Once you have implemented your Configure / Price / Quote (CPQ) Tool you will have to keep it up to date. While this sounds easy enough it represents a challenge for a number of companies. Personally I encounter the following two cases regularly. Both cases can represent a serious challenge to your business and so [...]
There are many different Configure/Price/Quote (CPQ) tools available and while they are all called CPQ they have many different capabilities. This makes it challenging to find the best tool for your business. Before you try to investigate all the capabilities of these tools you should look inside YOUR company and truly understand the challenges of [...]
While I will take a summer break and not publish any CPQ Blog Posts in the coming weeks I want to give you some tips about interesting CPQ books. Mass Customization (1992) – The new frontier in Competition by B. Joseph Pine Product Customization (2008) by Lars Hvam, Niels Henrik Mortensen, Jesper Riis Mass Customization: How Build to Order, Assemble to [...]
Here is a short summary of Project Plan Documents you may want to consider when you have to run a CPQ project. There could be many reasons for a CPQ Project like Implementing a new CPQ solution Upgrading an existing CPQ solution Improving CPQ-related Processes (Business Process Re-engineering) Increasing acceptance of your existing CPQ solution [...]
Nevertheless it is pretty challenging to select the right Configure/Price/Quote (CPQ) tool for your business since there are so many different solutions available on the market. While the name (CPQ) is the same, the capabilities are very different and hence it is important to select the right tool to actually reach your goals. For our CPQ Vendor [...]
While our CPQ Leadership Series is still going on (check it here if you like) I want to share some interesting, interim learnings from these documents. But first of all I want to thank all participating CPQ industry leaders to take the time to answer these questions! I know you are very busy and that you made time [...]
After helping a number of SMB businesses (with less than 1,000 employees) to evaluate and select a CPQ tool I want to share some tips that should help with the Request for Information process as well as with the actual selection process. While this should provide anyone a basic guidance how to evaluate a CPQ [...]
1.Not everyone needs to agree If you want to get anything done in a CPQ Project you can't try to please everyone. If you wait until every Person or Team had a chance to follow up with everyone that might have some interest in the outcome of a decision we will drag down enthusiasm, accountability and the general agility [...]
You probably know the famous 1997 “Think different” Ad campaign from Apple. If you don’t the original ad is here . I saw it again recently and thought it still has a very powerful and inspiring message. Since I focus on Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) I was wondering if this can be used to generate some inspiration for the [...]
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 [...]
