To make sure your Configure-Price-Quote (or larger Sales) Transformation investment gets the desired results you should pay close attention to the following three  Change Management tasks.  This is critical because a CPQ process and tool is meant to be used by people! It may be people from your Sales Teams, people from your Channel Partners or your Customers. Every person has different needs and different expectations and if you want to reach your CPQ goals, you better listen to your different user groups (people) closely when the CPQ Transformation efforts starts. Industry Leading companies do it and so should you.

While it may be tempting to not fully embrace the importance of Change Management (e.g. we have more important things to do, we currently don’t have anyone available to do that, we use a junior person, we do not have a budget for that task) be aware that it will definitely impact the success of your CPQ Transformation!  Just keep in mind that without the adoption (by people) of your CPQ solution even the best CPQ solution won’t get you the results you are looking for.

Here are the 3 critical steps I suggest you follow

1. Appoint a full-time Change Management Lead at the beginning of your CPQ Transformation effort!  This should be a senior person with a large leadership network within your company. That person should be the Change Lead throughout your CPQ Transformation. Resources from Consulting Companies may be involved (full time or part time) to ensure the latest Change Management Best Practices and Techniques are used. The Change Management Lead should have the following tasks

  • Engage with Senior Executives. To do this effectively the Change Lead needs to have
    • access to your Senior Leaders
    • credibility with your Senior Leaders and
    • effectively communicate with your Senior Leaders
  • Reach Buy in for changes. To do this effectively the Change Lead needs to be a good negotiator. Check these books* (see * below text) for more Info
  • Ensure required Resources are available and get involved. To do this effectively the Change Lead needs to know what changes and who is impacted by these changes (see also point 3 below)
  • Communication Plan – Different people prefer different ways of communication (e.g. email, F2F, Phone). Executives may only have 10 minutes to see a high level summary of status and action items whereas Technical Specialists may have 30 minutes and want to dive into solution details. Determine what is appropriate for your CPQ Transformation effort. Think about your audience and the information they are interested in once, at the beginning of the transformation effort, and make your communication plan. Adjust the communication plan as needed when the project is executed.
  • Get the Organization ready for the CPQ changes. To do this effectively the Change Lead needs to understand the impact of a change, who is affected by a change and how these people are affected by this change. (see point 3 below)

2. Engage the following teams at the beginning of your CPQ Transformation effort!

  • Sales
  • Sales Operations
  • Product Management
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Legal
  • IT
  • If applicable: Channel Partner Management Team

Setup a kick-off meeting to tell all stakeholders what you plan to do and how you plan to do it. Ensure you have regular one-on-one meetings with your key stakeholders as well as regular meetings with all stakeholders. Find out how each stakeholder prefers to communicate and use that information for the Communication Plan.

3. Prepare a Change Management Plan**. Choose the file format that works best for you (e.g. Excel, Word, PowerPoint etc) and make sure the following areas are addressed

  • Setup a basic Change Management Process (e.g. clarify the process to submit and approve change requests).
  • Setup additional change plans like e.g. how you plan to rollout a solution in a production environment, how you plan to train all your users (internal and external). Also clarify what happens if things don’t work out as planned? A contingency plan is probably needed
  • Do a Change Impact Analysis – This determines
    • what business processes are impacted with your change
    • what roles are impacted
    • how many people are impacted
    • If skills need to change
    • If a location change may be necessary
    • what type of change you have (e.g. people, process, data, policy)

Good Change Management will have a decisive impact to your CPQ Transformation so make sure you pay attention to it! This blog post is obviously too short to cover the whole topic sufficiently so I suggest you check at least the resources below and/or contact us for more information.

* Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Robert B. Cialdini) / Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Roger Fisher and William L. Ury)

** Change Management Plan

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_96.htm

https://www.pmi.org/learning/~/media/PDF/Knowledge%20Center/BusImpact_analysis_wp_v3.ashx