10 Signs It’s Time to Implement a CPQ Solution
As more customers want customized product options, the complexities of the sales, design, and manufacturing processes increase. Businesses often face several challenges, from managing complex pricing strategies to accurately and quickly customizing quotes and efficiently designing and manufacturing custom products. If your business is facing these challenges, it might be time to look at implementing a Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) solution to streamline your sales, design, and production processes.
Here are 10 signs that indicate your business could benefit from implementing a CPQ solution:
1. Increasing Complexity in Quoting Processes
As the number of different customized options that you offer increases, so does the complexity of generating quotes. Manual quoting processes become slow and quote error rates increase, especially when dealing with lots of different product configurations and pricing options. CPQ solutions streamline and automate the quoting process using customized rules and pricing.
2. Inconsistent Pricing and Quoting Errors
Inaccurate quotes can lead to lost sales opportunities and damage your brand image and customer satisfaction levels. If you’re seeing inconsistencies in pricing or frequent quoting errors, it’s a sign that you need to review your quoting process. CPQ solutions automatically deliver accurate pricing from pre-set rules, removing the need for manual calculations.
3. Lengthy Sales Cycles and Quote Turnaround Times
Delays in generating quotes can frustrate both sales teams and customers, increasing the length of your sales cycle and potentially causing deals to fall through. A CPQ solution can automate and speed up the quoting process, reducing quote turnaround times and shortening sales cycles.
4. High Volume of Customization Requests
Customers increasingly expect highly customized products tailored to their unique requirements. Handling a high volume of customization requests manually can overwhelm sales, design, and production teams. CPQ solutions enable sales reps to sell customized products using 3D product configurators with in-built pricing rules. CPQ for Manufacturing solutions automatically produce 3D models, drawings, and BOMs, freeing up engineering design teams and streamlining the production process.
5. Difficulty in Managing Discounts and Promotions
Managing discounts, promotions, and pricing rules manually can lead to inconsistencies and loss of revenue. CPQ tools use a pre-determined set of pricing and discount rules that automate the discounting process, ensuring products are correctly priced and margins are maximized.
6. Lack of Scalability in Quoting Processes
As your business grows, traditional quoting methods may struggle to keep pace with the increasing demand. CPQ solutions are scalable, allowing you to start small and then handle growing quote volumes without compromising efficiency or accuracy.
7. Rising Sales Team Frustration and Disengagement
Slow and complicated quoting processes can be demotivating for sales teams, leading to disengagement and reduced productivity. Implementing a CPQ solution automates the production of accurate quotes, freeing up time for sales reps to focus on building customer relationships and closing deals.
8. Poor Customer Satisfaction
Inaccurate or delayed quotes can impact sales, damage your brand reputation, and lead to poor customer satisfaction. By implementing CPQ technology, you can deliver accurate quotes quickly, enabling an improved customer buying experience and increased overall customer satisfaction.
9. Challenges in Aligning Sales, Design & Production Efforts
Disconnected sales, design, and production processes can lead to inefficiencies and communication gaps. CPQ software enables seamless collaboration between teams, delivering efficiencies across the entire quote-to-cash cycle.
10. Increased Manufacturing Errors
Manufacturing errors can lead to product defects, increased costs, and damage to brand reputation. CPQ for Manufacturing (CPQM) solutions enable manufacturers to streamline the manufacturing processes for products with multiple configuration options, reducing error rates and improving production efficiencies.
The Benefits of CPQ
According to research from PWC, companies that have a CPQ tool report significant improvements in key business metrics across the sales lifecycle.
DriveWorks CPQ for Manufacturing software enables you to build and manage your own custom configure, price, quote solution that automatically generates documents and data for sales and manufacturing.
Read our recent blog to learn more about the key benefits of CPQ
Learn more about Creating a CPQ Solution Using DriveWorks
Upcoming Webinar – Introduction to Creating a CPQ Solution Using DriveWorks
26th March 2024 @ 3pm GMT and 27th March @ 1pm AEDT
Join this webinar to find out more about using DriveWorks to create a CPQ solution for your organization. Our product experts will share their knowledge and give you an introduction to DriveWorks CPQ.
Join Us at DriveWorks World 2024 to Learn More About CPQ
Have you registered for DriveWorks World 2024? DriveWorks World is a value-added virtual event, hosted by DriveWorks experts. It’s a celebration of innovation, knowledge sharing, and technical expertise free for DriveWorks Customers with Active Subscription, Resellers, and Partners to attend. Our team of DriveWorks Technical Experts will be hosting a number of sessions designed to explain how CPQ can enable you to improve your key business metrics.
