HCL Unica vs. Oracle Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HCL Unica
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
HCL Unica (acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in late 2018) is a suite of enterprise marketing management tools including marketing automation with cross-channel campaign management, budgeting and forecasting, project workflow management, asset management, brand management and spend management.N/A
Oracle Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Oracle offered the Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite as an end-to-end enterprise marketing management (EMM) solution joining cross-channel campaign management with marketing automation, market resource and asset management, and marketing analytics, for larger enterprises. The product is now End of Life, and no longer offered for sale.N/A
Pricing
HCL UnicaOracle Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HCL UnicaOracle Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite (discontinued)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HCL UnicaOracle Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite (discontinued)
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
HCL UnicaOracle Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite (discontinued)
Small Businesses
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.9 out of 10
HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot Marketing Hub
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
LeanData
LeanData
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
Score 8.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
HCL UnicaOracle Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(15 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.7
(11 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
3.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
HCL UnicaOracle Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
HCLSoftware
I think it is wel suited for a business with a lot of one on one relations in the database. For example a supermarket that sells products to a client and gives a reduction on that product. It is nice if the selection process is not to complex and does not involve to many calculations. It is also nice if it is very clear what you want to follow up. In our environment we have lots of many-to-many relations. for example one product is held by more then one client. And that client might have more of those products with other clients. These kind of situation demands for a lot of calculations with derived fields(*), and there things go far too slow. Unica is probably not such a good solution for us, because our environment is too complex, and so is to process of creating the selection, we often have to change things in the selection flows. Because of the complexity it is difficult to see what the flow is exactly doing afterwoods, it also takes to much time to modify existing campaigns. The interface is not handy to work with, if you have long lists of variables, of tables or derived fields(*) you have to scroll through trough them, you can not really search them or reorder them. You can not drag and drop fields or other objects like derived fields in the flow, what would be easy if you have to make frequent changes to the proces flow. When you copy objects something the content of the object changes because the links with other objects or lost. (*) derived field: field to calculate something
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Discontinued Products
If you need a hosted rather than cloud based CRM, Siebel is a consideration. It's best suited to organizations with a large customer database. Given the complexity involved you need at least two full time marketing analysts.The email marketing functionality isn't core to the offering and most organizations would be much better served by cloud based email systems. Siebel offers a very comprehensive feature set and is powerful in the hands of a super user. However, given the costs involved in upgrading a hosted solution I would put serious effort into convincing your decision makers to go for a cloud based CRM instead.
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Pros
HCLSoftware
  • Ability to translate Multiple SQL queries into a very easy to use visual GUI.
  • Provides the ability to pre-define segments, run them once in off hours, store them in their own system tables for quick youth and a significant reduction in CPU utilization on the database.
  • It’s use of Reusable objects. Including user variables to pre-define calculations one time, macros that you can create and pass values to parameterize the SQL code And the creation of templates to easily replicate work.
  • It’s ability to bring in external data on the fly that can very easily be mapped into any flowchart.
  • It’s flexibility and creating UNIX script via triggers to automate sending of files to multiple vendors with different FTP sites
  • It’s flexibility in the output layouts that it can create.
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Discontinued Products
  • Siebel EMS offered useful customer insight and more effective dialogue with recipients by delivering the right message to the right customer at the right time.
  • Siebel EMS was very effective for loyalty lifecycle and retention by seamlessly integrating with marketing and CRM platforms.
  • Siebel EMS was instrumental in aligning marketing, sales and analytics divisions.
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Cons
HCLSoftware
  • Greater integration of real time (Interact) capabilities with outbound channels, in particular IBM eMessage Email & SMS delivery.
  • Additional outbound channels to be integrated into eMessage, including Facebook Fanpage & Twitter DM broadcasts. At the moment these are possible only through custom additional integration.
  • Support for additional marketing database technology, e.g. MySQL, Exasol, ParAccel, WX2.
  • Provision of database technology with software purchase, as Web technology (IBM WebSphere Express) is supplied for free, but no database is supplied - since IBM also market DB2, which is a supported technology it seems a shame.
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Discontinued Products
  • Oracle Siebel Marketing Suite's processing time is not as fast as I would expect it to be. This is the major improvement I would like to see in it.
  • It requires a very high level of training being given to the employees for configuring and implementing it in the business needs.
  • Expert employees are needed in order to understand the functionality of Oracle Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite, which is not easy to find.
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Likelihood to Renew
HCLSoftware
There are three main factors to renew a licence: 1) Cost to migrate to another platform would be rather expensive and time consuming, plus the requirement of retraining employees to use a new tool 2) It has been proven time and time again that it is a market leader in the space (10 years +) 3) It can be built upon, with the addition of additional IBM EMM modules - despite theories it does have very strong digital capabilities.
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Discontinued Products
A very conservative data security policy limits the organization to a hosted solution. At particular issue is the tendency of cloud based CRMs to have data centres based in the US, a major issue for Canadian consumers. Once you have integrated a system of this size and complexity, and have the staff resources to utilize it effectively, it's hard to justify a move to an alternative. Consider Siebel if you are a conservatively run organization with a large database of customers and a big marketing team
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Usability
HCLSoftware
I think it is easy to use, if you don't have to do to complex selections.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
HCLSoftware
I didn't use the Unica support since it is with IBM, only before.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
HCLSoftware
- We had to rebuild a part of the datamart afterwards to tighten up and simplify the selection process. But as it was too time consuming to rebuild all the existing campaigns, we no run campaigns on different versions of the datamart. - The response tracking of the campaigns never worked out well, it was impossible to implement a direct response where there is a link between the lead and the response in our operational process
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
HCLSoftware
The contact history and the response history are so powerful. You can track whatever you want to help the call center to push relevant offers to our customer. In addition, predictive models can be built, with patience, in IBM Campaign. If you have some complaints from the call center about any campaigns, you can easily validate it into the contact or response history.
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Discontinued Products
Salesforce is easier to use and more open source and available for external integrations.
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Return on Investment
HCLSoftware
  • It helps my clients drive their business which in turn, drives more profit for them.
  • It helps my clients determine what works, and what doesn't work, in terms of their social marketing campaigns.
  • It helps navigate proper budgeting through determining what clients' users respond to, and what they find unique.
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Discontinued Products
  • It has increased the business tactics as we have added more clients who wish to use this technology.
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ScreenShots

HCL Unica Screenshots

Screenshot of end-to-end campaign managementScreenshot of HCL Unica's campaign creation interface