What is a sales configurator ?

With an online sales configurator – like Tacton CPQ – your customers, resellers, retailers, and sales teams can easily configure and display their products on any device. Access to the online sales configurator is possible anytime and anywhere. It's much like having an experienced product manager who offers the best suggestions while ensuring products can be produced. The pricing module of the sales configurator will make sure the price is competitive and profitable.

The sales configurator controls what products are available to what user.  Changes to new products, options, pricing, promotions and marketing materials can be distributed instantaneously, so all sales channels always have accurate updated information.

A sales configurator helps translate product features into value and benefits. A sales configurator integrates rules and business logic for design, manufacturing and cost, and will reduce the training needs and the in-depth product knowledge. A sales configurator also reduces costs due to errors and incomplete offers.

By presenting the entire product range in an online sales configurator, your customers can configure their product choices, get quotes instantly, set accurate delivery dates, and even place orders with no or minimal impact on sales.

A sales configurator is often used to guide customers to the right buying decision based on their needs and budget. The “Guided Selling” approach identifies ways to promote higher value products and introduce new revenue streams, such as: service contracts, aftermarket packages, add-ons, and warranties.

By making it easier to buy the products thru the sales configurator enterprises build strong relationships with customers and strengthening brand loyalty. A smooth sales process has a very positive impact the sales process and the way companies bring their products to market.

Today's B2B and B2C customers want options and customizations for most offers. Customers also want to receive complex offerings in no-time. Finally, customers expect a quick response to changing demands on purchase contracts.

To provide customers with this flexibility the sales force will need tools like a sales configurator that accelerate supply, ensure accuracy, and make selling custom products and services as easy as selling standard offerings.

With a sales configurator a sales rep can create quotes and quotes that are instantly. It’s no longer necessary to search for price list information, brochures, old proposals and other sources. The sales representative doesn’t need to request expertise from other teams and departments. Instead, they can launch the sales configurator from a tablet or browser. Intuitive questionnaire will deliver the right product, the right price and a fancy quote within minutes.

The sales configurator business logic provides non-sequenced questions, 2D and 3D visualizations, and continuous calculations to ensure product conformity. Pricing, discounts, margins, and more are calculated in by the advanced pricing engine to ensure bottom line profit.

With an advanced sales configurator – like Tacton CPQ – a sales rep will NEVER get stuck between conflicting choices. The sales configurator will always present a valid product selection and will also indicate conflicting choices. There’s a big difference between different techniques to describe “the product rules”. All will stop you from doing wrong, just a few will help you do right. This makes a difference front-end but will also dramatically simplify maintenance of the business logic.

How a sales configurator contributes to business success

Customer Confidence: the product selection is customer centric and asks questions based on customer needs and budget. A sales configurator an suggest the optimal solution for a specific customer. This creates confidence

Guided Selling: A modern sales configurator will guide sales representatives through the sales / 

quotation process. The sales configurator quickly identify ways to cross-sell and up-sell accessories and other products, helping the sales representatives to better meet customers hidden needs.

"Selling the Impossible": Sales representatives will never again sell impossible solutions, products that can neither be produced or delivered. “Selling the impossible” is a far to frequent and often costly job mistake. In a sales configurator an impossible combinations is simply blocked.

Mobility for responsive service: Sales representatives can work anywhere on devices from laptops to smartphones to create and adjust outstanding quotes. The information is stored and version handled directly in the sales configurator.

Full Insight: With a modern sales configurator sales representative can quickly show how options can affect weight, price, production time, and other critical variables.  

Product Visualization: “Seeing is believing” and depending on customer expectations both the 2D and 3D views can be presented directly in the sales configurator. This makes the configuration easy to understand and has proven to shorten the sales cycle for both simple and complex products.

A sales configurator will change the way your sales representatives do business, negotiate complex deals and respond quickly to changing product and service requirements. Learn how to use the sales configurator to configure virtually anything on any device to ensure a fast quote and responsive customer service!

What we learned from a Renaissance man

Will the Swedish manufacturing industry be better or worse off five years from now?

I’m an optimist and I will always believe that we can create a better future. I’m also a realist, and I know that hoping, planning and wishing won’t make it so. Doing is what matters.

500 years ago da Vinci wrote: “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”

Da Vinci was definitely a doer.

We can all have some da Vinci’s genius. We can all learn from his Renaissance-man-drive and the emphasis he placed on putting things into action.

That’s the reason why we decided to start a new company.

We’ll be the doers that help Swedish companies compete in the global arena.

A company that can bring Swedish innovation to the world.

A company that - with help of big-company-tools (what we both been working with for the last 15 years) – can make a difference for small and medium business of Swedish manufacturing industry.

Are your ready? Do you see and opportunity and a challenge to get ready for the global future? Do you have world-leading products but are lacking the resources to do global business?

This is where we want to help you DO and we’ll bring some genius along. That’s a promise!

8 secrets for a successful CPQ project

1. Focus on solving concrete problems 

Always start with a concrete product and set a goal to get the product live in a production environment. With today's SaaS-CPQ-solutions, efficient product modeling/pricing tools and a straightforward system configuration, it is not at all impossible to launch a first product within a month or two.

2. Be aware of the limitations of CPQ

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people mistakenly assess their knowledge in a specific field is greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.

When you try to launch a CPQ-system, it is easy to fall into this trap. To describe the logic that limits how the product can and may be sold in a general way is somewhat cumbersome. Here it is important to understand what you need to understand before you start with product logic. Then the way to a working CPQ will be as straight as it can now be.

