Oracle CPQ is a Configure, Price, Quote software that enables companies to increase the efficiency of their sales cycles by functioning as a Quote-to-Cash management solution. It uses automated configurations and real-time pricing to generate quotes and sales proposals, ensuring that sellers can quickly and reliably provide their clients with accurate, up-to-date information and prices on all of their products.
This cloud-based application integrates with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems allowing companies to automate processes at virtually every stage of the sales cycle, from lead to cash.
Why this product is good
Positives of Oracle’s CPQ software
Product Details
What is Oracle CPQ?
Oracle CPQ is a cloud-based software application that helps businesses automate the quote-to-cash process. It provides a centralized repository for pricing, product, and customer data, and uses this information to generate accurate quotes fast.
Features include:
- AI-based price optimization
- Guided selling
- Real-time quote collaboration
- Discounting and deal management engine
- Multi-site document designer
- Subscription ordering
- Full integration with leading CRM systems
AI-based price optimization: Oracle CPQ provides salespeople with intelligently designed pricing and discount information, such as optimal price determination, average selling price (ASP), last price paid, and other relevant deal comparisons that can help streamline pricing variability. This allows your sales team to focus on identifying customer needs and building stronger relationships.
Guided selling: Sales teams are equipped with the skills and knowledge to identify customer needs and offer relevant product suggestions. Additionally, customers have access to self-service tools that guide them through a wide range of configurable ordering and purchasing processes.
Real-time quote collaboration: Your sales team can sell and interact with customers in real time from any device and remotely configure products or services according to customer preferences.
Discounting and deal management engine: In-depth deal analysis which takes into account metrics such as cost, discounts, margins, and profitability allows you to align sales activities with corporate objectives and focus on closing the right deals. With features like price scoring, last price paid data, KPI deal comparison, historical trends information, and predictive win optimization data available at your fingertips, you can maximize margins and boost win rates.
Multi-site document designer: Automate the documentation creation process across multiple languages. Create comprehensive documentation, including proposals, custom-branded quotes, and contracts.
Subscription ordering. Configure and manage everything related to subscription contracts and recurring payments. Oracle handles annuities, software licensing, support agreements, contract renewals, and proration right in the CPQ platform.
Full integration with leading CRM systems: By embedding CPQ functionality natively within your CRM solution, sales teams can quickly and easily access customer order histories and create, modify, or send quotes from a single screen. This makes the entire process simpler and more streamlined.
What are the advantages of using CPQ?
Oracle CPQ’s Benefits
There are many benefits to using Oracle CPQ. A few of the most notable benefits include:
- Saves time
- Streamlines quotes
- Provides analytics insights
- Reduces errors in quotes and proposals
- Improves deal margins
- Accelerates sales velocity
What industries are CPQ solutions best suited for?
Oracle CPQ for Industries
Oracle CPQ is specifically designed to address the challenges that Manufacturing, IT Services, and Telecommunications companies face in the quoting process. Here’s how it caters to them:
Manufacturing
Streamlined Quoting for Complex Products: Manufacturing often involves products with various options and configurations. It allows sales reps to configure these complex products using validation rules that prevent invalid configurations, stopping errors before they lead to incorrect quotes or production issues.
Integration with Manufacturing Systems: The software integrates with a manufacturer’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, allowing for a smooth flow of data between sales and production.
Analytics and Reporting: It provides valuable insights into sales performance, pricing trends, and product profitability. This data can be used to optimize sales strategies and improve manufacturing efficiency.
IT Services
Subscription Management: Oracle CPQ integrates with subscription management systems, allowing for the creation of accurate quotes with recurring revenue components like support agreements or tiered service packages. This streamlines the quote-to-cash process for these complex offerings.
Asset-Based Ordering: This feature enables building product bundles with IT services alongside hardware or software. This simplifies quoting for situations where a customer needs a combination of products and ongoing services.
Guided Selling: It guides sales reps through the quoting process, ensuring they include all necessary components and adhere to pre-configured pricing rules. This is helpful for complex IT service offerings with many options and configurations.
Telecommunications
Streamlined Quoting for Complex Bundles: Telco offerings often involve complex packages combining various services, data plans, and equipment. Oracle CPQ allows sales reps to configure these bundles efficiently and generate accurate quotes quickly.
Automated Workflows and Rules: Telecom companies often have intricate pricing structures with discounts and promotions. The software automates these rules, enabling sales reps to offer the most up-to-date pricing and promotions, potentially closing deals faster.
Improved Operational Efficiency: With Oracle, generating quotes becomes faster and more streamlined. This reduces sales cycle times and frees reps to focus on closing deals and providing better customer service.
Prices
Oracle CPQ Pricing
The price for Oracle CPQ is $240 per user per month.
Is there anyone else out there?
Competitors and Alternatives to Oracle CPQ
There are several competitors to Oracle CPQ, each with its features and benefits. At the enterprise level, businesses need features like advanced pricing and configuration abilities, scalability, and team collaboration. Other essential factors to consider include price, integrations, ease of use, and customer support.
Top 3 Oracle CPQ Alternatives
SAP CPQ
Praised for its support network, SAP CPQ is easy to use and reliable, with high ratings for product capabilities, contracting, and cost management. SAP CPQ allows for a wide range of customization options to enable sales teams to create a seamless buying experience for their customers.
