The New Game Changing SAP CPQ

SAP CPQ has been designed to handle complex quoting from diverse product portfolios. Through its intuitive user interface, proposals can be generated quickly and accurately. It is a powerful stand-alone application that can provide customers with a richer, more fulfilling buying experience by enabling all sales representatives to be more effective, efficient and knowledgeable in their roles.

CPQ begins by providing a guided selling feature which helps choose the right products and/or services that best fulfill the customer’s need. It enables users to apply filters based on preferences and then view the products based on the filters selected. CPQ also allows the customer to compare the products helping the customer to make the right decision minimizing the guesswork.

Products are configured by predefined attributes. Rules then trigger various actions depending on the selections made. For example, if a configuration of the product is not available, a message will be displayed. The application also supports saving different versions of a quote a.k.a. quote revisions. This helps in offering multiple quotes to the customer by creating as many versions as needed and activating only the one that is being offered.

Once the product is finished being configured, it can be added to the quote. Once the quote is created, the sales rep can go ahead and generate the quote document. Better still, configurations can be saved as favorites to be reused for your repeat clients!

SAP CPQ can seamlessly integrate with any CRM or ERP platform such as Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, SAP CRM etc. CPQ is generally integrated between the CRM and ERP systems. It generates proposals from the opportunities created in the CRM. When the customer is ready to order, the quote will be converted to an order and sent to the ERP system.

CPQ populates the customer contact information from the CRM while at the same time updating the CRM with the proposal and activity completed. Sales reps are enabled to tailor each proposal by including relevant ROI documents, product information, competitive intelligence and case studies.

As the requirements are selected by sales reps in the CRM, the quote is updated in real time and narrows down the product options. Depending on the items selected the sales rep is alerted of additional special offers that will bring values to the customer and will further increase the deal size. To make sure that this does not affect the profitability of the quote, SAP CPQ provides margin protection guard rails. This is especially useful when the customer is on a budget, so the total quote can be adjusted based on the customer’s resources.

Before all is said and done, sales reps can create value rich quotes and proposals while being prompted with cross-sell and upsell opportunities all from within the CRM. The system also triggers an approval process if the discount or markup exceeds what was set up in CPQ. An email will be sent to the approver and the approver accepts or rejects quote directly from email.