In the wake of its $US5.85 billion acquisition of Siebel, Oracle has created a CRM business unit in Australia.

The unit will support Oracle's newly acquired customer base which includes Optus, Telstra and Westpac.

The acquisition closed in March this year and Mark Innes, former ANZ managing director of WebMethods, was appointed in August to lead the new unit.

Innes has been meeting with customers since taking on the new role to support them during the transition.

He said he has made it clear to customers that they can stay with current installations or make the move to Oracle's Fusion suite, which will be available in 2008.

Innes said many of Australia's largest organizations have made significant investments in Siebel, which is why there will be no forced migrations.

"Fusion will be there when customers are ready," he said. "CRM has matured, it is no longer a technology play; today it is about transformation.

Current trends include sales force automation, loyalty programs and analytics.

"Larger organizations are also appointing chief customers officers to support their CRM initiatives."

The new unit will be supported by up to 100 staff.