Most companies offering any kind of service or product answer this question from consumers or potential clients all the time: "How much does it cost?" Or, the much harder question: "How much will it cost if I choose these services with these extras for my particular company/house/yard/situation, etc.?"
The tough part is that pricing services or software usually involves too many variables. It may cause you and your employees to waste a lot of time as you struggle through potential costs, risks, and configurations to give an accurate quote.
Thankfully, there is software created specifically to help with this problem. It is CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) software. What exactly is CPQ and how can you use data-driven CPQ to help your business?
- What is CPQ?
- Do You Need CPQ?
- Choosing a CPQ Solution
- Data-Driven CPQ Integrations with Integrate.io
What is CPQ?
CPQ is software that handles the pricing and quoting concerns that would otherwise take up a lot of your sales team's time and effort.
It uses a combination of data about your company's processes and your client, enabling your sales team to deliver accurate quotes in a relatively short amount of time. Ideally, you can link your CPQ to your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and/or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software. This will give you a data-driven quoting experience.
The software takes many factors into account, including:
A fully customized CPQ solution can help judge ROI (return on investment) and consider risk assessment.
CPQ is nothing without quality data, though. A platform such as Integrate.io can help you seamlessly integrate data from your CRM solution to various data sources.
Do You Need CPQ?
The first thing you probably want to know about CPQ is if it can really benefit your company. Do you really need it? Here are five reasons you may need to implement a CPQ solution into your current infrastructure:
1. Competitive Speed
Pricing structures can be complex enough that companies will not post them publicly, instead choosing to allow clients to request a quote before they learn any pricing information. Competitive speed in offering an accurate quote when requested might make the difference between gaining or losing a client — especially since most clients will request a quote from multiple vendors at the same time so they can choose the best option.
2. Competitive Pricing
Instead of sales personnel having to study offerings from other businesses so they know when to upsell, CPQ software can keep track of what the other guys are up to. The software can even include complex algorithms to track acceptable market pricing as it ebbs and flows, and it can implement that into the final quote. Accurate quotes drive sustainable profitability.
![Integrate.io]()
![Integrate.io]()
The Unified Stack for Modern Data Teams
Get a personalized platform demo & 30-minute Q&A session with a Solution Engineer
3. Save Employee Time
It would be hard to tally the time it requires for your company's sales reps to work through spreadsheets, client information, competitive offers, and all the other factors CPQ can calculate. Allow your employees to focus on generating leads and communicating with clients instead of digging through data to develop accurate quotes.
4. Maintain Quality Client Relationships
CPQ may seem like just another timesaving, potentially expensive software, but it can also be a real investment. Configuring products to specific clients gives them a better and more personalized buying experience.
Many CPQ solutions offer industry-specific customization for a wide variety of commercial spaces. Especially in B2B sales and large-scale deals, CPQ can do a better job than a sales rep of keeping everything in perspective wherever it concerns data. It provides a unique way to invest in relationships with your clients and give them what they need when they need it.
5. Deal with High-Volume Commerce
Probably the most significant part of deciding whether you need a CPQ solution is simply the volume of clients you deal with. If you are a smaller business, chances are that CPQ will be of limited use to you. Your sales reps can handle the load right now, but as you expand, you may need software to help take up the slack.
Choosing a CPQ Solution
Three major factors in choosing the best solution include cloud availability, customizability, and easy integration with your current infrastructure.
Cloud availability: Cloud computing in your business requires a CPQ solution that can integrate data, perform ETL and support your quotes with applicable data all in the Cloud.
Customizability: Most solutions come with a wide variety of options already built into the software, but you may require greater customization to meet all your needs. Each company and industry has a lot of specifics, so selecting a solution that offers more than just out-of-the-box functionality is often necessary.
Easy Integration: Data integration to and from various sources and destinations requires an integrated system of software. Understanding compatibility and connectors for your CPQ, ERP, and CRM solutions will be a deciding factor in which solution you choose. The easier it is to implement, the less time you will waste before unlocking the full benefits of the software.
Data-Driven CPQ Integrations with Integrate.io
Integrate.io helps you integrate all your data quickly and easily to a variety of sources and destinations. With dozens of native connectors, Integrate.io provides simplified ETL to and from your ERP and CRM software.
CPQ relies on data, on understanding your customers, and on getting a comprehensive view of your business. Integrate.io helps you do all these things while saving time through low- and no-code data integration. You can build data pipelines with no coding knowledge in a fraction of the time normally required.
To learn more about how you can get started on your journey of data-driven CPQ through ETL, contact Integrate.io today and schedule your 14-day demo.