Partial contracts, bundled pricing, special offers, accurate dates,  attached contracts, renewals, warranties: these are a few of the many factors high-tech must consider with when negotiating a sale. As wonderful as it is, the CRM platform is designed to handle customer relationship information, not sales.

Enter CPQ—a software that helps businesses manage their pricing across a wide array of variables and quickly generate quotes to win business.

What is CPQ and what are its benefits?

C is for Configure:  Or, in other words, customization. Businesses buying your products often want to customize the packages they are investing in. This isn’t exclusive to only the software but includes services and possibly hardware. How do you price differently for 50 licenses vs. 5000? Your high-tech business can configure CPQ with product information and its related offerings, pricing, and terms so that the salesperson creating a quote has this available instantaneously.

P is for Price: Variations in pricing for each product or service are a necessary evil. CPQ allows you to enter earned or custom discounts, volume, and bundled pricing. This flexibility will allow for minimized approvals as standard parameters are set, but provide the field with the opportunity to negotiate where appropriate.

Q is for Quote: This enables the sales rep to quickly develop, present, email, and even electronically sign the quote. Removing the manual processes makes your company easier to do business with and the likelihood of winning the sale. One company that moved to a CPQ software saw the quoting time for a simple sale reduced from 30 minutes down to 5. According to Salesforce, using CPQ correctly can improve sales efficiency by 15%. CPQ helps improve the whole business transaction process, and since it is cloud-based software, a sales rep can access the platform on any device.

How does my high-tech business decide on the appropriate CPQ software?

As with any substantial business investment, extensive homework should be done before purchasing. You will need to consider…

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