Meet the Novus CPQ Advisor: Independent Guidance for CPQ Research and Software Selection
Choosing, evaluating, or replacing a CPQ solution can become complicated quickly.
There are many vendors in the market, product capabilities overlap, terminology continues to change, and companies often enter a CPQ project from very different starting points. Some are still trying to determine whether they need CPQ at all. Others already have a shortlist and are preparing for vendor demonstrations. Still others may simply want to learn more about a particular CPQ solution or understand what is changing in the market.
At the same time, Novus CPQ has published a substantial amount of information over the years, including CPQ research, articles, more than 400 CPQ Podcast interviews, videos, customer-focused reports and other resources.
That can create another question:
Where should I start?
To make that easier, I have built a new Novus CPQ Advisor, and it is now available directly on the Novus CPQ homepage.
Start with a question
The idea behind the Advisor is simple.
Instead of first having to determine which page, article, podcast episode or Novus resource might contain the information you are looking for, you can start by asking a CPQ question in your own words.
For example:
- Do we even need CPQ?
- Which CPQ vendors should we evaluate?
- How should we compare different CPQ solutions?
- We have narrowed our evaluation to three vendors. What should we look at before the demos?
- What information does Novus have about Salesforce Agentforce Revenue Management?
- What does Novus CPQ have to say about a particular vendor?
The Advisor can then help you explore the topic and point you toward information and resources that may be relevant to where you are in the process.
Someone at the beginning of a CPQ project may benefit from identifying potentially relevant vendors or thinking through whether the organization is ready to begin a formal selection.
A company that has already narrowed its evaluation may need deeper vendor-specific information. In that situation, the Advisor can point toward available CPQ Sales Reports, including free Preview Editions where available, or other Novus research that may help with the evaluation.
For someone following the market or researching a specific topic, relevant podcast interviews, videos, reports or recent articles may be more useful.
Helping people learn about CPQ solutions
The Advisor can also be used simply to learn more about different CPQ solutions and the market around them.
That may include exploring which solutions could be relevant for a particular business environment, understanding differences between vendors, identifying questions to ask during an evaluation, or finding additional Novus information about a product or topic.
The Advisor draws on publicly available information from Novus CPQ, including website content, articles, podcast information and other public resources. It can also help visitors discover additional Novus research, such as CPQ Sales Reports, CPQ Briefings or Preview Editions where available.
It is intended as an independent resource for learning about CPQ and navigating the market—not as a technical knowledge base for any individual CPQ product.
Guidance rather than rankings
One thing was particularly important to me while developing the Advisor: it should reflect the same independent approach I use in my CPQ research.
The Advisor is therefore not intended to produce a universal list of the “three best CPQ vendors” or tell a company which solution it should buy.
A CPQ solution that works well for one organization may not be the right fit for another. Product complexity, pricing requirements, sales processes, business models, CRM and ERP environments, geographic needs and many other factors can affect which solutions deserve further investigation.
The Advisor is designed to help users identify potentially relevant options, ask better questions, learn more about different solutions and find useful research.
That is different from ranking vendors.
Making Novus CPQ information easier to use
Another goal is to make the information available across Novus CPQ easier to navigate.
Different resources serve different purposes.
A CPQ Briefing may be useful when someone is first learning about a vendor. A detailed CPQ Sales Report can become more valuable once that vendor is part of a serious evaluation. A podcast interview may provide insight into a vendor’s direction or a particular market topic. A recent article may provide context around a new product announcement or industry development.
The Advisor can help connect those pieces based on the question being asked.
For example, if Novus has a detailed CPQ Sales Report on a vendor, the Advisor can point a visitor toward the report and, where available, a free Preview Edition. If a Customer Pulse report, podcast interview, video or recent article is more relevant, it can surface those resources instead.
The objective is not simply to return more information. It is to help visitors find the most relevant starting point.
Another way to start a CPQ conversation
I do not see the Novus CPQ Advisor as a replacement for detailed research, vendor demonstrations or direct conversations with vendors and other CPQ experts.
Instead, it provides another way to begin—or continue—a CPQ discussion.
For some visitors, the most useful outcome may be identifying several solutions worth investigating. For others, it may be discovering a report, podcast interview or article they did not know existed. And sometimes the best next step may simply be to ask a few more questions before narrowing the options.
That is exactly what I want the Advisor to help with.
Try it
The Novus CPQ Advisor is now available on the Novus CPQ homepage. Ask a CPQ question, explore the suggested starting points and use the Advisor to find information and Novus resources relevant to your situation.
I would like to hear what you think, and especially what questions you ask it. You can reach me through the Contact Us page.
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