Mostly designed for complex quotes and contracts, Conga CPQ (previously Apttus CPQ) is a CPQ (configure, price, quote) software that helps businesses automate their quoting process. It is a digital commerce solution that offers features such as product and pricing configuration, contract management, document generation, and more.
Why this product is good
Positives of Conga CPQ Software
Product Details
What is Conga CPQ?
Conga CPQ is a cloud-based configure, price, quote (CPQ) software with features designed to help businesses automate the creation of sales quotes and contracts. It also makes it easy to manage products, pricing, and discounts.
Features include:
- Team collaboration for complex quotes
- Product search and comparison
- Complete solution selling
- Asset-based ordering
- Guided selling
- Automated price optimization
- Subscription management
Team Collaboration for Complex Quotes: Conga CPQ’s team collaboration features, now enhanced with approval workflows, make it easy to manage complex quotes. This includes the ability to assign tasks, add notes, track progress, and facilitate necessary approvals, all in a cloud-based system accessible from anywhere.
Product search and comparison. Users can locate products through options like the ‘Browse Catalog’ list, a search bar, or by navigating through categories that align with predetermined entitlements. Product Comparison on the catalog page helps sellers evaluate product attributes and identify the products that most closely match their prospect’s requirements.
Complete solution selling. Sellers can add hardware products, software products, services, subscriptions, and various other types of products into a single quote or sales proposal. They can configure and sell entire mixed packages and bundles within a single order.
Asset-based ordering. Save time searching your product catalog for products, bundles, and line items your customers have previously purchased. Conga saves past configurations to eliminate friction and ensure the correct product is purchased every time.
Guided selling. Conga CPQ asks interactive questions designed to guide the seller/customer toward identifying the appropriate solution for their needs. Based on needs and configurations, the system recommends additional products and services. Product rules tell the system what can, can’t, and must be sold together.
Automated price optimization. Conga’s pricing engine establishes dimensional or formula-based pricing, which it dynamically implements based on quantity, customer rating, geographical region, and other factors. It also automates customizable pricing discounts and suggests discount rates.
Subscription management. Conga CPQ centralizes subscription and order management for recurring revenue businesses by allowing adjustments for renewals, terminations, and changes through any channel, while automatically generating opportunities and quotes upon renewal. It also offers an automated single-billing solution that combines one-time sales and subscription-based services.
What are the advantages of using CPQ?
Conga CPQ’s Benefits
There are many benefits to using Conga CPQ. A few of the most notable benefits include:
- Increased customer satisfaction
- More accurate quotes and contracts
- Improved sales productivity
- Faster quote and contract creation
- Reduced time to market
- Improved revenue intelligence
What industries are CPQ solutions best suited for?
Conga CPQ for Industries
Conga CPQ is specifically designed to address the quoting challenges faced by IT services, Software, and Media companies. Here’s how it caters to them:
IT Services
Managing Complexities: IT services often involve intricate bundles of products (software licenses, hardware) and services (implementation, training). Conga CPQ allows for configuring these complex offerings with nested bundles and various attributes, ensuring accurate quotes.
Subscription Management: Subscription-based IT services are becoming increasingly common. Conga CPQ can handle these models effectively, allowing for the creation of quotes that include recurring charges and different billing cycles.
Collaboration: For complex IT services quotes, collaboration between sales, technical teams, and potentially even partners may be required. Conga CPQ facilitates this by allowing teams to share data and work on the quote simultaneously, expediting the process.
Software
Accurate Pricing: Conga CPQ can handle various pricing structures, including volume discounts, tiered pricing, and pre-negotiated contracts. This ensures computer software and SaaS companies can offer competitive and accurate quotes while considering their margins.
Guided Selling and Upselling: Conga CPQ can be configured with pre-defined rules that recommend relevant services or upgrades based on the customer’s initial selections. This helps companies offer the most suitable solutions while maximizing their potential revenue.
Subscription Management: SaaS companies often deal with subscriptions with various terms, features, and pricing models. Conga CPQ streamlines this by automating order creation, management, renewals, and cancellations.
Media and Entertainment
Streamlined Quote Management: Conga CPQ offers features for managing the quote lifecycle, including functionalities like incorporating manual discounts, requesting quote approvals, tracking revisions, and generating contracts from approved quotes.
Unified Quote-to-Order Process: Conga CPQ integrates with CRM and order management systems, creating a smooth flow from quote creation to order fulfillment. This improves efficiency and reduces the risk of errors throughout the complex media and advertising sales cycle.
