You sell complex products? Do you need a lot of time to prepare offers?
Then SAP CPQ could be just right for you.
CPQ stands for Configure, Price, Quote and supports employees in sales in creating quotations.
The reason for us to take a closer look at this tool was a webinar in October from SAP. The tool was presented on the basis of the use case of the introduction of SAP CPQ at Bizerba by Valantic. Speakers of the webinar were the head of software development at Bizerba and a solution architect from Valantic.
In this paper we will give you an overview of the main functions of SAP CPQ and their possible influence on the customer experience.
For which companies is SAP CPQ suitable?
SAP CPQ, like other product configurators, is particularly suitable for companies that have to put together relatively complex offers.
What is SAP CPQ?
SAP CPQ is part of the SAP sales cloud portfolio, formerly CallidusCloud.
The SAP sales cloud portfolio, in turn, is one of the five cloud solution portfolios that make up the SAP C/4HANA Suite, which supports CRM and customer experience.
SAP CPQ is designed to provide customers with the right product at the right price at the right time and to support sales representatives, channel partners and customers.
Functions of SAP CPQ
- Calculation of complex offers
- Guided selling for sales
- Definition of different product categories and subcategories possible
- Integration of multiple price books and currencies
- Support of 30 languages
- Distinction of markets
- Margin display
- Automated approvals, workflow and reporting
- Offer preparation
- Available in the most common formats
- Creation of own templates with cover sheet, table of contents, terms of payment, …
- Individual adaptation of the offers possible
- Support by artificial intelligence and machine learning
Integrations
According to the manufacturer, SAP CPQ can be connected to any CRM and ERP system.
Costs
Since SAP CPQ is part of the SAP Sales Cloud, the tool is also offered as Software-as-a-Service in the cloud. The price is based on the number of users. However, an offer must be requested individually.
Video from SAP with a view of the SAP CPQ system interface
In the following video from SAP, short excerpts from the system interface are shown as well as some advantages:
Possible added value of SAP CPQ
Since SAP CPQ allows uniform processes to be defined for sales and standard tasks of the sales staff to be performed automatically, this can lead to a considerable reduction in the time needed to prepare quotations and to a reduction in the error rate. In other words: the prospective and (potential) customer does not have to wait so long for his offer.
Individual templates can be created for the offers. For example, it is possible to configure special offers for major customers. If every sales employee chooses this “template” for the customer, this leads to uniform offers.
The ability to display margins helps to avoid unprofitable discounts.
In other words, faster delivery of complex offers with clear processes and higher quality also leads to a better customer experience!
References
1. Verizon Connect, a provider of fleet management software
2. Dell, provider of technology solutions
Third Experian:
Conclusion
Product with potential! But as everywhere else, the tool is often not the decisive factor that determines success. Often the sticking points lie in other things like:
- Data quality must be right
- Interfaces must function
- Employees from different departments must work together
- Prerequisites for an implementation must be given
Please read our free ePaper “How to get to your goal more effectively by “dropping the ballast” before introducing software”.
Figure: Section of SAP CPQ product information
Note: This is a machine translation. It is neither 100% complete nor 100% correct. We can therefore not guarantee the result.
