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Emerging Businesses

The success of businesses like eBay and Siebel serve as great examples of how to build an industry leading entity. The eBay company has created its own auction empire which has vastly impacted the way consumers and merchants conduct business on a global scale with wide popularity. In the first ten years of business eBay grew to 125-million users worldwide. Similarly Siebel was a very successful startup that boasted a number one ranking by Fortune magazine as the fastest growing company in 1999. These two enormously successful start ups share similarities but they began to take a starkly different course.

The business software pioneer Siebel began to experience trouble financially. Contributing factors at the time were numerous, a slow economy, customer service problems and product development. In 2001 Siebel introduced a new software upgrade that was difficult to install, creating a number of customer complaints. This would serve as a pivotal point that marked a decline Siebel’s controlling share in its market. To make matters worst Siebel received bad publicity and had a low 45% satisfaction rating. The largest mistake the company made was ignoring the input from its consumers. The software users were requesting a product with an array of features in smaller more frequent updates. Top leaders of Siebel decided to do the opposite and focus the direction of product development on specializing in one area.

The success of eBay made it a worthy example for other businesses to emulate in the areas of customer service and product development. The auction giant eBay has established constant growth since its inception by proper focus on customer’s needs and product response areas that Siebel failed in. Executives at eBay have a philosophy of managing the company as civil servants to their users to put into practice a basic principal of putting the customer first. Research conducted by eBay examines user’s desires and responds with quick implementation of new...