Prices
Conga CPQ Pricing
Conga CPQ starts at $35 per user per month. The pricing scales up depending on the number of users and the included features and integrations. Conga also offers premium consulting and integration services. This cost does not include setup fees.
Conga does not offer a free trial or a freemium version of the software. However, they do offer a free demo of the product before purchase.
Is there anyone else out there?
Competitors and Alternatives to Conga CPQ
There are several competitors to Conga CPQ, each with its strengths and weaknesses. At the enterprise level, businesses need features like advanced pricing and configuration abilities, scalability, and team collaboration. Other important factors to consider include price, integrations, ease of use, and customer support.
Top 3 Conga CPQ Alternatives
Salesforce CPQ
Among the most feature-rich CPQ solutions, Salesforce CPQ streamlines and automates most of the processes from quote to contract, giving users more control while also allowing them to easily set up, price, quote, negotiate, communicate, and finalize transactions. It enables users to modify this data at any point, which makes it easy to keep track of the sales process and make changes as needed. Salesforce CPQ is one of the most expensive. With the customizability and robust features that Salesforce’s tech stack offers, this CPQ software is best for enterprise businesses with complex pricing structures and products.
Oracle CPQ
Oracle CPQ makes it easy to configure new products by allowing users to drag and drop product options into a “cart.” It also offers the ability to quickly generate quotes and contracts. Oracle CPQ also improves compliance and risk management initiatives by tracking customer interactions and providing a complete audit trail. Its fully-automated contract management capabilities make it easy to keep track of all contract changes and approvals. Its cloud-based system also allows users to access the software from anywhere. For businesses that want an easy-to-implement solution and a frictionless setup, Oracle is a great choice.
SAP CPQ
SAP CPQ is adaptable and allows for a wide range of customization options to meet the demands of the clients. It’s also not difficult to handle. During implementation, SAP’s world-class support team enables its customers to easily overcome issues concerning customer-specific process requirements. With SAP CPQ, you can rest assured that your company’s margins are protected with product, customer, and channel price controls. This specific feature eliminates problematic discounting with rules-driven eligibility and margin-protecting capabilities. In addition, your company can enhance and augment deal size by using pricing and cross-sell suggestions.
Valuable Insight From Real Customers
Gartner Peer Insights
Out of 152 reviews, Conga CPQ has a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars on Gartner Peer Insights. In their reviews, users note the software’s ability to automate and streamline the sales process, as well as its ease of use, scalability, and customer support. However, some users mention that the software can be expensive and that the learning curve can be steep.
The reviewers and customer demographics are as follows:
Reviewer’s Company Size
- Less than $50M: 8%
- $50M-$1B: 38%
- $1B-$10B: 30%
- Over $10B: 23%
- Gov’t/PS/Ed: 1%
Reviewer’s Industry
- Healthcare and Biotech: 18%
- IT Services: 17%
- Software: 11%
- Manufacturing: 11%
- Other: 43%
Reviewer’s Deployment Region
- North America: 44%
- Asia/Pacific: 26%
- Europe, Middle East, and Africa: 22%
- Latin America: 8%
Gartner Peer Insights affirms that Conga CPQ is feature-rich software that helps businesses automate and streamline their sales processes, as cited by the featured review on their site.
FAQs
Common Questions and Answers
Conga CPQ is a cloud-based software that businesses use to send prices and quotes to their customers, speeding up the sales process. It enables users to quickly generate quotes and contracts, as well as keep track of customer interactions and generate complex pricing structures.
Yes, Apttus and Conga merged in 2020 and now operate under the Conga name. The strategic transaction brought together the two companies to create a global leader in CPQ software that enables both small and large companies to improve their quote and contract management processes.
Conga Quote Generation is a discounted add-on product for Salesforce customers and is not included in the base Salesforce subscription.
Conga was created on the Salesforce AppExchange platform. Now, Salesforce is an investor in Conga and offers its software as discounted add-ons.
Conga CPQ integrates with Salesforce, Google Drive, Dropbox, Docusign, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Box, Evernote, Microsoft OneDrive, and many other business tools for a seamless workflow.
Summary
Conga CPQ’s Summary
Conga CPQ is an excellent configure, price, quote tool that works best for businesses that are expanding their product lines and services, as well as companies with complex pricing structures. Its feature-rich CPQ automation software makes it simple for businesses to generate sales quotes in as little time as possible. And since it works seamlessly with Salesforce tools and Conga’s CLM platform, each of its tools comes together to create a robust tech stack that gives businesses everything they need to succeed.
And for customers and clients, faster and easier quote and contract generation mean a better overall customer experience.
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.
