What is CPQ?

СPQ is software that helps you quickly generate accurate quotes for sales representatives and self-service customers. 

CPQ software is used to create quotes for services and products with many features and options. The software functions based on specific rules. It is customizable to account for several variables that affect profit margins. 

Such applications often work with CRM and ERP platforms. With this software, offers are automated according to a pre-programmed set of rules – this ensures error-free pricing with discounts, quantities, customizations, and additional product features. 

Advantages of Software

This software has a number of advantages – each of them saves time and money, and improves the quality of customer service. The main ones include:

  • speed;
  • increased accuracy of setup and pricing;
  • fewer errors;
  • excellent visibility of options;
  • the system generates data.

Therefore, this software becomes a more frequent choice for companies to be used in their activities.

 

CPQ Components

If you decipher this acronym, it means “configure, price, quote”. It’s a process that sellers follow when setting up products, determining the pricing, and making an offer. It greatly simplifies the pricing process for customizable products. 

Now let us talk about each component individually.

Configure

The software enables sales representatives to easily customize products and services to meet customer needs. It determines exactly what features and components are preferred for a product. Therefore, customers can get exactly what they need without having to manually enter specifications and configuration information on the proposal form. This program also integrates with other software, accounting systems, or e-commerce platforms. This is done to ensure the accuracy of the product data at the time of quotation.

Price

With the CPQ tool, you can calculate prices in real-time based on configured product features. The pricing component involves setting basic prices for certain components or product features. 

A big advantage of CPQ is the possibility of setting pricing rules based on the company’s business model. The software automates pricing for complex pricing models. These include multi-level pricing, subscription pricing, wholesale pricing, and complex pricing. It eliminates the need for spreadsheets and manual price calculations. 

This software product enables many companies to instantly update their pricing policies by changing discount amounts or applying new surcharges. Therefore, companies can easily keep up with changes in the market and adjust prices without the need to re-enter prices manually for each product. 

Quote

The offer drafted with the help of the software is a company document that describes the products and services included in the sale. It also includes terms of sale and approved payment methods. The CPQ solution helps simplify the process of creating a sales quote and enables users to quickly customize products and meet customer needs, apply discounts and special offers automatically as needed, include all necessary terms and conditions and package everything in one document. This software product helps users to avoid a lot of manual effort to create quotes. 

Importance of СPQ

There are many good arguments regarding the importance of this software. They all boil down to serving customers well and providing them with a wide range of choices in price management for the vast number of configurations generated as a result. 

Without such a program, many companies would have to limit the options that they could profitably offer customers to reduce possible rearrangements to a manageable level. 

The process handled by the software consists of a long chain of steps, such as:

  1. Configuration.
  2. Price.
  3. Quote.
  4. Offer.
  5. Negotiation.
  6. Approval.
  7. Order.
  8. Production.
  9. Delivery.
  10. Installation or setup.

Various companies implement this process in different ways. Some of them even reduce it to a few points that they consider the most relevant. The above pattern is just an example. 

Taking Advantage of Pandadoc

 

To make the pricing process even faster and easier, companies use an additional tool such as Pandadoc. This platform is popular because it helps create various documents in a competent way and send them for signature or review. Having taken advantage of numerous features, you can instantly create quotations or pricing spreadsheets. This is how a lot of manual work can be eliminated. All you have to do is create a document and send it to the company for approval. This program also helps you keep track of all contracts and documents like NDA agreements, which is another factor that enhances its usefulness. For these reasons, many organizations use this platform in their work. It has been well-established in many European countries. It is now an indispensable tool for most modern companies. Privacy, data storage, and speed of task performance are the main aspects that make the use of PandaDoc compelling when handling complex document functions.  

 

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