Get serious about CPQ in 2021!

While 2020 was pretty awful for many businesses due to the pandemic it actually wasn’t a bad year for most CPQ Vendors. That is because their solutions help to automate, streamline and improve sales processes which in turn help their customer base with revenue increases and cost reductions. CPQ Solutions in general help businesses to make selling easier by helping a customer’s sales team, their channel partners and direct customers to customize and personalize products correctly and faster, with a better user experience and higher average sales values. Especially customer demand for selling configurable products online has increased considerably  since the pandemic started. See this link for one example from the CPQ Podcast episode with Sunil John from PROS.

Nevertheless, there are 100+ CPQ Vendors available that offer these solutions and to select the right solution for your business is not a trivial exercise. Especially not when a customer is not familiar or only somewhat familiar with these solutions. On top of that there are more CPQ Solutions added to the market all the time. Some are standalone CPQ Solutions and others are packaged solutions which combine CPQ with Software like CRM or eCommerce or Document Management and so on. This broad offering of CPQ Solutions makes it pretty challenging for customers to find the right solution.

Note: It is easy to find a solution from a CPQ Vendor, but it can be very challenging to find the right solution for your business!

B2C Customers increasingly mention that they want to personalize more products, like engraving a watch with their name. B2B customers increasingly want to customize more complex products on their own. Plus, the products that B2B businesses make available to their customers get more complex and they expect that these products are sold online. Based on the current reporting about COVID-19 infections and vaccinations it looks as if the current situation will continue for the foreseeable future. This also means that it will take some more time before things go back to normal, or better said the “new normal”, which will not be what it was before the pandemic started!

Note also that some industries like for example the High Tech and Software Industry, keep investing heavily into CPQ because they see an opportunity to expand and strengthen their already strong position. They automate many more business processes, improve customer experiences and increase their average sales value by using more sophisticated methods like machine learning algorithms and much more.

Now the next question is obviously “What does that all mean?” and “Why should you care about this?” The answers are fairly straight forward. First, it means that if your business does not yet use a CPQ Solution there is a good chance that you can and may fall further behind your competition in 2021. Hence the first suggestion here is to take a serious look at your business to decide if a CPQ Solution can help you with your business challenges. Second, should you decide to look into CPQ Solutions in 2021 take your time to select the right solution. These projects typically touch many different teams and require on-going effort and support and so you want to do it right the first time. If you are serious about CPQ get some help from an experienced team like Novus CPQ Consulting that does not partner with a specific CPQ Vendor to get a truly independent view! Third and last is to not contact CPQ Vendors too early! Because that gives them the opportunity to drive the whole sales process. They show you what they are good at and may or may not include what you need. So stay in control by telling CPQ Vendors what you expect from when you are ready and do not rush into any buying decisions!