CPQ - Configure Price Quote
Customized configuration and easy quotation for your products
CPQ is short for Configure – Price – Quote, a discipline that simplifies and accelerates the configuration and sales process for multi-variant products. In addition to easy-to-use configuration and rule-based pricing, CPQ systems help to create an informative and compelling offer. For companies, CPQ software saves time and resources in the sales process and increases the quality and accuracy of quotes.
CPQ is short for Configure - Price - Quote and is an enterprise-wide discipline.
CPQ simplifies and accelerates the configuration and sales process for multi-variant products.
CPQ systems help companies configure, price and quote complex products.
Benefits of configuration solutions
CPQ software is the front end of product configuration. As a sales tool for customizable products, it guides the user step-by-step through the various choices and variants of your products to configure the product that exactly meets the customer’s needs. Each configuration step is checked for plausibility by a set of rules. This means that even people without in-depth product knowledge can pre-configure complex products and get a conclusive overall picture of the final solution.
Depending on the selection made, the CPQ system determines rule-based prices. This eliminates manual processes and complex, labor-intensive calculations. Of course, customer-specific discounts can already be taken into account during pricing in the CPQ system, so that the customer and the sales department can quickly get a reliable price indication.
At the end of the configuration process, a CPQ system delivers a customized quote – automatically and efficiently. During the process customer data can be derived directly from a connected CRM system. A deeper integration with your CRM system even allows you to transmit the configuration and quote from the CPQ back to the CRM. This enables your sales and service teams to always have a complete picture of the customer and their configured products. Common CPQ systems can be easily connected to e.g. Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, or Hubspot.
Quoting is often a time-consuming process, especially for complex and multi-variant products. Thanks to a CPQ solution, the three steps of configurating, pricing, and quoting are done seamlessly through one central system. As a result, companies can serve more customer requests in less time.
In addition, quotes from a CPQ solution are more detailed and accurate – each step along the configuration is displayed in the conclusive quote through detailed visualizations, bills of materials, and detailed product information (usually derived from a connected PIM system).
As fast and easy-to-understand offers create a real competitive advantage CPQ has a positive impact on customer satisfaction.
The complexity of multi-variant products is often only fully understood by development and engineering teams. Often, these teams are the internal bottleneck within the company when the sales team passes on new customer configuration requests.
CPQ systems help to ensure that customer-specific configurations can still be handled quickly, plausibly, and reliably: Individual configurations are checked and saved directly and reliably via stored rule sets before the quotation is created. This enables new sales staff without technical background to be trained more quickly in the company’s portfolio of products and product variants. Plus certain configuration steps can also be pre-configured by the customer, for example via online configurators.
With CPQ to sales success
Download our free white paper to learn how you can create new product landscapes from your exisiting product portfolio.
- Quick insights into 5 strategies for getting started with product configuration
- Free PDF download
- Holistic view of CPQ solutions in the company
Create a centralized configuration of quotes to increase sales productivity.
Your journey to Configure Price Quote
Analysis of needs for your product configuration
Every configuration is different. The first step is to determine your individual needs for a configuration solution. Depending on your product line, you may have different CPQ scenarios. For example, simple selection scenarios for your online store can be accomplished with significantly less implementation effort and software costs than complex configuration processes involving custom designs and make-to-order production. In general, the more complex a product is, the more time and effort it takes to sell and process it.
We analyze your product lines and sales processes to create a CPQ scenario that is tailored to your needs. Finally, we document the functional, process, and organizational requirements of the various development units, technical service, sales, and marketing departments.
100% independent and neutral selection of your new CPQ system
To help you find the right solution in the large CPQ software market, we offer a managed software selection process that takes you from requirements gathering through vendor presentations and contract negotiations. Xtentio is 100% independent of software vendors and integrators. We use a market-negative selection process. This ensures that only those suppliers who really meet your requirements are shortlisted.
Implementation and introduction of the CPQ system
Our experienced CPQ consultants and certified project managers fill your internal capacity and competence gaps, contributing to a successful CPQ implementation. We see ourselves as the link between the customer, the software house and the integrator, representing only your company’s interests. In this way, we protect you from costly mistakes and detours in the implementation phase and ensure a structured project process through holistic project management.
Frequently Asked Questions
CPQ stands for Configure - Price - Quote, CPQ software enables companies to simplify and accelerate the configuration and sales process of variant-rich products.
CPQ systems help companies to configure products in an easy-to-use way, price them based on rules, and create meaningful and attractive quotes. As a result, companies can increase sales productivity and handle customer-specific variants more efficiently.
Xtentio supports companies in selecting the right CPQ system through a managed software selection process. In this process, the company's requirements are analyzed and suitable vendors are presented. Xtentio is 100% independent from software vendors and integrators.
Xtentio offers experienced CPQ consultants and certified project managers who support companies in the implementation and introduction of the CPQ system. Through holistic project management, they ensure a structured project flow and close internal capacity and knowledge gaps.