CPQ Software for High-Tech and SaaS
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and high-tech companies constantly face new business problems as they endeavor to remain competitive. One of the most pressing issues is how to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of the tech industry through innovation and exceptional service.
Another issue that SaaS companies face is how to scale their business given the complex products they offer. As their customer base grows, tech companies need to ensure they can handle increased demand and maintain high-performance levels.
Finally, many tech and SaaS companies are in the early stages of funding. They are under pressure to control costs and improve productivity with limited resources. Any advantage they can get from streamlining processes and using technology to automate manual tasks will help them grow revenue faster.
Why High-Tech and SaaS Companies Need CPQ
Many SaaS and high-tech companies are digitally transforming their sales and revenue operations to overcome these challenges. Notably, they are turning to configure-price-quote (CPQ) software to simplify their sales processes, automate product configuration and quote generation, and create a better customer experience.
The value of CPQ for tech companies is its flexibility in supporting many pricing models, including usage-based, consumption-based, value-based, flexible, and subscription-based pricing. With CPQ, companies can easily scale up their business operations to meet customer demand and offer a variety of product and service configurations to maximize customer satisfaction. This efficient approach allows SaaS companies to improve their sales quoting process while providing customers with an easy-to-understand proposal that meets their needs and expectations.
Additionally, these tools allow tech companies to easily set rules regarding discounts, upsells, and cross-sells to help grow revenue. By offering automated online ordering processes, SaaS organizations can save valuable time while providing their customers with an efficient buying experience.
Here are some of the many business issues that CPQ helps tech companies solve:
- inconsistent pricing
- errors in quotes
- incorrect product configurations
- inaccurate inventory data
- long turnaround times for quotes
- revenue leaks due to incorrect quotes and billing
- delays in quote approvals
CPQ Solutions for SaaS
DealHub CPQ Overview
Oracle CPQ Overview
SAP CPQ Overview
Salesforce CPQ Overview
Conga CPQ Overview
PROS CPQ Overview
Challenges CPQ Solves for High-Tech and SaaS Companies
Here are some of the many business issues that CPQ helps solve:
- inconsistent pricing
- errors in quotes
- incorrect product configurations
- complex pricing models
- low subscription renewal rates
- difficulty quoting product and service bundles
- long turnaround times for quotes
- revenue leaks due to incorrect quotes and billing
- delays in quote approvals
High-tech and SaaS companies can reap many benefits from CPQ implementation and execution.
How High-Tech and SaaS Companies Can Leverage CPQ
High-tech and SaaS companies can reap many benefits from adding CPQ to their sales stack, including reduced costs, improved efficiency and sales team productivity, consistent pricing and discounting, and increased revenue. It’s also worth mentioning that CPQ Software helps to reduce customer support cases and increase customer retention.
Now, let’s dive into the primary advantages tech companies experience by implementing CPQ software.
Faster Sales Cycle: CPQ software is designed to help sales reps configure products and quotes quickly and accurately. By streamlining the quoting process, CPQ can reduce sales cycle time. In addition, CPQ helps sales reps quote the right product at the right price, improving customer satisfaction and closing more sales.
One Source of Truth: One crucial benefit of CPQ software for high-tech and SaaS is that it is integrated with the company’s CRM so your customer records, product catalog, pricing information, and sales activities are unified and stored in a central repository.
Improved Sales Performance: CPQ includes a guided selling tool to make it easier for sales reps to configure products for customers. By streamlining the process of creating custom quotes and orders, CPQ software helps reduce the time it takes to complete a sale. This can be especially helpful when complex configurations or product and service bundles.
Better Data: CPQ software can also help sales managers track and analyze sales data. This information can be used to identify best practices and optimize sales strategies. In addition, tracking customer preferences and buying trends can help businesses better understand their target markets and develop new products or services.
Minimized Errors: Quote errors can be costly and time-consuming for businesses. CPQ software helps to minimize these errors by streamlining the quoting process. This software ensures that the quotes are accurate and complete, based on the correct product configurations, pricing, and discounts. This reduces mistakes in sales proposals and contracts and helps sales reps close deals more quickly.
