BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : JANUARY 10, 2000 ISSUE
COVER STORY Supersalesman Siebel KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS Increased stock price more than 400% last year, to about $88 Profit up over 150%, to around $108 million, on sales up 79%, to $700 million Landed key deal for IBM to push Siebel's customer-relationship software You won't see any fine art on the walls at Siebel Systems Inc. (SEBL) in San Mateo, Calif. Instead, Chief Executive Officer THOMAS M. SIEBEL has decorated the place with photos of people who have bought the company's sales-management software. He sends out engineering SWAT teams to work around the clock when a problem comes up. He has even tied commissions and bonuses to how clients feel they're treated. While this level of obsession may seem over the top, it's all part of Siebel's campaign to make employees focus with laser intensity on customer satisfaction. ''We're in the business of selling customer-service software, and we try to be the exemplar of that philosophy,'' he says. No wonder Siebel, 47, now runs the hottest company in one of the hottest software markets. He dominates a segment expected to grow 50% a year, to $16 billion by 2003. Siebel's sales jumped nearly 80% last year. And in the future, as he continues to add products that power e-commerce sites, Siebel could gain star status in the industry. He has already got the ego. Siebel points out that smaller players such as Vantive and Clarify stumbled and sold out in 1999. Larger software companies like Germany's SAP are late to market. ''Our competitors' execution has been laughable,'' Siebel scoffs. He rubbed it in, too--by hiring more than 27 stars from SAP, which prompted an ongoing lawsuit. But he won't back off. ''It's a free country, so we continue to hire their people,'' he says. For Siebel, victory is sweet. He started the company six years ago in the ''crummiest'' space in East Palo Alto, Silicon Valley's low-rent district. Most employees took stock options in lieu of salary, allowing him to spend only $1.8 million in the two years it took to build the company's first product. He got the cash from friends and by selling Gain Technologies, a database software company of which he was CEO and a shareholder. Today, Siebel owns about 9% of Siebel Systems, and he's worth more than $1.5 billion. But he still courts risk. This is the veteran software executive's third startup. And while the father of four no longer hang-glides, he still likes to ski fast on steep slopes when he has a chance. But that's about the only time his trajectory is downward. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS INTRODUCTION MANAGERS TO WATCH THE TOP ENTREPRENEURS THE TOP 25 MANAGERS Minuro Arakawa Bernard Arnault Arthur Blank Peter Bijur Gordon Binder Steve Case John Chambers James Curvey Thierry Desmarest Bernie Ebbers Tom Engibous Chris Gent Irwin Jacobs Steve Jobs Mel Karmazin James Kelly Timothy Koogle Ken Lay Jenny Ming Thomas Siebel Masayoshi Son Martha Stewart Keiji Tachikawa Jack Welch Yun Jong Yong ONLINE EXTRAS TO BUSINESS WEEK INVESTOR INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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