The ABCs of Salesforce CPQ

In a recent Sikich Live, we got to chat with our own John Huguelet, Consultant, & James Damon, Solution Architect, to better understand Salesforce CPQ and how Sikich’s expertise can help get the most out of your solution.

WHAT IS SALESFORCE CPQ?

Salesforce CPQ enables sales organizations to automate and optimize the creation of quotes and the capture of orders. Therefore, this allows sales teams to have a standardized streamlined quoting process helping them to sell, resell, and upsell more efficiently. A typical investment ranges between $25K – $150K.

WHO IS USING SALESFORCE CPQ?

The companies that are using Salesforce CPQ vary across different industries, from computer software and hardware to IT to professional services to manufacturing to medical devices. Specifically, we work with tech companies that provide a wide array of solutions that include physical products or hardware accompanied by support or service. CPQ does a great job of making it easy for those reps to quote products and services that would be delivered on a one-time, recurring, or mix of both.

WHAT ARE THE KEY PAIN POINTS THAT SHOULD SIGNAL TO A BUSINESS THAT IT’S TIME TO FIND A BETTER WAY?

Sure signs that you should evaluate your current solutions include:

• Lack of visibility into the sales process
• Manual quoting process pulling from different excel workbooks
• Significant/high operating costs
• Redundant, error-prone proposal creation
• Slow approval process

WHAT CONSIDERATIONS SHOULD BE TOP OF MIND?

Companies that are considering Salesforce CPQ, a few things to think about to implement successfully are:

1. Identify the people involved. Who will be working on it day to day, who will be the subject matter expert, who will be quoting, etc.
2. Make sure you take in their pain points when building the solution.
3. Think about any manual practices that you’d like to automate or integrate into Salesforce CPQ.

HOW ARE BUSINESSES THAT YOU ARE WORKING WITH GETTING A COMPETITIVE EDGE FROM IMPLEMENTING SALESFORCE CPQ?

There are several benefits for business with CPQ an edge:

• Companies can promise a quick turnaround on quotes and allow them to offer their customer a unique experience. It gives them the flexibility to create different quotes and gives your reps the confidence that their quotes will be accepted and be able to provide those services.
• Allows you to manage your product catalog better
• Manage recurring revenue by automating the quote to cash process.
• Create a standardization for pricing, discounts and quotes.
• Prebuilt integrations with ERP solution
• Managing purchase incentives across channels and targeting specific customers in segments. This can be very valuable to managing customers and keeping them around.

WHERE DOES SIKICH ADD VALUE?

At Sikich, we have a wide range of professionals that specialize in various different software, specifically within the Salesforce practice, but also in other software or hardware practices. With that wide variety of expertise, a company with our project management methodology, how we uncover the business requirements in our discovery sessions, developing and communicating the solution design, and building the functionality and testing it, we are able to deploy in a timely manner.

The biggest value add-on that we have is that we focus on how the functionality is being built out technically. However, we also question why these processes are being implemented so the client can achieve the maximum transformation they’re looking for when hiring us.

Salesforce CPQ is a great way to streamline your processes to make it easier on your sales reps and maintain customer retention and satisfaction. Sikich is a certified Salesforce partner and has both the resources and the knowledge to help your organization implement the best tools to improve and transform your business. If you’re interested in learning more about Salesforce CPQ or Salesforce, please reach out and we’re happy to connect with you!