Zilliant CPQ (formerly In Mind Cloud CPQ) is a fully integrated CPQ platform that lets manufacturing businesses develop completely individualized offers for complex product, solution, and service offerings. Companies in the medical device, construction, automotive, aerospace, industrial equipment, engineering and electrical equipment, and wholesale ecommerce industries can use Zilliant CPQ software to create customized offers quickly and accurately.
Since the platform supports two-way integration with the ERP backend, it’s always reinforced with the latest product and warehouse data. This, working together with an organization’s automated rules and predetermined constraints, makes quotes and pricing documents 100% accurate across numerous product/item lines. It supports Configure-to-Order, Engineer-to-Order, Manufacturing-as-a-Service, and mass production models.
Why this product is good
Positives of Zilliant CPQ Software
Product Details
What is Zilliant CPQ?
Zilliant CPQ is a sales automation platform designed for complex manufacturing environments. Since it’s part of a comprehensive Digital Sales Platform, it supports a streamlined and cohesive flow of data between sales, product, engineering, and finance teams. It offers the tools to make product configuration quick and accurate, increasing sales efficiency, eliminating costly errors, and simplifying the selection process for the end user (the buyer via portal integration or the seller via the software interface).
Features include:
- Real-time 2D/3D product visualization
- Native CAD and maps integrations for dymanic configuration
- Multi-level data integration with ERP backend
- Automated rule and constraint management
- Interactive costing and pricing tools
- Instant RFQ, quote, and tender generation
- Access to 3D virtual catalogs
- Smart selling features
Real-Time 2D/3D Product Visualization: Interactive visualization allows sales representatives and customers to see exactly what the end product will look like even before manufacturing begins. This real-time visualization significantly reduces the risk of miscommunication or misunderstanding while making it easier for the seller to explain and the buyer to understand the product specifications.
Native CAD and Maps Integrations for Dynamic Configuration: Zilliant CPQ integrates directly with CAD systems and map services. This allows for detailed and accurate configurations, which are especially beneficial for complex manufacturing projects. The dynamic configuration capabilities mean engineers and sales reps can make changes on-the-fly, with the configuration adapting instantly.
Multi-Level Data Integration with ERP Backend: With seamless communication between Zilliant CPQ and a company’s ERP system, data from product inventory, financials, customer details, and more is always up-to-date and readily available. Whenever a rep or customer creates a new product, the product configurator will automatically know whether parts/components are available and if execution is possible.
Automated Rule and Constraint Management: Businesses set predefined rules and constraints for product configurations before integrating Zilliant into their sales, engineering, and manufacturing processes. Compatibility rules, manufacturing constraints, and regulatory requirements are company-specific and easily updated. The automated system ensures every configuration is viable, which eliminates costly mistakes and speeds up the sales process.
Interactive Costing and Pricing Tools: Zilliant CPQ includes tools to calculate the cost of various configurations automatically and apply pricing rules to generate an accurate price instantly. The software’s backend accounts for material costs, labor costs, discount structures, and other critical costing factors. This not only speeds up the quotation process but also verifies pricing is always profitable and competitive.
Instant RFQ, Quote, and Tender Generation: Sales teams can take their product configurations and instantly generate Request for Quotation (RFQ), quotes, and sales proposals. This significantly reduces the time it takes to respond to customer requests, leading to better customer service and faster lead-to-order and quote-to-cash processes.
Access to 3D Virtual Catalogs: 3D virtual catalogs enable sales representatives to present and demonstrate products virtually, making it an invaluable tool for remote sales efforts. It enables immersive, interactive product presentations that can help to better engage potential customers and more effectively communicate the product’s features and benefits. Catalogs also integrate with a website’s backend, so customer self-service portals are always updated for buyers that want to reorder or configure their own product.
Smart Selling Features: Product bundling, Smart Recommendations, and guided selling workflows empower sales teams to upsell and cross-sell more effectively. Bundling allows for selling multiple complementary products together, recommendations suggest additional or alternative products based on the customer’s selections, and guided selling aids representatives in steering customers toward optimal product configurations. These features can increase the average deal size while simplifying the process for the buyer, who only wants the best possible solution.
What are the advantages of using Zilliant CPQ?
Zilliant CPQ Benefits
There are numerous benefits to using Zilliant CPQ for manufacturing sales operations. A few of the most outstanding include:
- Streamlined sales processes that reduce manual effort and time-consuming tasks
- Accurate product configurations that meet customer expectations
- Reduced risk of miscommunication or confusion between reps and customers
- Increased profitability by eliminating costly errors in configuration
- Faster lead-to-order and quote-to cash times
- Enhanced customer experience due to immersive 3D virtual product catalogs
- Increased sales efficiency with smart selling features
What industries are CPQ solutions best suited for?
