The Ultimate Guide to CPQ – Definition, Strategies and Benefits

In this article by Thrudur Starradottir, Consultant at Vendavo, explore the power of CPQ software to revolutionize your sales process. Learn what CPQ is, how it works, and the unparalleled benefits that sophisticated CPQ software can bring to your business. 

What is CPQ? 

CPQ stands for Configure, Price, Quote. It is a software system used by businesses to automate and streamline their sales processes. The software is designed to help sales teams quickly create accurate quotes and proposals for complex products and services.  

CPQ is built on 3 building blocks, Configure, Price and Quote. 

• Configure: Find the right products for your customer, in the right combination 
• Price: Get the correct price for your customer, for the configured products or combination of products 
• Quote: Generate a quote including the configured products, at the correct price, in a timely manner 

What is a CPQ Software Solution? 

CPQ systems simplify the process of generating customer quotes and makes them more effective. CPQ systems are particularly useful for businesses that sell customized or configurable products, as they can help ensure that the products are built to the customer’s exact specifications and that the prices quoted are accurate and competitive. CPQ software can also help sales teams manage pricing and discounting, track sales performance, and improve the overall efficiency of their sales processes. Overall, CPQ systems can provide significant benefits to businesses by reducing the time and resources required to create quotes, increasing sales effectiveness, and improving customer satisfaction through faster and more accurate delivery of quotes and proposals.  

What Systems Does CPQ Integrate With? 

CPQ software is usually an extension to your existing Customer Relationship Management platform, giving the software access to key details on your customers.  

In addition, CPQ systems have the potential to integrate with other systems, such as CRM, ERP, and e-commerce platforms. This integration enables businesses to automate their entire sales cycle, from lead generation to order fulfillment. CPQ solutions can also be integrated with pricing optimization software, which allows businesses to create dynamic pricing models that are optimized for maximum profitability.  

By integrating CPQ with other systems, businesses can improve their operational efficiency, reduce errors, and improve their overall customer experience. Additionally, integration can provide a single source of truth for all sales data, allowing businesses to make more informed decisions based on real-time insights. 

Vendavo Intelligent CPQ helps you increase sales productivity and win rates while delivering an improved customer experience. Companies who use the CPQ system have seen reduced quote iterations, customer churn decreases, and increased win rates.  

How CPQ Works – An Example 

To paint the picture of how CPQ actually works, I will use an example. The company using this CPQ solution is a manufacturer of heavy trucks that operates globally. They have multiple sales teams, of different sizes, working regionally.  

When CPQ software is available to their sales teams, the sales reps can open the software on any device. When they start engaging with a customer, they can find their customer and start to create a quote directly. Depending on the choice of integration, the customer data can be pulled directly from the CRM, or it can exist in CPQ. Any key attributes of the customer, channel, organization, segment, size, etc. that could have an impact on either the products or prices they might get, are made available in the data. 

The CPQ will then guide the sales rep through the product selection. Here things can be controlled in large part through the data. If products should be made available only for a specific type of customer, the data can be set up accordingly. The guide can accurately take the sales rep through finding the products and provide any further information necessary to the user.  

Once all products have been added as a configuration, the sales rep will get the appropriate prices for the selected products. The price structure can be complicated, and can depend on combinations made within the quote, customer attributes of the customer, and so on. Having the prices available in the system makes it clear what the suggested target price is, and can even include the approved minimum and maximum prices are for the products. The sales rep can here negotiate the details of the quote with the customer until a common agreement has been reached. The quote can then be generated with any other terms and conditions that may apply, and sent over to the customer. 

As economic uncertainty persists, organizations are looking for ways to navigate the challenging business climate and lean into proven profitability improvement measures. One strategy growing in favor for sales and executive teams is the ability to quickly generate accurate, optimized quotes across digital commerce sales channels.”

–Bruno Slosse, ceo at vendavo

Benefits of CPQ Software 

As your company expands and your customer base grows, the task of catering to each of your customer’s unique needs becomes increasingly complex. Sales representatives face the challenge of efficiently accessing and utilizing a wealth of information to generate the most effective quotes. To address this issue, businesses can turn to Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) software like Vendavo Intelligent CPQ. 

By leveraging CPQ software, you gain access to extensive databases capable of swiftly consolidating relevant data. This eliminates the potential for human error while significantly reducing the time required for information retrieval. 

Additionally, CPQ software ensures access to real-time pricing and other crucial variables, enabling sales teams to generate optimal quotes tailored to individual clients’ specific requirements, regardless of the moment in time. Here are a few additional benefits of introducing a CPQ system into your organization: 

Reduce Time-To-Quote 

Including a CPQ system in the sales process will increase efficiency within your teams. Referring to a single source of data will limit unnecessary overhead and administrative tasks. Most of the time, the quickest quote wins, so reducing the time-to-quote can be of high value. Create an environment and process that allows your sales team to focus the majority of their time on what they are good at: selling and adding value. 

Easily Onboard New Sales Reps 

Growing the sales team can be a challenging task when the products sold are complex. By using CPQ software, your sales reps can be onboarded more efficiently as less “by heart” knowledge is required, and the system will guide new users through making the best recommendations to their specific customers. 

Single Source of Truth 

Gathering quotes from individual spreadsheets is difficult and time consuming. When you have a single systems in place that pulls together the data from the suggested list price to the quoted price, you save time and reduce human error. . CPQ provides a central location of this data, which can then be utilized to identify leakage in the price waterfall and increase the accuracy of the quotes sent out.