3. Listen to everyone involved – and to the customers

For some, external assistance may be required to ensure that the CPQ system provides useful results. Ideally, if you kick-start a project with a whiteboard meeting where all the key people involved spend an afternoon figuring out details and documenting the requirements you have.

4. Take on industry expertise

More and more companies have begun to realize that CPQ is not a miracle cure in itself. Many companies that start working with CPQ assume that "we have a lot of product data – plug in a CPQ and let it tell us something interesting".
Here we see that we as consultants have an important role to play in moderating, questioning and provide industry best practices.

5. Realize the value of tests in reality

By making a rapid first version of your CPQ-system you’ll get a quick take part in multicultural, multilingual and even intergenerational insights and learn from them. By going live quickly and exposing the CPQs ability of the organization, you can quickly make customizations that make the system several hundred percent better.

6. Be aware of the "black box-problem"

Trust is another subject that CPQ is forced to face when it comes out in reality – something that is known as the black box problem. How can this be overcome? An important part is not to complicate things more than that they can be explained.
Often it is domino effects in product logic/price models that gives weird (but accurate) effects. Here it is important to be well prepared to explain and describe the logic in an educational way.

7. Establish clear measurements

Having clear operational measures for your CPQ-project is important to prove that it works – and deserves continued support. But many companies do not give this aspect sufficient attention in their CPQ projects.
This is a problem with emerging new technologies such as CPQ. The result is likely to be CPQ projects that are bridges to nowhere, pilots that are not scaled up and projects without any business value. Therefore, we do not make pilots. We make sure to go directly to production and in this way are the goals we set up linked to the company sales. It makes it very easy to judge what works and not.

8. Look inward

Where do you find people who can both understand CPQ and the requirements from the business? It is not an easy task. There is a clear lack of CPQ skills.
One often overlooked method to bring down skills shortages is to look internally to find people who can take CPQ trainings. This way you can work so that there are people who have both CPQ and industry expertise. This is a very important part of our deliveries. We see no long-term benefit of the system if it cannot be managed internally. Our role should only be consultative once we have released the first product.

CPQ Analytics

Here's a presentation on CPQ Analytics, presented in Stockholm at Tacton Day October 8-9 2015.

Five common pricing mistakes a CPQ solution will address

Pricing is difficult and also very sensitive. Changes in pricing is one of the most effective way to level overall profit.

This list of pricing mistakes can be used to build a good business case for a CPQ (Configure-Price-Quote) investment.

Weak controls on discounting

It’s not uncommon that sales representatives are given a lot of freedom when it comes to negotiating the price. This means what the profit per deal is very dependent on the person executing the sales.

Discounts are often given without a controlled won/loss analysis and are more based on gut feeling. This means that prices will vary very randomly.

Without analysis and a proper approval process these issues will not go away. This is something a CPQ solution will address.

Inadequate systems for tracking competitor selling prices and market share

It’s difficult to understand the completion and most companies don’t put any effort into analyzing the lost deals.

With a CPQ solution it’s possible to benchmark the won and lost deals in a very structured way. It’s possible to find what key features of the product that correlates with won deals and also what features that are typical for lost deals.

Cost-plus pricing

Cost plus pricing is still very common in the manufacturing industry. The problem with this approach is that it assumes that the customer value is dependent on the production cost. Everybody knows that this is not the case.

A CPQ solution can price on factors that are actually valued by the customer and at the same time ensure that margin.

Price increases poorly executed

There is a problem when price increases can’t be motivated. If we’re not providing any new customer value, why should I pay a higher price?

It’s essential to plan ahead and do price increases as your product improves. If your new engine will cut fuel consumption there is no problem to pay a higher price.

That’s why price increase should be coordinated with product development. This means that timing is essential. Do the math and plan ahead. This is a process that a CPQ solution should support.

Worldwide price inconsistencies

In a global market it’s no longer possible to have inconsistent pricing.

By introducing a central storage for local price it’s possible to understand and correct price inconsistencies. A CPQ solution normally connects the global and the local prices. This means that a CPQ solution introduces the possibility to have governance for local pricing.

Configure Price Quote software - the key benefits

Configure Price Quote software shortens the sales processes by automating the configuration, pricing and quoting of complex products, services and bundles.

“configure price quote” software is getting attention from global companies looking to reduce errors and streamline sales of complex product. Configure price quote software will serve as a consistent front-office interface with all necessary integration to existing back-office systems.

CPQ (“configure price quote”) is more and more becoming a critical advantage in several industry verticals. Fast and accurate quotation processes is no longer something to strive for – it’s now a critical factor in the competitive landscape.

The primary benefits with Configure Price Quote software include:

• Guided and automation sales process supporting your customers through important selection including configuration, quoting and ordering.
• Central pricing processes for establishing, maintaining and publishing pricing for products, services and combination bundles.
• Workflow for quoting including creation, management and negotiation of sales quotes.

Guided and automated sales process

• Increased deal size by simplifying cross-sell, up-sell and solution bundles. Service contracts and other related services are quoted together with the product ensuring returning revenue for a longer period of time.
• Reduced costs and increased customer satisfaction as incorrect orders are dramatically reduced.
• Increased sales productivity when repetitive, time consuming manual work is eliminated.

Central pricing process

• Pricing consistency and automatic pricing changes instantly available in all sales channels.
• Defined structure for pricing to decrease the maintenance due to changing market conditions.
• Pricing models based on customer segments with analytics feedback for continuous improvements. Built in dashboards for sales and pricing governance.

Workflow for quotations

• Significant time savings to create, negotiate and convert quotes into orders.
• Increased visibility and traceability in the quoting process.
• Support for channel and partners sales for complex products.