The R word.
The signs are all around us it seems — from large layoffs at tech companies to slowdowns in manufacturing and a potential new round of supply-chain disruptions brought on by pandemics. What is the best course of action when fighting economic headwinds? Should you slash costs? Hire more salespeople to pursue more revenue? The answer is, it depends.
One technology that is addressing the needs of the business executive to lower costs and increase revenue at the same time is CPQ – configure, price, quote.
How does it do that?
How Configure, Price, Quote Saves Resources
On the cost side, savings from CPQ come from a number of factors including: lowering the cost per quote produced (fewer people can do more quotes in less time). Labor costs get lowered.
Also, when rules and constraints are applied, only buildable products make it through to production, which eliminates rework, the cost of wasted materials, and loss of goodwill.
CPQ for Manufacturer Dealer Self-Service
Efficiency also saves resources. Consider the difference between a manufacturers’ dealers depending on the manufacturer to produce all of their quotes vs. a company with CPQ where dealers can self-serve 24/7.
Transforming to become easier to work with, and order from, is one of the needs I hear most often. A good CPQ makes that possible.
CPQ Revenue Generation Platform
On the revenue side the rewards are many faceted. Some of the ways that modern CPQ lifts revenue include: winning the sale faster by winning the speed race to get a quote to your prospect; and increasing the average sales size with suggestive selling, bundling.
Good CPQ is API driven and puts data where you need it — from headless e-commerce to partner portals, BI applications, and order data to your ERP. That opens up omnichannel selling opportunities for those looking to expand.
Guided Selling for Accurate Quotes
CPQ is often thought of as “goof-proofing” the sales process and there is a lot of truth to that. Consider the fact that more people are leaving companies now due to being at retirement age — often taking all that tribal knowledge with them. CPQ can bridge that gap for new employees by giving them a guided selling experience so they get smarter faster on product selection, and configuration. Good CPQ also needs to make selling services and subscriptions easy. Don’t lose the valuable tribal knowledge that has built up, vault it in the cloud and make it available for employees to quote with accuracy.
For me, having sold through bear markets several times now, I am fortunate to have a solution for companies who need to reduce costs AND grow revenue, regardless of the economic climate.
If you want to know more or ask a question, email me at mark.mills@veloceapps.com. And, check out my last blog post on Selecting CPQ Software.
