SAP CPQ has become an integral part of B2B sales transformation for the global Industrial Machinery and Components business. The capabilities that the Configure, Price, Quote engine brings are immense. The SAP CPQ solution predominantly addresses tough configuring, pricing, and quoting challenges such as product complexity, pricing structure complexity, long quote cycles, quote output generation, and inconsistent margin policies.
Why the Industrial Manufacturers Need B2B Sales Transformation with SAP CPQ
A quick view into the significance of B2B sales transformation for the IM&C industry. Changing B2B sales dynamics and customers’ demands only prove that traditional siloed sales approaches can no longer keep pace with complex quoting, configurations, and pricing. Leading IM&C businesses are emerging as winners in B2B sales by relying on a robust SAP CPQ solution to efficiently manage sales complexities and optimize their sales processes. This blog helps IM&C sales leaders explore how SAP CPQ streamlines IM&C sales challenges, workflows and boosts revenue growth.
Top 4 Trends Shaping B2B Sales in Industrial Manufacturing & Components (IM&C)
Leaders in the Industrial Manufacturing and Components business, acknowledge that sales cycles and quoting challenges continue to mount given the rapid phase of product and technology changes. Four main trends that are shaping the B2B sales landscape contribute to this mounting pressure. Organizations with an SAP CPQ solution are better positioned to manage such sales complexities with faster time to market.
1. Constant Innovation & Change
IM&C companies periodically launch new product lines, updates, and customizations to meet their customers’ business needs. SAP CPQ allows B2B sales leaders and executives to improve their quoting process by efficiently adapting to new products and configurations without the need for manual intervention, achieving 100% quote accuracy and speed.
2. Millennials & Gen Z tech-savvy Workforce:
B2B customers and tech-savvy workforce demand digital-first sales tools to ease their B2B buying process. SAP CPQ helps meet the demands of modern-day customers with its combined sales enablement capabilities that cover guided selling and real-time data integration with SAP ERP systems. It further ensures to shorten onboarding time for sales reps and increase quote delivery.
3. Workforce Remote Collaboration
Sales professionals, networking from distant occasions remotely, require reliable access to data and seamless collaboration with engineering, support, and manufacturing. SAP CPQ’s cloud-based solution provides hassle-free collaboration and maintains a single view of the sales pipeline and forecast across customer, product, and pricing data.
4. A Single Source of the Truth:
Centralized data is crucial to overcome complex sales challenges. SAP CPQ integration capabilities with back-end systems, SAP ERP, SAP C4C enable sales organization. IM&C businesses can achieve up-to-date information to make informed decisions by implementing SAP CPQ solution.
Solving Complex IM&C Sales Challenges with SAP CPQ
If it takes your sales reps more than a few hours to get a quote out the door, it may be time to look at SAP CPQ. Many companies face challenges with product, pricing, or quoting complexities that go beyond what can be efficiently managed manually. These complexities often lead to slow, labor-intensive processes, increasing sales costs and reducing profitability. Let’s explore some of the top challenges that SAP CPQ helps solve.
1. Quote Velocity Improvement
Getting quotes out fast is crucial for sales success. The more quotes your sales sends out the more potential revenue your business can aim for while expanding the overall base in the pipeline. To make it happen, a sales organization requires coordination among sales, sales support, finance engineering, costing, pricing, and manufacturing planning teams. SAP CPQ allows your sales teams to help maintain consistent margins and revenue. Sales teams to work in a uniform approach - follow the same margin policy and approvals.
2. Complex Range of CTO and ETO Products
IM&C faces a complex range of product configurations. From simple products to configure-to-order with customizations to engineer-to-order products, it requires much better coordination among the respective teams to reduce longer sales cycles. SAP CPQ helps standardize your quoting process by centralizing workflows, knowledge and brings the cost and the pricing elements right at your fingertips.
3. Onboarding New Sales Staff
The time it takes for a new sales staff to get into the sales systems costs time, revenue, and effort. Having an established SAP CPQ system helps reduce these challenges that could cost your organization revenue leakage, sales inconsistencies, and lost opportunities.
4. Complex Pricing Structure
IM&C manufacturers have complex pricing structures with customer-specific discounts, and tier discounts for scenarios such as multi-year quotes. These layered pricing models can result in quoting errors, inconsistent contract tenures, and ultimately missed sales opportunities. Your sales teams can reverse these effects with centralized and automated pricing and quoting processes using the SAP CPQ solution. By gaining the ability to create customer-specific discounts and ensure consistency across your contracts, your team will deliver reliable quotes, attract more opportunities, and boost revenue growth.
Top Benefits of Streamlining IM&C Sales Processes with SAP CPQ
1. Centralization of Knowledge Base
SAP CPQ helps give your sales team the advantage of quote velocity, and accuracy with its robust configuration, quoting, and pricing features. It begins with Product Configuration. Ensures that your product model and engineering, manufacturing rules come pre-built in the SAP CPQ solution. Your team will have the benefit of a customized and scalable pricing engine which allows them to build in all kinds of pricing models, supporting multiple pricing models that can be run side-by-side within a business.
2. Workflow Automation and Approvals
SAP CPQ automates essential workflows, including deal approvals and engineering reviews, creating a faster quoting process and eliminating bottlenecks. Automated approvals ensure that complex, multi-departmental quotes progress seamlessly without unnecessary delays.
3. Guided Product Configuration
SAP CPQ’s configurable product architecture supports complex product structures, enabling sales reps to manage attribute-based customizations easily. Configuration rules within SAP CPQ minimize quoting errors, automate product changes, and cater to complex requirements like CTO (Configure to Order) and ETO (Engineer to Order) models.
4. Scalable for Global Operations
Built with scalability in mind, SAP CPQ supports multiple geographies, permission settings, and customer self-service capabilities. This enhances the quoting experience for B2B buyers, providing them with access to self-service tools that simplify the configuration and order process.
Key Takeaways
As the IM&C sector continues to evolve, staying competitive requires adaptable and efficient sales processes that cater to modern buyer demands and complex product configurations. By leveraging SAP CPQ, IM&C organizations can overcome critical challenges, from reducing quote cycle times to managing intricate pricing structures. With centralized data, automation, and scalability at their disposal, businesses can empower their sales teams to perform with greater agility, accuracy, and speed, laying a strong foundation for sustainable growth in an increasingly dynamic market.
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