The top 3 CPQ digitization strategies in sales
CPQ solutions help companies to simplify complex sales processes and work more efficiently operationally. They reduce errors, accelerate processes and increase the quality of offers. Nevertheless, strategic potential, especially in the area of digitalization, often remains untapped.
In this article, you will learn how CPQ systems not only offer operational advantages but can also be used as a strategic tool to promote growth and competitiveness – especially for product portfolios with a wide range of variants.
Digitalization in sales
Nowadays, most companies use CPQ solutions to achieve operative goals. Besides looking at practical experiences, this assumption is confirmed by the GEXSO study of UniTH/Bearing Point on the topic of product configuration. Operative goals include, for example, reducing errors in the order processing, increasing the quality of quotes through standardization, reducing quote timeframes and costs, and shortening the order flow time.
The data shows that strategic sales goals are less in focus: most companies currently lack corresponding strategies. Especially in the field of digitalization, many chances remain untapped. A study by Ruhr-Universität Bochum together with Boston Consulting Group shows that companies that digitalize their sales accelerate their growth and become more profitable than their competitors.
This is where CPQ solutions come in. These solutions offer valuable, strategic opportunities in sales and product management. CPQ solutions digitalize processes, data, and coordination. Thus, you can consistently support the ever-changing market requirements. Especially companies with a very variant-rich product portfolio gain crucial advantages this way.
product configuration increasingly as a success factor for their industrial business
Source: Survey and publication by GEXSO study
(Global Excellence in Supply Chain Operations Ipsos)
Strategic variant analysis of the product portfolio
Regular analyses of your product variants give you an insight into the appeal of your product portfolio and whether the underlying processes work. Thereby, you uncover a lot of potentials, for example, to better your competitive position, identify and monitor trends, and optimize the Customer Journey. With a strategic variant analysis, you can draw enormous potential from your product portfolio. You can identify which variants sell less or more, compare them, and optimize them accordingly. Thus, companies can, for example, derive the ideal measures to stimulate competition.
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Active customer integration via collaboration platform
Another digitalization concept is the active integration of customers in your sales processes - by using an interactive collaboration platform. This platform displays the entire lead development and enables you to interactively collaborate on documents and processes. Potential customers experience in increase in transparency. Moreover, the administrative efforts in sales decrease significantly. The sales employee can always keep an ideal overview of current notifications, upcoming tasks, relevant leads, and important documents.
Guided selling combined with intelligent recommendations
With a digital Guided Selling concept, your sales teams are digitally guided through the sales process from the request to the conclusion of the contract. This guided approach is meant to achieve a requirement-oriented customer service, which is becoming more relevant each day. Additionally, Guided Selling can support you with product-related recommendations before, during, and after the sales process. This strategy actively supports your sales employees in customer service and enables them to create error-free quote documents. Thus, you benefit from the strategy as you can save time by reducing administrative tasks.
Conclusion
All these digitalization strategies have one thing in common: they put the customer at the center of sales. This approach massively benefits companies who utilize it compared to their competitors. Companies with a digitalized sales department are always one step ahead and can better meet their customers' needs and individual challenges. You can meet and perfectly fulfill the increasing requirements and wishes of any customer by offering more customization options for products and a customized digitalization strategy.

About the author
Torsten Biskup is Managing Director of CAS Merlin Sales & Account Management and has been working in the configuration industry and variant management for over ten years. As an opportunity thinker in sales, he is committed to not only thinking about digitalisation, but also implementing it. As an expert in product and contract configuration, Torsten Biskup can look back on experience and expertise in software development, project management, consulting and sales.
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