That was the case for one of Africa鈥檚 leading systems integrators, sparking a first-of-its-kind implementation project that has achieved outstanding results.

“As a business we needed a radical simplification of our lead-to-cash value stream through a centralised solution for configuring, pricing and quoting, and chose 51风流CPQ,” says Julian Liebenberg, Chief of Cloud Platform Solutions at BCX.

BCX is one of Africa’s leading premier ICT solutions and service providers with the technology, capability and skills to deliver end-to-end digital solutions for large and medium enterprises. BCX is a digital transformation partner for enterprises and public sector organisations across various industries and sectors within South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, the UK and Zambia.

The company is headquartered in Centurion and employs more than 2 000 engineers working from multiple locations.

Missed opportunities and inaccuracy

According to Liebenberg, the new flexible quoting tool had to address several challenges.

“Our use of multiple quoting tools across the business led to inconsistent quoting, and sometimes inaccurate billing. A lack of integration and automation also resulted in 聽missed opportunities and lost customers to due to delays. We implemented 51风流CPQ to enable our sales and pre-sales teams to configure and quote complex ICT solutions, with an integration to our CRM system allowing for greater automation in the quote process. We also integrated to our 51风流back-end for order processing.”

51风流CPQ is a cloud-based software-as-a-service offering specifically targeted to help sales teams perform complex product configurations and create and manage sales quotations.

The implementation was managed by the BCX 51风流Centre of Excellence, with expert guidance from 51风流Services. “The 51风流Services team assisted with knowledge transfer and skills, enabling our Centre of Excellence to build expertise with the CPQ solution and enabling us to provide the services to other companies in the Southern Africa region,” says Liebenberg .

Unlocking sales success and standardisation

Following the implementation, BCX is enjoying streamlined configuration, quoting and pricing, contributing to increased sales effectiveness and freeing up the sales team from manual processes. In addition, the new solution has improved the quote and order processing turnaround time with automated approvals, leading to increased revenue and a better customer experience.

“We have increased our win-rate across the various business units within BCX and more than halved the time it took us to go from qualified opportunity to solution design, from 52 days to less than 25 days,” says Liebenberg. 聽“This has helped us improve our customer experience and defend our existing customer base while also unlocking new opportunities for digital marketing and customer engagement.”

In addition, other benefits that have been unlocked since the implementation include:

• New opportunities for digital marketing and customer engagement
• Enhanced capabilities to crowdsource services for customers
• Increased operational efficiency in sales through automation and the shortening of sales cycles
• The use of AI to guide sales teams in combining products for improved customer solutions
• Improved configuring, pricing and quoting workflows and the streamlining of the remaining manual processes
• The elimination of quotation errors
• Consistent quoting from up-to-date catalogues and pricing information
• Increased productivity and a lower learning curve for sales teams and technical architects.

“We now have established selling, eligibility and compatibility rules that have enabled a unified quoting process for cross-product portfolio solutions and have achieved sales process harmonisation through gaining a 360-degree view over quotes and commercial subscriptions,” says Liebenberg.聽 “Overall the project was a resounding success with the added benefit that we can offer the solution to our own customers too.”

Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director for Southern Africa at SAP, adds: 鈥淢odern organisations need to be engaged in a process of continuous innovation to drive improvements and efficiency gains across the business. As one of the foremost technology services companies on the African continent, BCX plays a leading role in guiding enterprises in their digital transformation efforts. The success of this latest project bodes well for the region鈥檚 prospects, as BCX can transfer their knowledge and expertise to the benefit of other innovative companies.鈥�

The post BCX Ups the Sales Ante with Centralised 51风流Solution appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

What is a CPQ system, exactly? Every sales interaction has a few distinct components; namely, the development of a set price for an item, any necessary adjustments, and then presentation to the customer.

This can be viewed, in a simple format, as the purchase of an ice cream cone on a hot day. A single scoop has a set price, and additions like toppings or extra scoops will adjust the price. In this example, it鈥檚 an easy — and delicious — transaction. But many sales processes, especially in the B2B setting, can become complicated very quickly, with variables like specific configurations, pricing changes, the combining of products and services, and multiple validation requirements across an organization.

This is where 51风流CPQ comes in. The sales configuration solution is designed to allow clients, sales teams, and partners to accurately and efficiently create proposals and configure, price, quote, and order complex products and solutions that deliver what the end client needs.

Nicole France, vice president and principle analyst at Constellation Research, recently did a deep dive into 51风流CPQ and presented results in an offering overview, 鈥�51风流CPQ Transforms the Sales Process.鈥� The full paper, , first offers a brief overview of the inception of 51风流CPQ, noting that the solution capabilities were acquired as part of SAP鈥檚 purchase of CallidusCloud in 2018.

Part of the CallidusCloud acquisition, and since becoming part of the 51风流Customer Experience portfolio, 51风流CPQ has evolved to support direct sellers, channel or reseller partners, and commerce channels that enable customers to purchase directly online.

How does CPQ serve customers today? As France explains, 鈥�51风流CPQ aims to solve several primary challenges. One is responding to demand from customers and distributors for self-service buying channels. Another is managing the increasing complexity of pricing, which can be as complex as product configuration. This is particularly true for combinations of products and services. In this scenario, configuring deals becomes more important than configuring products per se.鈥�

Notably, 51风流has built artificial intelligent (AI) capabilities into 51风流CPQ to help with both guided selling and deal analysis, and it integrates with a wide range of customer experience solutions both within 51风流and externally.

