Ask These Questions To Assess your CPQ Implementation

All CPQ systems require implementation. Because businesses come in so many flavors and can have complex configuration processes, no CPQ vendor can ensure it fits all needs out of the box. So having a well designed, maintainable and flexible solution that allows businesses to provide personalized sales experience requires implementation effort.
Proper implementation can help increase productivity and close deals faster which in terms will help your business get ahead of the competition by winning more orders.
Poor implementation, on the other hand, can raise frustration and rage of your sales team and cause hidden expenses and ultimately bring down your business.

After several years of CPQ development, we understood that maintaining a consistent application delivers the highest return on investment in long-term. We know that your business changes and adapts to the market every day, and your CPQ solution should do the same to keep the competitive advantage.

There are several things to ask as see if your business is getting the most out of the CPQ implementation:

1. Is my CPQ solution aligned with my business?


2. Is the CPQ system the only tool that salespeople need for quoting?


3. Are employees happy with the quoting process?


4. Can a renewal quote be generated within few clicks?


5. Is the proposal document created automatically without any manual input?

To get into more details of what the implication of each question's answer is let's dissect them one by one.

Is my CPQ solution aligned with my business?

This question asks if you have all your latest products in your configurators, all of your discounts, recommendations and validation rules updated to your latest sale strategy. Your part numbers and SKUs should be up-to-date and match the most recent changes from your suppliers or your internal database.

Is the CPQ system the only tool that salespeople need for quoting?

Whether you decided to go with Salesforce CPQ, Oracle CPQ Cloud, Apttus or any other configure-price-quote solution. It should be the only tool that your salespeople need to quote. It has to ensure accuracy and overall company compliance with pricing, discounts, and a well-defined approval flow. It should free up much time from your sales team so that they can focus on selling more.

Are employees happy with the quoting process?

As with all the software solutions, adoption is critical for your organization to succeed. When your employees are not satisfied with the quoting process, it means there are less likely to use it. It could come to the point where the unmonitored spreadsheets may come back with all the error quotes, unmanaged discounts, refunds, and a lot of unsatisfied clients. Having an easy to use, great looking, user appealing website will ensure that your sales teams use it, and you can capitalize on the benefits of CPQ.

Can a renewal quote be generated within few clicks?

Renewals are an excellent way to maintain a steady income as well as a great indicator of customer happiness level. That's why it is essential to keep the clients happy by making renewals in a timely matter and a no-brainer for your sales staff. If it takes more than 15 min to have a renewal quote ready, that means you are not getting the most out of CPQ Cloud.

Is the proposal document created automatically without any manual input?

Proposal documents creation is one of the main pillars of CPQ, and it should be easy as 1-2-3 for salespeople to Configure, Price, Quote and generate a formalized proposal to the client without having to change or input any data onto the generated document manually.

If all of your answers are YES, then Congratulations you have a well designed and maintained CPQ implementation.

If your answer was NO to any of these questions, you should consider hiring certified CPQ Consultants who can code.

It is imperative to have a great team that can support your current implementation and follows best practices when adjusting your CPQ system to your business needs.