorce I did a career change into SPM arena, and worked for Callidus for 4 years as a lead Data Integration consultant, the last year of which was within the OnDemand group, both as an implementer of custom client data interfaces and as a designer/developer of their integration toolset. I have a deep understanding of the problems of the “” (Synygy article), and know that it is often the result of complex business requirements handled without skillful data and software architecture skills; and I doubt Synygy can avoid that except by avoiding the clients with complex requirements.
I am now an independent contracting consultant, after leaving Callidus to join Iconixx last year, and can be reached at NoahDuh@hotmail.com if you want to debate this further, as I am generally too busy to look at any blogs more often than weekly.
:)

You are not defining causal factors or linkages

• implementations that take longer and cost more than promised

Is that because a vendor oversold? or because a client can’t / won’t nail down requirements & lets scope creep & new requirements enter the picture

• implementations riddled with custom code because software lacks out-of-the-box functionality

Is that because there is genuine “gotta have” features missing? or because the customer has the “We always did it this way” beast - where they have zero structure and process and try to use software to manage that existing chaos

Again - I am not coming from the lens of any particular type of business software.

I just find that (especially on the customer side) too many want to blame software vendors for their own lack of process discipline, their own lack of executive commitment etc.

Regards

Elliot Ross