IBM CPQ
Rated highly for capabilities and ease of implementation, IBM CPQ comes with a very easy-to-understand interface that makes it especially user-friendly. It provides a central repository for product information and pricing and gives sales representatives the ability to quickly generate accurate quotes for customers. IBM CPQ can also automate pricing and discounting rules, ensuring that quotes are always compliant with company policies.
Salesforce CPQ
Salesforce CPQ is a cloud-based solution that integrates with existing Salesforce software for easy use. This CPQ is jam-packed with features that simplify and automate nearly every process, from creating a quote to signing a contract. Users praise Salesforce CPQ for its ability to enable sales teams to plan, price, quote, negotiate, communicate, and finalize deals with ease.
Valuable Insight From Real Customers
Gartner Peer Insights
Oracle CPQ has a rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars on Gartner Peer Insights. In their reviews, users note the software’s flexibility and ease of integration. However, some users mention that software documentation and support could be improved.
The reviewers and customer demographics are as follows:
Reviewer’s Company Size
- Less than $50M: 4%
- $50M-$1B: 48%
- $1B-$10B: 31%
- Over $10B: 15%
- Gov’t/PS/Ed: 3%
Reviewer’s Industry
- Manufacturing: 23%
- IT Services: 11%
- Telecommunications: 11%
- Healthcare and Biotech: 8%
- Other: 48%
Reviewer’s Deployment Region
- North America: 37%
- Asia/Pacific: 27%
- Europe, Middle East, and Africa: 23%
- Latin America: 13%
Gartner Peer Insights affirms that Oracle actively solicits feedback on the product in an effort to make improvements to the functionality of their CPQ software, as cited by the featured review on their site.
FAQs
Common Questions and Answers
Oracle CPQ supports large volumes of data, so it is well-suited for industries where order complexity is high due to a large number of available products, materials, or components, such as in the fashion, manufacturing, or tech industries.
Yes. Oracle offers a range of products and services to suit your company’s needs, such as database cloud services, advertising, supply chain management solutions, and more.
Oracle CPQ offers a comprehensive suite of tools that empowers sales teams to efficiently navigate the complexities of configuring, pricing, and quoting products and services. Through automation, integration, and analytics, the solution enhances the accuracy and effectiveness of the sales process, ultimately contributing to improved customer satisfaction and overall sales performance.
SAP CPQ and Oracle CPQ are both solutions designed to streamline the sales process for complex products and services. Here’s a comparison:
Vendor Background:
– SAP CPQ: Developed by SAP, a global enterprise software company known for its ERP solutions.
– Oracle CPQ: Offered by Oracle, another major player in the enterprise software industry focusing on databases, cloud services, and business applications.
Integration with Respective Ecosystems:
– SAP CPQ: Integrated with SAP’s broader suite of enterprise applications, including SAP ERP and SAP CRM, providing a seamless end-to-end business process.
– Oracle CPQ: Integrates with Oracle’s suite of applications, offering connectivity with Oracle CRM and other enterprise systems.
Configuration and Customization:
– SAP CPQ: Known for its flexibility in configuration and customization, allowing businesses to adapt the solution to their specific needs.
– Oracle CPQ: Offers robust configuration capabilities, providing tools for configuring complex products and services based on customer requirements.
Industry Focus:
– SAP CPQ: SAP often caters to a broad range of industries, and SAP CPQ is designed to be adaptable to different business sectors.
– Oracle CPQ: Oracle CPQ is also versatile but has seen significant adoption in industries such as manufacturing, technology, and telecommunications.
User Interface and Experience:
– SAP CPQ: Known for a user-friendly interface that facilitates ease of use for sales representatives and other users.
– Oracle CPQ: Offers an intuitive interface with guided selling tools to assist sales teams in the configuration and quoting process.
Deployment Options:
– SAP CPQ: Supports both on-premise and cloud deployments, providing flexibility based on the business’s preferences.
– Oracle CPQ: Primarily offered as a cloud-based solution, aligning with Oracle’s focus on cloud services.
No, Oracle CPQ is not technically part of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, although it works closely with it. Here’s the breakdown:
ERP: It focuses on the internal operations of a company, managing aspects like:
– Accounting
– Supply chain management
– Financial performance reporting
Oracle CPQ: This cloud-based application specializes in the front-office sales process, helping with:
– Configuring products and services
– Generating accurate quotes
– Streamlining the quote-to-cash process
While not part of the same system, Oracle CPQ “bridges the gap” between your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ERP systems. This means it integrates with both, allowing information to flow seamlessly and improving efficiency. For example, Oracle CPQ can:
– Pull product and pricing data from the ERP to generate accurate quotes.
– Send order information to the ERP once a quote is approved.
This integration helps organizations streamline their sales process, reduce errors, and improve their bottom line.
Summary
Oracle CPQ’s Summary
Oracle CPQ is a robust software solution with a polished user interface and an impressive configuration engine capable of dealing with complex B2B sales. While it might take some time for users to get up to speed with this software, it is a powerful tool for ambitious enterprises intent on multi-channel selling.
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