Customized Deals: For enterprise customers that are quoted a mix of products and services, CPQ enables sales teams to create customized quotes and contracts for enterprise customers that are often quoted a mix of products and services or bundles of products with special pricing. The CPQ syncs with contract management software to ensure the software use and licensing agreement, contract term, and renewal requirements are compliant.
Improves Renewal Rates: By automating the quote-to-cash process, CPQ software helps reduce errors, resulting in fewer missed renewals or incorrect prices. Furthermore, CPQ solutions provide accurate pricing information to customers quickly and efficiently, giving them confidence in renewals.
Supports Omnichannel Selling: CPQ is a great way to simplify cross-channel selling efforts. By having one central platform for managing prices and product configurations, sales reps can easily set up new products on different channels without having to manually enter each channel’s specifications individually. This makes it much easier to offer consistent experiences across all channels while reducing the amount of time spent on configuration and quoting.
Accelerates Revenue: CPQ software is an important tool for accelerating revenue. It helps businesses to configure, price, and order products quickly and accurately. This translates into faster order processing and shorter lead times, which can lead to increased sales and higher profits. Additionally, CPQ software can help companies to manage inventory more effectively and make better decisions about product pricing. All of these benefits can help businesses to increase their revenue and profitability.
CPQ Software Features SaaS Companies Need
Many features of today’s CPQ software are purpose-built for tech and SaaS companies. It enables companies that sell configurable products with complex pricing models to automate quote generation, manage subscriptions and renewals, and streamline contract management.
SaaS and high-tech companies should look for these features when searching for a CPQ solution:
Subscription Management: CPQ software is essential for subscription management. It helps with creating and managing orders, as well as handling renewals and cancellations. This ensures that customers always have the most up-to-date information about their subscriptions and that they can make changes or updates as needed. Additionally, CPQ software can help with billing and invoicing, which makes it easier to track payments and subscription status.
Product Configuration: CPQ software is specifically designed to help configure SaaS products so sales reps can guide customers through selecting the correct products for their needs. It provides an easy-to-use interface that makes it simple to configure even the most complex products or product and service bundles. When implementing a CPQ, you can plug in your product data, configure your business rules, and start quoting.
Pricing and Discounting: Pricing and discounting can be complex and time-consuming tasks without the help of CPQ software. With the right tools, businesses can automate these processes and ensure that their prices are accurate and up-to-date. Additionally, CPQ software can help businesses to track discounts and ensure that they are being offered at the correct rates. This can help to improve customer satisfaction and increase sales.
Multiple Pricing Models: CPQ can support a wide range of pricing models like usage-based billing, subscription-based plans, and tiered rates. These models are useful for companies that want to provide flexible payment options or need more granular control over their prices. With CPQ, businesses can set up rules and conditions around each model so that their customers will always see the most accurate quote before making a purchase decision.
Integration: CPQ software extends the value of many other solutions in the sales stack by synchronizing customer, product, and pricing data. With seamless integration with CRM platforms, sales engagement software, sales proposal software, billing, and revenue operations systems, CPQ helps sales teams achieve a fluid sales motion that connects all sales stages.
Agile and Scalable: As tech and SaaS companies grow their product and service offerings, it’s essential to have a sales solution that can keep up with the changes. Frequent changes in products and pricing tiers, and new product launches, can disrupt sales organizations. However, CPQ software makes it easy to implement changes so sales teams are ready for new product launches.
Reports and Analytics: CPQ software can help with sales analytics and reports in a few ways. First, it can help you to gather data about your sales process, including how many quotes are created, how many proposals are won or lost, and how much revenue is generated. This data can then be used to create reports that show how your sales team is performing and where they could be improved. Additionally, CPQ software can help you generate reports about your products that can be used to decide which products to discontinue and how to price your products. Overall, CPQ software can help you to gather data and create reports that improve your sales process, improve forecasting, and help you make better decisions about your product lines.
Rhonda Bavaro excels in boosting SaaS companies’ growth through innovative content marketing, thriving in the dynamic sales tech industry amidst evolving technologies that drive revenue acceleration.
