Configure Price Quote software, otherwise known as CPQ software, is a sales and quoting solution designed to help companies generate highly accurate quotes based on specific configurations. It helps centralize and automate rules on product, pricing, and business. With its centralized structure, sales teams are able to access information in real-time wherever and whenever they need it.
What CPQ does is that it enables users to generate custom quotes on products, services, and packages based using custom configurations and a predetermined set of pricing rules such as discounts, bulk orders, season, location, handicaps, pricing fluctuations, and more. It allows users, particularly salespeople, to quote their customers quickly and accurately.
With CPQ solutions, companies are able to activate and streamline all their sales channels and empower their sales personnel. This leads to better and bigger revenue as businesses create and provide precise and competitive quotes possible to their customers, enticing and motivating them to consider and ultimately purchase.
CPQ brings a plethora of benefits to many businesses and industries. But the following advantages top the list while explaining why your company needs to invest in CPQ software.
- Accelerate Business Processes
One of the reasons why companies are using CPQ software to improve their sales and overall revenue is its impressive speed. It accelerates the entire sales cycle, which serves both employees and customers.
In a conventional business setting, salespeople have to spend a considerable amount of time retrieving and accessing product information from various sources. Then they have to consult their pricing rules before coming up with prices or rates and give customers their quotes.
And in between, there are internal administrative processes such as reviews, clarification, and approval that take too much time. With so many time-intensive functions and other management mumbo-jumbo to do, it’s no wonder why sales representatives only spend 33% of their time on sales-related tasks.
By utilizing CPQ software and incorporating CPQ in CRM systems, companies are able to eliminate many of these unnecessary and exhaustive processes, drastically accelerating the sales cycle. This integration should be considered one of the best CRM practices because of the advantages it brings to any business enterprise.
Salespeople don’t have to spend days and weeks to come up with accurate quotes. They can create quotes in minutes and deliver them to their customers in an instant. This is critical as sales statistics reveal that 50% of customers purchase from the vendor who contacted them first.
Aside from increasing their sales potential, the speed of CPQ software also adds value to the customer’s overall experience. Being able to provide accurate quotes by demand sparks engagement and drives interaction. A delightful experience not only leads to a successful sale but also repeat businesses and more opportunities.
- Generate Quotes Based on Customer Data
It is clearly established how CPQ platforms transform the slow and arduous sales cycle into a rapid yet precise process. But aside from dramatically accelerating your sales by generating accurate and competitive quotes in minutes, it also sheds light in other business areas where visibility is either poor or lacking.
Most CPQ solutions can work well on their own without having to integrate with other systems and technology suites. But given its unique position, many companies integrate their CPQ software with their current technology solutions such as CRMs to make life easier for their sales reps.
The vast majority of CPQ platforms are built to seamlessly integrate and work with Salesforce, one of the world’s leading CRM brands to provide sales personnel with better, faster access to real-time customer information. They are able to do more with CPQ Salesforce meaning they don’t have to build viable proposals and quotes from the ground up.
That’s because the CRM software supplies the CPQ solution with customer information, including interactions, previous communication, and activities done by other sales reps. CPQ users can then create more effective and accurate quotes and proposals that are driven and based on customer data.
- Eliminate Supply Chain Issues
Aside from centralizing and automating pricing processes, CPQ software streamlines the sales cycle by eliminating many pain points in the supply chain via powerful automation. Traditional supply chain processes involve numerous variables and stages, making it notoriously complicated even for seasoned supply chain managers and experts.
Accounting for each of these variables is already a complex process in itself, impeding the execution of lead-to-order cycles, which then adversely impacts sales performance. Even international companies admit how poor supply chain management can seriously hurt their revenue potential.
Top sports brand Adidas disclosed that they failed to meet their 2019 growth target due to supply chain issues. The Germany-based athletic performance company predicted massive losses between $220 million to $550 million for the year, stating their current manufacturing infrastructure in North America was not enough to meet the rising demand in the consumer-rich region.
Integrating CPQ with supply chain management software allows businesses to closely monitor supply levels and automatically update acquisition and inventory teams whenever items, parts, and supplies are depleting.
Because CPQ addresses many of these pain points via automation, businesses are able to keep their inventories stacked and way ahead of demand. This ensures that they have adequate supply in their inventory when an order comes through. As CPQ keeps their supply levels at an optimum level, sales teams have an easier time focusing on their customers’ needs. This ultimately results in faster sales, more revenue, and happier customers.
- Sell Products When Demand Is Low
Most companies deploy CPQ systems to boost the efficiency of their sales processes and drive revenue performance. However, only a few integrate CPQ software with their demand planning and ERP solutions to help predict market demand, which is a great way to leverage CPQ capabilities.
Speaking of ERP solutions, check this page from FinancesOnline for today’s leading ERP software systems.
When market demand takes a dive, it is important for companies to keep their items from stagnating in their inventory. CPQ provides them with the platform to find ways to keep their products moving and still be profitable even when market demand is low.
By being able to forecast market demand, CPQ systems aid companies in providing their customers with vast possibilities of configurations to make their low-demand products appealing to customers as demand begins to plateau out and then dwindle.
While disposing of low-demand products may not garner a lot in terms of revenue, it does open up valuable inventory space. This allows companies to stock on more high-demand products and generate significant profit off them, enabling them to still achieve higher revenue even when they sold off their low-demand items for little or no profit.
Aside from helping with demand, data from CPQ systems can also be used to fuel and create detailed year-end reports.
Achieve Agile Sales Cycles Now
CPQ software is proving to be an indispensable system for modern enterprises, as evidenced by the rapidly growing global CPQ market.
Among the major factors of CPQ adoption is its ability to provide business enterprises unparalleled agility in creating and providing accurate and competitive quotes to customers. In this world where agility is essential, it’s no wonder why CPQ systems are enjoying increasing popularity and implementation.
Customers today put a huge premium on speed as much as excellent service regardless of the CPQ software costs. Businesses now have to be agile to remain competitive and significant in their respective markets. CPQ gives them that. That agility leads to faster sales cycles, better sales enablement, and huge revenue growth. As people in sales always say, “you close more, you win more.”
