NEW YORK CITY—SEPTEMBER 24, 2018—Equiteq and Simplus announced today the release of The Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) Industry Guide 2018, which is the most comprehensive, publicly available study of the CPQ industry and investment within the space. The guide provides exclusive perspectives on the latest CPQ trends transforming customer experience for businesses and driving investment in solution providers.

CPQ software tools are a crucial component of creating a tailored sales experience for businesses across industries. Advances in cloud computing, machine learning and the ability to automate the process, particularly for subscription-based sales, creates significant growth in return on investment for customers.

The latest CPQ solutions enable businesses to:

• Increase productivity of sales and back office functions by automating much of the sale process
• Optimize quotes and discounting to improve profit margins
• Increase revenue by guiding sales staff to opportunities for cross-selling complementary products and services
• Create efficient, accurate and tailored sales processes that improve the sales experience, thus enhancing the seller’s brand, conversion ratio and repeat business
• Streamline processes and ensure sales are meeting company policies and regulatory requirements

In Gartner’s recent Magic Quadrant for Configure, Price and Quote Application Suites they provided a comprehensive evaluation of 11 CPQ software vendors’ products. The CPQ Industry Guide 2018 analyzes the following vendors Gartner highlighted as leaders: Salesforce, Apttus and Oracle. It also provides a review of CallidusCloud, a visionary recently acquired by SAP for $2.4 billion in the largest acquisition within the space.

 

Private investments in CPQ solution businesses

Source: Equiteq Analysis (June 2018)

Note: Founding year is the year the respective invested in the company was founded. Each node represents a company in the CPQ software and services market. Each node is colored according to its respective country headquarters and its size represent its relevance to CPQ from an analysis of its business description using Natural Language Processing technology powered by Quid.

As illustrated in the diagram, private investments in businesses offering CPQ software solutions have grown in the last 10 years. Private investments are investments of private capital and exclude mergers and acquisitions or strategic minority acquisitions. More recently, investments outside of the United States have become more common. As the market has matured, sizable mergers and acquisitions transactions of established CPQ software businesses have also occurred.

The report details a variety of deals in the space, including SAP’s recent acquisition of Callidus Software, Salesforce’s acquisition of SteelBrick in 2016 and Oracle’s acquisition of BigMachines in 2013. Consulting businesses with expertise in advising firms in their assessment and implementation of the latest CPQ solutions have benefited from the growth of CPQ product adoption. The report looks at the various consulting acquisitions that have occurred in the market, including those by the major consolidator Simplus.

As we approach the end of 2018, the emerging CPQ trends identified and discussed in the report include:

• The rising demand for solutions using the latest artificial intelligence technologies
• The development of new self-service options
• Low-touch or no-touch fulfilment and invoicing processes
• Multi-cloud approaches to new solutions

CPQ remains one of the most exciting spaces disrupting customer experience. The expected growth in the CPQ market is huge, presenting opportunities for value creation among:

• Investment firms considering deploying capital in new software or services firms in the space;
• Consulting firms considering adding new relevant skills via hiring initiatives, acquisitions or partnerships to meet untapped client demand; and
• Companies considering investing in the latest solutions to enable efficiencies and improve their clients’ sales experience.

 

About Equiteq

Equiteq is the global leader in providing strategic advisory and merger and acquisition services to owners of IP-rich technology and services businesses.

There are unique challenges to value growth and equity realization for shareholders and investors in the knowledge economy. Equiteq helps owners of knowledge-intensive services businesses transform equity value and realize maximum value through global transaction execution. For more information, please contact us at [email protected] or visit https://www.equiteq.com

 

About Simplus

Simplus is a Platinum Salesforce Partner and provider of Quote-to-Cash implementations. We provide enterprise-wide digital transformation through advisory, implementation, change management, custom configuration, and managed services. Guided by the mantra, “success simplified,” we use leading cloud solutions to help companies achieve a strategic vision, improve performance, and increase value to stakeholders. With more than 2000 projects and a high customer satisfaction rating, Simplus helps companies improve, innovate, and grow. For more information, please visit https://www.simplus.com.