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| Image: Apttus CPQ Suite |
The Sales Cloud application by Salesforce.com provides all
of the basic elements for small and medium-sized businesses to generate price
books and build sales quotes. But what
about enterprise-sized organizations or even smaller companies with very
complex product configurations? For
these businesses, the standard price book, product and quote tools in
Salesforce.com may not be sufficient.
These companies must generally turn to a Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ)
solution.
What’s In a CPQ Tool?
CPQ solutions vary by vendor, but generally include the
following features:
Product Catalog: In a
CPQ tool, Products and/or service offerings are loaded into a product catalog,
which stores product information in a structured and consistent way: product
name or service name, description, SKU, pricing information and pricing history. Some CPQ solutions also allow product
managers to upload data sheets, pictures and or video clips. Product catalogs can become very complex
tools, allowing organizations to define a nested catalog hierarchy,
relationships between products, product code translations for backend billing
systems, access / visibility rights, and more.
As a Salesforce.com Administrator, you’ll want to carefully review how
the CPQ product catalog integrates with Salesforce.com Products and Pricebooks. Both are critical areas if you want to take
full advantage of Salesforce Opportunity and Quote management features. The
best solutions advise users on related products, provide price comparison
services, and integrate directly with enterprise resource planning (ERP)
systems.
Product Configurator:
You want your sales team selling, not getting mired down in the complex
array of currently available product bundles and promotional offers. Product configurators are tools that the
Sales team use to customize bundles of product offerings accurately and
quickly. The best CPQ solutions feature
configurators that hide the complexity of your service bundle and product
offerings. Rules management features allow
product managers to define product relationships and bundling rules, which
ensure deals are built and priced correctly.
Needs Analysis / Guided Selling: Advanced CPQ solutions feature tools that guide
the ustomer, partner or sales user to
see related products / offerings, see automatic discounts or promotions they
may be eligible for. It allows them to
compare similar product offerings side by side, or alerts them to current
promotions.
Quotes / Proposals Generator: When you start descending into your CPQ
vendor selection process, you’ll find that most CPQ vendors have a stand alone
solution – which allows for all product configuration, pricing, proposals,
approvals and quote management to be done in their platform – a full SFA
solution. Optionally, they may also
provide some integration with the CRM platform of your choosing. Rich quoting tools will feature extensions,
like selectable cover letters, product details, a “first bill” snapshot (for
subscription models), terms & conditions, electronic signature integration
(DocuSign, eSign, TurboSignature). They
may also include workflow rules to automate the approval process, if needed.
When Do You Need CPQ?
If you answer yes to one or more of these questions, chances
are you need a CPQ solution:
- Our current configurations and price rules are scattered
across multiple documents – and finding them is slowing your sales team down
- Our Sales team submit orders with invalid configurations
or incompatible products; correcting these is costly
- Orders are submitted with incorrect pricing for the
selected configuration
- Our Sales team frequently submit orders using expired /
discontinued promos or products
- The process of rolling out a new promotion is extremely complex,
time-consuming and prone-to-error
- Our product configurations / bundles are so complex, we
can’t allow customers to order products over the web
CPQ Vendors
(Salesforce.com Certified)
Looking to learn more about CPQ solutions? The following vendors have CPQ solutions that
integrate to some level with Salesforce.com:
- Apttus
- FPX
Other CPQ Vendors
- CRMantra