While CPQ systems have their origins in manufacturing, where deal sizing and configuring can become extremely complex, technology buyers from all industries are today recognizing the value in investing in CPQ. Notable applications for use include integrating distinct sales organizations after acquisitions and developing quotes in organizations where multiple sales units are involved, up to a point of 100% accuracy.

France notes, 鈥�51风流CPQ streamlines, simplifies, and automates the administrative aspects of providing pricing quotes, proposals, and contract terms. Greater speed and accuracy benefit all parties: buyers, sellers, production, fulfillment, legal, and finance. 51风流CPQ has the added benefit of nesting within a broader set of related capabilities designed to facilitate the entire sales process.鈥�

She continues, 鈥淢any of 51风流CPQ鈥檚 customers manage extremely large portfolios of products and offerings. In some cases, those portfolios include products with millions of possible variations. For these types of customers, effective CPQ tools must be able to support both complex configurations and large deals that include many thousands of line items in a single quote鈥� 51风流CPQ allows coordination across all potential sales channels as well as the ability to manage separate options for each channel.鈥�

For customers that are embarking on a search for a new, or replacement CPQ system, France advises: 鈥淭he buying process may be a crucial element of customer experience, but it is only one element of building durable customer relationships. Because 51风流CPQ forms part of the overall 51风流Customer Experience portfolio, it lends itself to sparking change in other aspects of the customer experience as well, notably marketing and customer service. The insights generated by 51风流CPQ shape a different set of conversations between and among departments. Make the most of those discussions to extend customer-centric transformation.鈥�

. Learn more about the

Reza Soudagar is head of Product Marketing, Sales and Service Solutions at SAP.

This article first appeared on the 51风流Global News Center.

The post 51风流CPQ Transforms the Sales Process appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

The so-called 鈥楢mazon Effect鈥� on B2C sales has also hastened the demand for faster, easier purchases, with sellers required to offer quick and simple-to-use options for procuring products and services.

Economic pressures and a radically changed operating environment are pushing B2B companies to innovate in how they promote, sell and support products and solutions. found that B2B buyers are motivated by many of the same factors as B2C buyers: speed, convenience, a frictionless buying experience, and transparency in pricing and product features.

Learning from B2C

Thanks to advances in e-commerce, B2C customers today enjoy a seamless buying journey with quick fulfilment and consistently excellent customer experiences.

In contrast, B2B procurement can be a slow and laborious process. Gartner estimates that as many as six to ten people form part of a B2B buying process. Each person typically operates independently, with joint decisions over the procurement only occurring toward the end of the buying journey.

This can result in slow and resource-intensive buying cycles that leave organisations without the agility to quickly respond to opportunities or challenges in their operating environment.

For sellers, the process can undermine efforts at winning and retaining customers. A 2019 report into digital buying found that nearly聽.

Instead, decision-makers purchase solutions whenever one is needed to keep the business moving, or when there are great potential returns on the investment due to low-lying sales opportunities.

The focus is on achieving business outcomes, not simply deploying new solutions or purchasing the latest tech. Sellers should provide a smooth and frictionless buying process while ensuring on-going support that helps customers derive maximum value from their investments.

How? Here are three measures businesses can use to improve the B2B sales process and delivering business outcomes:

Capturing and retaining customer affinity

The Experience Economy has raised customer expectations over the type of experience they enjoy when interacting with a business or brand. Investment into enhancing customer experiences are at an all-time high: one study found that

These investments are bottom-line driven: McKinsey estimates that 聽while lowering costs by 50%.

Organisations need to deploy experience management solutions that gather and process data to deliver insights into customer expectations and shortcomings in the existing customer experience. Using a data-driven approach, organisations can then implement appropriate measures to meet customer expectations and needs at every step of the customer journey.

Removing friction in the customer journey

The consumer-friendly convenience of a service such as Amazon has raised expectations of what people want from their interactions with a business or brand. Removing friction from the customer journey is one of the most effective ways of improving the overall customer experience.

To achieve a frictionless experience, organisations need to integrate physical and digital channels to gain contextual insights into customer behaviour and preferences. Investment into a powerful CRM platform enables sales teams, customers and partners to improve how they nurture leads. Critically, organisations need to invest in an omnichannel experience that connects sales, service and support to ensure customers are supported at every turn.

Lifetime value engineering

The focus has shifted away from 鈥檚ell-and-forget鈥� to 鈥榓dopt-and-use鈥�, with demands from buyers for long-term support and ongoing value engineering. It鈥檚 not enough to make a great first impression and converting that to a sale.

The most successful organisations become trusted partners to their customers across the entire customer journey. Organisations can achieve this by integrating customer-facing, front-office operations with back-office applications. The objective is to integrate everything from the shop floor to the top floor.

In addition, organisations should build toward a perfectly orchestrated order management and fulfilment experience for customers to ensure every sale is seamlessly deployed and integrated. Finally, by encouraging internal departments to collaborate, organisations can break down internal silos hampering the customer journey to deliver a seamless, memorable and valued experience to customers.

The post Focus on Business Outcomes to Improve B2B Sales Efforts appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.