It can be scary to embrace CPQ integrations, but now is the time to start the journey
When I speak with our customers, the terms ‘smooth integrations’ and ‘powerful integrations’ get mentioned frequently. In a lot of cases, I can almost hear a tremble in their voice when they say it because they’re unsure if it’s possible or even okay to mention. After years and years of homegrown, on-prem, and software implementations– often coming from multiple acquisitions and various initiatives from different business units, many global organizations have had failed integration projects.
We all know that customers’ expectations have evolved to a point where they want to research and shop anywhere, anytime, and through any channel. Meeting the expectations requires personalized buying experiences that aren’t possible without connecting systems to leverage data and analytics. Digital business models are not a luxury, they are a necessity. For any business to be successful, they must embrace integrations to connect the front, middle, and back-office systems. The good news is that it doesn’t need to scare you– it should excite you.
Over the last decade, we have seen an epic shift from on-premise to cloud SaaS solutions as digital transformations have played out. As more and more enterprise organizations implement transformative technologies, the promise of automating workflows and delivering on customer experience can appear unkempt. This is where the power of integrations must be leveraged to connect your systems and create a single view of data that enables you to connect your processes and systems in a meaningful way. When properly integrating systems, you can quickly and easily leverage data from all your sources.
Integrations are the key component to accelerating innovation, automating manual processes, meeting customer expectations, and creating a truly data-driven ecosystem. When I speak with our customers, this is the end game of their digital transformation. And the digital transformation efforts have accelerated rapidly in the past year. It doesn’t matter the industry or vertical– they all say the same thing: we’ve made investments to transform our processes, we have an abundance of data from all our systems but aren’t sure if they are leveraging it properly for our own efficiency and truly delivering to our customers.
Just how fast has digital transformation accelerated in the past year? Check out this and more in our recent manufacturing survey!
There is so much data from so many systems, how can we harness it?
The wealth of data across these investments is absolutely critical to operating at an optimal level and delivering an industry-leading customer experience. If you don’t connect all of these critical systems, you will continue to be disconnected from department and data silos. You will continue to be removed from your customers as they interact through your partners, online, and in a direct manner.
This is where Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) software fits in. There is no way to sell highly customized products across channels without CPQ. We all know selling highly customized products is essential to your business model. If you do not connect your digital investments with the right CPQ software, you will continue to be disjointed and struggle to connect your end-to-end process… and of course, deliver on customer experience.
By implementing a CPQ integrated into your business-critical systems, you ensure your customers, sales, and partners are empowered to generate accurate quotes when selling hardware, software, services, and add-on accessories. Thanks to Guided Selling, CPQ enables anyone, with or without technical knowledge, to experience a data-driven experience in configuring customized products with 100% accuracy.
Empower your customers through self-service channels
The benefit to extending this fully integrated solution to your customers means they can begin the configuration process online through your website. With the proper CPQ, you can often make the product, configuration recommendations, and add-on recommendations– all based on the data you have collected and turned into meaningful intelligence. With CPQ integrated into your website, you ensure you give your customers the self-service channel they want while ensuring your most complicated sales come into your teams as a hot lead.
Extend your sales tools to your partner network for additional growth
Most of our customers and many other global manufacturers have partners and distributors that are essential to their business model. The downside is many do not have the business capabilities to invest in tools and rely heavily on the manufacturers they are selling for. With CPQ, you can extend the same tools and data out to your partner network and give yourself the ability to get closer to your customers. Additionally, we know any partner salesperson is going to go the path of least resistance when selling products. If yours is quick, easy, and positioned to deliver what their customer needs– they’ll likely choose you.
Check out how our customer Pelco is enabling their partners to do more. Get the full video here!
Enable the data-driven decision making you need to be efficient, govern your product offering, and increase your top-line growth
Whether your goal is supply chain optimization, governing your product offering, extending tools to partners and customers, making product recommendations in the configuration process, or increasing add-on sales, embracing CPQ integrations is the only way you can gather the data needed to make intelligent and meaningful actions. Check out the importance of a multidimensional approach to digital transformation is critical. Focusing on internal processes can lead to a better customer experience.
When integrating CPQ at the center of your business operations, you can truly become customer-centric and build the intelligent business model that was the initial promise of your digital transformation and Industry 4. So, let’s all agree, it’s time to stop fearing integrations and start embracing them!
Tacton has a history of embracing CPQ integrations to business-critical systems
Tacton has a robust team of integration specialists that have over 20 years of integration into the most complex systems including on-prem, homegrown, and software. We work with the top manufacturers in the world to put CPQ at the center of their selling process to ensure they have the data and intelligence to optimize their operations, build sustainable growth, and get closer to their customers. We’re not afraid to say we can integrate into anything
Discover more by signing up for your personalized demo today!