Zilliant CPQ for Industries
Zilliant CPQ is designed to address the challenges Manufacturing companies face when quoting customizable products and services. Here’s how it caters to them:
Discrete Manufacturing
Accurate Quotes for Complex Projects: Zilliant can handle simple standard products to complex, custom-engineered solutions. It integrates with a manufacturer’s ERP system to ensure pricing and product data are always up-to-date. This allows for the creation of accurate quotes quickly, reducing errors and delays.
Real-time Costing and Pricing: Zilliant allows manufacturers to see the impact of different configurations on costs and margins in real time. This allows sales teams to quickly create attractive offers for customers.
Configuration Engine for Complex Products: Zilliant has a built-in configuration engine that can handle complex products with multiple options and dependencies. This ensures that only valid configurations are quoted, reducing the risk of errors.
Industrial Machines & Equipment
Accurate Configuration with Real-time ERP Data: Industrial machines can have many variations depending on motors, controls, and other components. Zilliant CPQ integrates with a manufacturer’s ERP system, ensuring real-time access to accurate data on available parts and pricing. This eliminates errors caused by outdated information and speeds up configuration.
Dynamic Costing and Competitive Pricing: With Zilliant CPQ, manufacturers can see cost fluctuations based on chosen configurations. This allows for on-the-fly adjustments to pricing while maintaining profitability. They can also perform simulations to test different pricing strategies and find the most competitive edge.
2D/3D Visualization and CAD Integration: Zilliant enables real-time 2D or 3D visualization of the configured machine which can be immensely helpful for both the sales team explaining the configuration to the customer and the engineering team ensuring its feasibility. Additionally, it can integrate with existing CAD software for a seamless workflow.
Prices
Zilliant CPQ Pricing
The price of Zilliant CPQ is not published online. Contact their sales department for a custom quote.
CPQ Integrations
Competitors and Alternatives to Zilliant CPQ
Several things make the Zilliant platform great, but it isn’t for everyone. It only benefits manufacturers and requires a high level of technical expertise, so even small or regional manufacturers that don’t have in-house IT/engineering resources may want to consider another option.
Top 3 Zilliant CPQ Alternatives
Infor CPQ
Infor CPQ is the CPQ arm of Infor CloudSuite CRM integrations. Out of the box, it offers cross-integration support for numerous popular CRM, ERP, CAD, and eCommerce solutions as well as product specs, quote generation, order processing, and BOM creation. It offers manufacturers a range of customization options to simplify the lead-to-order process, such as workflow automation, guided selling, and interactive 3D product catalogs. It is a similarly integrated solution to Zilliant, but has a more robust integration suite including support for Salesforce, Dynamics 365, and Oracle.
PROS CPQ
PROS CPQ is designed for manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers, so it comes with all the features necessary to streamline product configuration, pricing, and ordering processes for those industries. What sets PROS apart from most configuration tools is its AI-driven pricing and configuration engine that uses advanced algorithms to generate optimized quotes. Manufacturers can integrate this into their cloud self-service portal to streamline ordering start to finish. PROS also has a lower cost barrier to entry. Although it’s primarily an enterprise platform, it’s available in scaled-down versions for smaller manufacturers as well.
Salesforce CPQ
Salesforce CPQ is a part of Revenue Cloud, the company’s microservices-based ecosystem that enables sales teams to completely manage their selling process. Salesforce CPQ takes a more traditional approach to CPQ, so it won’t offer 3D product configuration and virtual catalogs out-of-the-box (though it is available at higher costs). It does, however, have an extensive integration library via the Salesforce AppExchange and a wide range of customization options. For companies already using Salesforce, the Salesforce CPQ add-on is sometimes a no-brainer since it works in the same UI. Still, Zilliant, PROS, or Infor are still better options for any organization with highly complex or configurable products.
FAQs
Common Questions and Answers
Businesses use CPQ software to create, manage, and optimize their sales processes. Without an automated software that could manage product data and reflect it in real-time as customers/sales reps build products, it would be difficult (or impossible) to accurately configure and price products then generate their respective quotes. CPQ enables businesses to streamline their sales operations and reduce manual effort so that they can scale up faster with minimal risk of errors.
Most of Zilliant’s features are natively integrated into the cloud platform, but it can be connected to any ERP system via a 3rd party integration. Since the platform is available only as a package deal, it already comes with CRM, CPQ, and physical/digital commerce tools built in. It also offers industry specific tools for engineers, product designers, and sales teams.
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