When custom becomes commercial

How to turn complexity into profitability

Traditional manufacturing processes for custom products can quickly become complex, leading to bottlenecks and errors in design and sales processes. The resulting impact is lost sales and lower profitability. B2B buyers expect fast, accurate quotes, and manufacturers who can’t deliver will lose deals to their more commercial competitors.

However, manufacturing custom products doesn’t have to mean lower profit margins. Implementing a CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) for manufacturing solution enables businesses to manage complex custom configurations without compromising accuracy, efficiency, or profitability.

1. Faster response times

Sales teams and distributors can spend too long generating quotes for custom products. Slow quote turnaround times result in lost sales opportunities. CPQ automatically generates quotes in minutes so salespeople can configure products, apply pricing, and generate accurate quotes in real-time. Automatic quote generation enables faster quote turnaround times, leading to improved customer experience and increased sales.

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2. Accurate pricing

Whether you’re selling custom machinery, HVAC products, or materials handling equipment, you probably have complex pricing models, often managed across multiple spreadsheets. CPQ automates the entire pricing process using predefined rules. Even the most complex pricing models, such as volume-based discounts, regional pricing, and bundle offers, can be accurately applied. This enables manufacturers to optimize pricing strategies in real time and protect margins.

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3. Complexity made easy

Manually configuring custom products can be challenging. The risk of configuring products that are incompatible or unmanufacturable is high, leading to poor customer experience and lost deals. CPQ makes it easy to configure complex custom products. Guided selling features support sales teams and online buyers through the configuration process, ensuring only valid configuration options are chosen. Appropriate add-on and cross-sell opportunities are easily identified, resulting in a higher average deal size.

4. Integration for smarter data-driven decisions

Disconnected business systems can make it difficult to analyze data on custom products. CPQ integrates seamlessly with core business systems such as CRM and ERP, creating a single, connected source of truth across sales, finance, and operations. This integration provides actionable insights into quote performance, margin trends, and sales productivity, enabling teams to identify inefficiencies and optimize processes for maximum commercial outcomes.