Execute on Your Pricing Strategy 

Include better pricing guidance for the sales reps to capture the price as per the set pricing strategy. Set clear structure on the discounts that may be used, as well as a target price including a floor and ceiling price. What use is setting a great pricing strategy, if it is not executed? 

Better User Interface  

People are increasingly used to the experience of shopping online as B2C consumers. Those preferences are driving up expectations in B2B as well. Making quoting more intuitive for users will increase efficiency and satisfaction. 

Top CPQ Capabilities 

A modern CPQ solution should improve every aspect of the product configuration process, leading to shorter sales quoting cycles and better ROI for every quote. Not just today, but long into the future.  

The following five capabilities will help ensure the CPQ solution you put in place today can continue to meet your needs as your business continues to grow and evolve: 

1. Easy-to-use intuitive administration – Your CPQ software should be simple to use and require minimal training to master.  

2. Extensibility through simple API – Your CPQ software should be flexible and easily integrate with your CRM, ERP, and other systems. 

3. Programmatic document generation – A modern CPQ solution should have document generation capabilities that make it quick and easy for your sales team to create professional, complete, and accurate proposals – so they can get back to landing more deals, at better margins. 

4. Real-time pricing automation – Your CPQ should include a pricing tool that provides accurate, real-time pricing and product information during the quoting process, including multi-currency transactions and cross-sell. The rules engine should be flexible and adaptable. And it should be able to handle things like product groupings, discount constraints, and role-based pricing. 

5. Multi-organizational quoting – Your CPQ software should share product catalogs. With multi-organizational quoting, a sales rep from one division can source product from multiple divisions, configure everything quickly and accurately, and provide the buyer with a single, consolidated proposal. 

6. Agnostic and flexible – B2B sellers will need to think through the technology requirements that will power emerging new selling capabilities and channels. You’ll need to recognize the difference between flexible, agnostic CPQ solutions that will serve them well in all channels, and other systems that that will put limits on your abilities.

You can learn more about the top capabilities to look for in a CPQ here.  

Choosing a CPQ solution 

When it comes to choosing a CPQ solution for your manufacturing or distribution business, it’s critical to approach the decision-making process with care and thoroughness. Selecting the right CPQ solution can significantly impact your company’s efficiency, profitability, and customer experience. 

To ensure you make an informed choice, we recommend that you consult trusted industry analysts like Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and others. These analysts provide comprehensive evaluations of CPQ solutions, offering valuable insights into their capabilities, market presence, and customer feedback. Their reports can serve as a guide to understanding the strengths and weaknesses of various CPQ vendors. 

While evaluating different CPQ vendors, it’s essential to assess your unique business requirements like your industry, product complexity, sales process, and integration needs. Look for a CPQ solution that can seamlessly adapt to your specific business workflows and enhance your sales effectiveness. 

One CPQ solution that consistently stands out in the market is Vendavo Intelligent CPQ. It has gained recognition for its advanced features, intuitive user interface, and proven track record of driving sales efficiency and profitability for manufacturers and distributors. By leveraging intelligent pricing guidance, product configuration capabilities, and streamlined quote generation, Vendavo Intelligent CPQ enables businesses to optimize their pricing strategies and deliver exceptional customer experiences.  

How Vendavo Customers Drive Success with Intelligent CPQ 

The value you see after implementing CPQ software will differ depending on your industry and your organization’s unique objectives for CPQ. From reduced Time-To-Quote, to generally more accurate pricing and quoting, and better control and visibility of the price getting, CPQ has plenty of benefits to offer you. Hundreds of manufacturers and distributors have seen success with Vendavo Intelligent CPQ. Here are just three of their stories:  

How Dynapac Drove Faster Proposals and Higher Margins

---

Complex Quotes Under 2 Hours for Silverpoint Homes

---

How Dell Optimized Pricing

---

Are you looking for similar results as Dynapac, Silverpoint Homes, and Dell? By assessing the financial impact of implementing a CPQ solution, you can make informed decisions about the potential benefits.  

To help you calculate the ROI specifically for your organization, Vendavo offers a user-friendly ROI calculator. This tool takes into account various factors such as increased sales productivity, reduced quoting errors, and improved pricing accuracy.  

By inputting your specific metrics, the calculator provides an estimate of the ROI you can expect from implementing Vendavo’s CPQ solution. Use Vendavo’s ROI calculator to gain valuable insights into the potential financial gains of your CPQ investment. 

---

Summary and Key Takeaways 

You could see unparalleled value by implementing a CPQ system in your organization. I highly encourage you to start looking at and mapping out the sales process. Chances are, there is great room for improvement where a CPQ solution might be the right fit.  

If you want to get the full value of a good pricing strategy, where the appropriate price is set, you must also have the process and systems in place to get the right price from your customers. This is achieved by helping and guiding your sales teams and optimize the quoting process. 

• CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) software automates and streamlines sales processes, helping sales teams create accurate quotes and proposals for complex products and services. 
• Benefits of CPQ software include reduced time-to-quote, improved sales team efficiency, better onboarding of new sales reps, centralized data management, execution of pricing strategies, enhance user interface, and more 
• Top CPQ capabilities to consider include easy-to-use administration, seamless integration with CRM and other systems, programmatic document generation, real-time pricing automation, and multi-organizational quoting. You can read more about top capabilities here. 
• When choosing a CPQ solution, consult trusted industry analysts like Gartner and Forrester for evaluations and insights into different vendors. 
• Vendavo Intelligent CPQ is recognized for its advanced features, intuitive user interface, and proven track record in driving sales efficiency and profitability for manufacturers and distributors.