Bridging the Gap: How CPQ Enhances Sales-Product Synergy

When it comes to sales tools, CPQ (configure, price, quote) is definitely the most important. It handles the processes of product selection, configuration, price calculation, and quote delivery. In a lot of cases, it also facilitates the actual transaction.

As the primary source of sales data, CPQ plays a huge role in alinging your sales and product teams. Your product team needs to know what sells the best and where to prioritize product development, and your sales team needs to have the most up-to-date product information to effectively sell to customers.

And for companies with highly configurable engineer-to-order (ETO) products, features like visual configuration and CAD integration within CPQ make it easy for product and sales teams to collaborate using one platform, then deliver accurate quotes in a timely manner.

So, CPQ software bridges the gap between sales reps and product developers — two departments with different priorities that ultimately depend on each other for growth.

Sales and product team collaboration drives GTM success.

Whenever you’re launching a new product, rolling out a new feature, or going into a new market, your sales team are the ones driving it. They’re the ones communicating with customers, understanding their pain points, and ultimately finding a solution your product can deliver.

But it’s a two-way street.

Sales insights guide product development.

Sales teams interact directly with customers, gathering valuable insights into their preferences, pain points, and feedback. When shared with product teams, this information guides the development of products that truly resonate with the target audience, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Both teams need to work towards unified objectives.

Product teams can prioritize features that address market demands, while sales teams are equipped with the knowledge to effectively position these features to customers. This alignment minimizes miscommunication and streamlines efforts towards common goals.

Alignment reduces time-to-market.

By working together, sales and product teams can identify market opportunities and challenges early on. This proactive approach allows for quicker adjustments in product development and more timely responses to market trends, giving the company a competitive edge.

It also drives resource efficiency.

Collaborative efforts reduce redundancies and ensure that resources are utilized effectively. Sales teams can focus on leads that align with the product’s strengths, while product teams can allocate development resources to features with the highest market impact.

Mutual accountability fosters a positive company culture.

Celebrating joint successes fosters a culture of mutual respect and accountability. Recognizing the contributions of both teams in achieving milestones reinforces collaboration and encourages continued partnership. And compared to non-aligned companies, those that achieve alignment have up to 19% faster revenue growth with 15% better margins.

Enhancing cross-functional collaboration with CPQ

CPQ is more than just a sales tool. Its connection to your product catalog, pricing strategies, and guided selling capabilities make it a powerful platform for cross-functional alignment.

Let’s look at how:

1. Improved communication and transparency

CPQ provides a centralized platform for sharing product and pricing information. Features like shared dashboards and notifications eliminate the need for spreadsheet-based price lists, product catalogs, and manual updates.

For the sales team, this means they’re always working with the most up-to-date information regarding product features, possible configurations, pricing, and availability. They don’t have to write to someone in product management every time they make a new configuration.

For your product developers, this translates to real-time feedback on product performance and pricing strategies. It also allows for better collaboration between sales and product teams when it comes to forecasting and planning.

2. Enhanced product knowledge sharing

CPQ is a huge sales driver throughout the customer lifecycle. What most people overlook is its importance in the product lifecycle.

Without the right product knowledge, sales reps may struggle to effectively sell or even understand the value of a new product. This is where CPQ comes in as a powerful tool for knowledge transfer between sales and product teams.

• Pricing
• Configurations
• Defining features
• Delivery timeframes
• Manufacturing processes
• Business-specific use cases
• Specifics and nuances of design

CPQ systems serve as a single source of truth by centralizing all product-related data, including configurations, pricing, and specifications. By embedding complex product and pricing rules within the CPQ system, product knowledge is effectively transferred into an automated framework.

3. Alignment on sales strategies and goals

Most CPQ systems include guided selling features that prompt sales teams with targeted questions to identify customer needs and recommend appropriate products or configurations. This process puts product team insights right inside the sales workflow and keeps sales strategies aligned with product capabilities and customer requirements.

You can also use sales data in CPQ to measure progress toward your sales targets and benchmark against forecasted product performance. The product team can look at this information and use it to plan out their next updates. That way, their product roadmap continually drives the business closer to its sales goals.

4. Faster and more accurate quoting

CPQ automation can significantly reduce your sales cycle time (up to 28%, according to some studies). But it’s not just about speeding up the process. It’s about eliminating the most error-prone tasks from the human-driven aspects of your sales workflow.

• Product configuration
• Product and bundle selection
• Price calculations (including taxes, currency conversion, etc.)
• Quote generation based on the configured product and calculated price

All these things are taken care of by the software. Rather than talk to the product and/or engineering team about what can and can’t be done, calculating prices by hand, looking up conversion rates, then putting it all into a document manually, sales reps can just select the products and quantities they need and the system creates a customer-ready quote in seconds.

5. Improved customer experience

Simplified configuration processes and faster quote delivery times are differentiators in and of themselves. According to a Gartner report, 77% of B2B buyers stated that their most recent purchase was either “difficult” or “very complex.” And 64% of buyers expect companies to interact with them in real time.

But CPQ also gives your sales tema the ability to provide a more personalized experience for customers. With access to real-time pricing and product information, sales reps can make on-the-spot recommendations and identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities based on the customer’s needs.

You can also use it to create interactive quotes that allow customers to choose between different product options and see how it affects the overall price. And for ecommerce quoting, they can see the price and visualized product update in real time as they make their selections. This is all based on data that’s shared in real time from your product team.

Go from “silos” to “synergy” with Sales-Product alignment

When you have all your product and pricing information in one central location, everyone can work from the same data. There’s no need to go back and forth between different teams or departments to get the latest information. It eliminates confusion, reduces errors, and keeps everyone on the same page.

That said, despite the benefits, fostering collaboration between Product and Sales can be challenging due to differing objectives and communication styles. You have to establish clear roles, open communication channels, and shared metrics to bridge these gaps and create a cohesive and productive working relationship between the two departments.

It’s also important to remember that implementing a CPQ solution requires input from both product and sales teams to define configuration rules, pricing strategies, and sales workflows. A collaborative setup process is what fosters the deeper mutual understanding and continuous knowledge exchange that leads to better cohesion and improved performance.

Ready to start evaluating CPQ systems? Check out our product reviews, comparisons, and smart tips for choosing the right CPQ software.