Choosing the right CPQ software for your business is critical to improving sales effectiveness and customer experience. The right platform can supercharge your sales processes and increase productivity for every team member.
Identifying the right tool requires careful consideration and research. This blog post will guide you through the essential aspects to consider as you explore your CPQ solution options.
Requirements
The first step in a quote-to-cash (QTC) process is Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ). Also known as sales configuration software, guided selling software, and quoting solution, CPQ automates the complex and lengthy sales configuration, pricing, and quoting process to improve efficiency, reduce costs, increase revenue, and ensure technical and pricing accuracy.
To get the most out of CPQ software solutions, companies should start by understanding their specific needs and objectives. This includes identifying the gaps in current processes, quantifying sales opportunities, and evaluating bottlenecks to identify areas for improvement. This information will help determine the most appropriate configuration engine and product catalog rules.
Whether your company offers complex products or simply a few variations, the CPQ process can be time-consuming and error-prone. Miscalculations, rogue discounts, and illegible quotes are costly to your business. CPQ solutions provide various benefits, including automated quote renewals, upselling and cross-selling features, templates, and auto-fill to streamline the quote-to-order process.
A CPQ solution should be easy to use and compatible with your existing CRM system. It should also be scalable to grow alongside your product catalog and sales process. Finally, it should be mobile-friendly to allow your sales team to access and update their quotes on the go.
Features
While examining your business’s requirements, you’ll also want to evaluate the features available for CPQ software. After all, finding a solution that supports your goals and requirements is essential without adding any new processes or creating additional steps. For example, you’ll need to consider the needs of sales management and operations, finance and accounting, and legal. Determine their pain points and what they hope a CPQ solution can solve. For example, if they need more standardized pricing, advanced configurations, inconsistent discounting, and non-compliant contracts, ensure your shortlisted CPQ solutions include these features.
The “P” in CPQ stands for the price, and a well-functioning solution will allow your salespeople to craft personalized quotes quickly and accurately that maximize profit and margin while still being competitive with other companies’ offerings. It will also reduce the time and effort spent manually pricing products or piecing together quotes from 10,000-line spreadsheets. Ultimately, a CPQ solution that uses AI-powered pricing optimization and real-time price calculations helps you stay ahead of your competitors by making data-informed pricing decisions that deliver the best possible results for your customers.
In addition, a CPQ solution should allow you to easily integrate with the other tools your team relies on to be successful. Look for vendors that offer these integrations and other pre-packaged and custom applications.
Pricing
A configure, price and quote tool can help you reduce the time it takes to create a product or service quotation, improve accuracy, shorten sales cycle times, boost efficiency, increase win rates, and eliminate costly errors. However, a CPQ tool isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution — you need to consider your company’s goals and budget when selecting a CPQ vendor.
Look for a configurator that is compatible with your existing business operations software. If your prospective CPQ vendor doesn’t offer built-in integrations with these systems or has an API, it’s probably not worth investing in.
Finally, select a configurator that provides the pricing flexibility you need for your business. Look for a nested bundle feature that lets you combine products, services, and subscriptions into a single product option; an ability to assign pricing rules at the line level (one-time, monthly, usage-based, etc.); and guided selling features that leverage the sales processes of your top sellers to increase win rates for all sellers.
In addition, a CPQ solution with advanced configuration capabilities can help you create more complex products and services, such as industrial conveyor belts and weighing machines. These products require a system configuration to ensure they cooperate correctly on the factory floor and deliver the desired result for your customers.
Implementation
CPQ software, or sales configuration software, guided selling tools, quoting software, pricing management software, and quote-to-cash solutions, optimizes the revenue lifecycle by automating complex product offerings. Among other things, it enables codified, rules-based configuration to simplify complex products while providing insights into optional features and services; automated, optimized pricing, with advanced approval, triggers to control margin erosion or rogue discounting; templated proposal generation; and contract integration for eSignature and automated workflows.
To get the most out of a CPQ solution, it’s essential to ensure that it is well-implemented. A rocky rollout can lead to a loss of user adoption, reducing the value and impact of the tool. To ensure your team uses the tool as intended, look for a CPQ vendor that offers training and support for implementation and ongoing maintenance.
You also want to ensure the CPQ platform is compatible with your other business systems. Ideally, it should integrate with your CRM and ERP platforms to streamline the data flow from point-of-sale to pre-sales, sales, finance and billing, and beyond. A best-of-breed, modular CPQ solution is ideal for this. This allows you to choose the parts of your CPQ software most valuable for your company while keeping other functions and processes within your existing technology infrastructure. This approach also helps you to avoid expensive custom coding, which can often be time-consuming and cost-prohibitive.
