Configure-Price-Quote Software will support recovery from COVID-19

COVID-19 has changed the world including the CPQ World! In the last 6-8 weeks it has become painfully obvious to many companies, large and small, that eCommerce capabilities are no longer optional but mandatory. So, it is fantastic that G2 was kind enough to share some visitor numbers from their website with us, before and after COVID-19 hit. These numbers highlight some very interesting trends!

  1. Sales tools including CPQ, Quote-to-Cash and Pricing tools are seen as interesting solutions to help recover from COVID-19

G2 has seen significant increases to category traffic across the board, including categories of software that support sellers throughout the sales cycle. The increase in people searching for these types of tools indicates that they are aware of a need to digitally transform their sales processes to accommodate the “new normal” of selling remotely. While website-visitor interest will obviously not always translate into action it seems to be good advice to prepare for a surge in demand for CPQ and CPQ related solutions once the peak of the COVID-19 crisis is behind us. This expectation is shared by a handful of CPQ Vendors!

  1. Online offerings are essential!

In times of social distancing it is key to conduct, at least a part of your business online, to keep some revenue. Any CPQ Vendor who does not have that integrated CPQ/eCommerce capability available yet should add it to their roadmap. Any CPQ Customer who has not invested in this yet should consider doing this as soon as possible. Note that this also includes a shift to digital selling which is new to many companies and hence will require training in this area!

  1. Solution Category names matter!

It is interesting to note that Pricing has three times the increase in visitors than CPQ, and Quote-to-Cash two times the increase! This seems to indicate that the CPQ moniker may still be more connected with Product Configuration than pricing even though the two areas have been growing closer together in recent years. See the acquisitions of PROS and Vendavo. This shows that pricing improvements, which will be in high demand once economies restarts, are not yet fully connected to CPQ. This can be a lesson for Sales & Marketing teams of CPQ Vendors and System Integrators.

Thanks again to the G2 Team for sharing this interesting information!