Did you come to realise that your company is wasting a lot of your time in creating sales quotes using some indigenous tools or Word or Excel and now you are ready to find the best CPQ (Configuration, Price, Quote)? Good. Let’s talk.
You would want to get ROI soon. And that is not just about getting it in time, but also without running over the budget and without getting stuck into any wrong software.
Salesforce CPQ(configure, price, quote) solutions help companies automate their sales processes. CPQ products allow companies to determine their customer’s needs and provide them with custom quotes on complex orders. With CPQ products, sales representatives can easily identify and qualify customer and services they are interested in. Sales representatives can send them and deliver quotes in an automated process. CPQ Salesforce integration Solutions offer a streamlined format so that sales representatives can provide multiple quotes quickly. Most importantly they can keep track of steps exactly like what they quoted, to whom they quoted, and what next steps will be followed, rather easily.
The configurator and quotation software helps in accelerating the sales process, therefore, improving accuracy and customer relations. Salesforce CPQ Solutions are typically built on existing CRM software or can be integrated with one or more CRM tool.
A- Deciding For The Right Salesforce CPQ
You must start with an RFI first, therefore you must look for parameters which can help you in deciding potential CPQ vendor:
- 1: Does your Salesforce CPQ solution provide you with detailed data about all costs versus benefits of their CPQ solution? Also, ensure that your sales metrics is accurately measured before and after implementing CPQ.
- 2: Find out whether your CPQ Solution is integrated with CRM, Salesforce or ERP systems.
- 3: Ensure that your CPQ solution supports all different types of marketing and sales content and will they be in a structured format so that they can be easily accessible?
- 4: Is your CPQ solution available on mobile devices? As businesses are moving faster with mobile devices, therefore, it is imperative for sales reps to have an access to data from their smartphone or tablet.
- 5: Do your Salesforce CPQ Solutions function offline? Your CPQ must work offline so that sales reps have the ability to work from anywhere.
B- Knowing Some CPQ Products
B1: Apttus-
Apttus Quote-to-Cash is the only full suite of CPQ-CLM-Billing tools which is native to the Salesforce platform. This suite is built on Salesforce which is considered as world’s most scalable and secured enterprise cloud platform. It comes with a value added feature and an innovation like advanced analytics applications, mobile support, hence ability to run business in multiple currencies and languages. Apttus Quote-to-Cash suite which is offered by Apttus Intelligent Cloud is best-in-class and is a trusted by leading global brands which drive them optimal business outcomes. It can be used stand-alone or in conjunction with some contract management and Excel plugin toolkits which allow users to use Salesforce from beginning till end. It can be used stand-alone or in conjunction with their guided selling.
B2: SteelBrick-
SteelBrick CPQ helps reducing quote errors, managing proposals and close deals in Sales Cloud. It ensures pricing and quoting accuracy and hence streamlines configuration. SteelBrick gives its users an ability to manage customer lifecycle, right from building a quote through billing and renewals. Users enjoy same interface, reliability, security and scalability as that of Salesforce as SteelBrick is now Salesforce. SteelBrick helps sales reps in selecting right products and services for each customer every time. It allows the easy and accurate building of customer-friendly quotes. Also, ensures consistent pricing and discounting. With customizable templates, you can automatically include right collateral and integrate eSignature which makes it easy for customers to buy. SteelBrick automates the invoicing process, creates and manages subscriptions.
B3: PROS Cameleon CPQ-
Cameleon CPQ software integrates tightly with your CRM and ERP solutions, therefore helping in automating the entire Quote-to-Order process. It works perfectly with all sales channels including direct sales, e-commerce websites, and resellers. With Cameleon pricing guidelines, accurate orders and proposals can be created to meet the needs of each client. Multi-channel selling feature of Cameleon CPQ allows your partners to generate proposals through a dedicated portal. This software product enables real-time management of rules and options in order to maintain consistency across all your documents.
B4: Oracle Express CPQ-
Oracle BigMachines Express CPQ is designed for midsized businesses and is built purely on Salesforce platform. Oracle BigMachines Express CPQ Cloud Service is quite fast to deploy, familiar to both sales reps and administrators and easy to maintain. Oracle Express CPQ is an intuitive configure, price, quote and renew solution which is designed primarily for growing business. Whether you are selling through direct sales teams or channel partners, the Oracle Express CPQ transforms your sales process which helps in selling faster, easier and with great accuracy. This product is ideal for organizations which need an intelligent way of selecting the right products and price them accurately, streamlining renewals and creating proposals immediately. Oracle BigMachines Express CPQ allows selling faster with shorter sales cycles. The product allows spending more time in selling and less time in processing orders while eliminating order entry errors. Using Oracle BigMachine Express CPQ you can easily copy and paste pricing rules directly from Excel. The product allows quick and easy modification as business needs changes.
B5: CallidusCloud CPQ-
CallidusCloud CPQ comprises of deal and commission maximizer tools which encourage sales reps to sell what’s right for the customer, the business and themselves. This product does lot more than just automating the quote and proposal process. CallidusCloud CPQ offers System Admins who can set rules to suggest certain products and reconfigure the quote. CallidusCloud suite of products can make your quoting and selling process faster, cheaper and simpler. It comprises of CPQ, sales enablement, commission management and marketing automation CallidusCloud CPQ eliminates product selection and pricing errors, creates winning proposals, shortens the sales cycle through electronic approvals, boost sales through collaborative selling. It helps in creating more and better quotes, increasing winning percentage and finding out average quote and order size.
Are you ready?
Of course choosing the right Salesforce CPQ Solution is in itself a critical task and involves a lot of precision and high profile detailed analysis. The suitable CPQ Software product for your enterprise is determined by customer satisfaction which is based on user reviews and scaling which can be gauged based on market share, social impact, and vendor size. Therefore, companies need to carefully consider their business requirements before committing to a CPQ. Professional consultation is highly recommended, and yes, we provide consultation services on the subject ourselves here at Algoworks. 🙂
References: steelbrick, g2crowd, apparound, salesforce appexchange, getapp, salesforce
Ajeet Singh
