Is your CPQ system less effective than what you first expected but you can’t put your finger on why? Are you keeping up with the market or being left stuck in the mud?
Here are some signs it might be time to reconsider and repurpose your current CPQ system:
Is your quoting process still extremely time-consuming? – How long does it take for you to send out quotes today? Hours? Days? Months? It’s important to remember when your system was implemented getting quotes out quicker and more efficiently was probably one of the biggest business cases for implementing your CPQ system. Are you reaping the benefits of an efficient quoting process and providing quotes to potential customers to ensure deals can be signed quickly and efficiently? An archetypal, robust CPQ tool that has all the advanced functions to help you create and release quotes, can help you achieve accurate, optimal quotes faster. It’s common knowledge that a shortened quoting process allows for deals to be completed quicker and, in the long-term, generate more revenue from deals.
Are you still stuck using spreadsheets and is spreadsheet use growing? – Spreadsheets should be long gone. Essentially because we have realized that there’s a better, easier, and more efficient way to execute manual processes. Reverting back to manual processes and the dreaded boomerang spreadsheets puts an organization at risk of making costly errors and mistakes that damage revenues and customer relationships. A CPQ system allows you to maximize your own and your colleagues’ productivity. A CPQ system is designed to cater to pricing configurations effortlessly. If you are in fact still battling with manual configurations, it’s a clear sign your CPQ system needs to be re-evaluated as you’re certainly not getting the most of it.
You shouldn’t be, but are you still signing bad deals? – These are the deals that often keep Finance, Delivery, Sales Operations, Product Management, CEO, up at night. But why sign bad deals when you can very easily shake hands on great ones? A quote-to-cash system that integrates well with other essential systems such as Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce CRM empowers decision-makers to identify and sign good deals, that are profitable, correctly configured, and that work. With highly accurate quotes that are sent out in a timely fashion, in the shape of attractive, well-designed proposals, there’s really no reason you won’t be able to get deals across the line.
Is your Finance team still taking weeks to decide on investments? – If so, you need fast deal modeling. The world has evolved and so have the customers’ needs. They now want your solution as a service. This means that you must quickly model the business case and cost structure to assess the cost and accretive opportunity for your organization. Unfortunately, this dynamic modeling is hard to do, and so, is seldom executed. A good quote-to-cash system should be able to help you quickly assess the deal. Adapting to the changing business environment and consistently supporting your finance department is key in making crucial decisions regarding investments.
Are you still relying on “cut and paste” tools in conventional programs like MS Office? – The practice of cutting and pasting can unequivocally introduce a multitude of errors, accompanied by the continued need to re-key; which is exhausting, for resources both human and, coincidentally, financial. This time-consuming, error-prone process can cost you a great deal (pun intended). Errors from cut and paste have, in the past, cost super large businesses between $24 million to $6 billion – you read that right. The solution? Fully automated proposal generation that will give you the freedom to design and customize your proposals and reports as you see fit, all the while ridding you of the pain that is “cut and paste”.
If this sounds like your organization it’s time to re-invest in your existing platform or think about switching to another. If this does not sound like your organization, keep up the good work and continue to reinforce and invest in your platform; remember this is vital because the market and customers are constantly changing and your system must be agile in order to keep up. So, should you stay or should you go?
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