Getting Past Selling Roadblocks with Better Quoting Strategies
For many companies the length of their quoting cycles is directly proportional to the complexity of their products. The greater the complexity, the longer the sales cycle.
Category: price strategy
Minimizing Pricing Errors with Product Configuration Strategies
Bottom line: Pricing powerfully communicates who your company is and its market position relative to competitors – and the value delivered in customer experiences. Look at product configuration as a means to get in control of pricing, optimize it, and make it a competitive asset instead of a liability.
Jan 05, 2010 | 0 comments | View Post
Increasing the Performance and Efficiency of Product Configuration Strategies
Bottom line: Selling products and services on the same purchase order, integrating them from even different quoting systems is turning into a transformational strategy for many manufacturers who are locking down loyalty with their customers.
Dec 15, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
New Video from Microsoft: Become Easy to Buy from via Knowledge Management and Product Configuration
John O’Donnell from Microsoft interviews Jim Wilson and Gregor Newland about their product offering, Cincom Acquire. This technology can easily be used as an expert system to deliver the knowledge needed in many different industries. Topics include how to become easier to buy from, product configuration, and the importance of a declarative rules engine.
View the [...]
Dec 09, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
How to Make Every Dollar Count in Your Channel Management Strategies
Bottom line: Making every dollar count in your channel management strategies has to be anchored in nothing but results, and there must be an intensity to achieve despite higher quotas and shrinking budgets. Looking at these constraints as a crucible and not a crutch pervades those companies getting to their channel selling goals.
Oct 10, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
No Channel Partner Left Behind
Bottom line: A channel will only move as fastest as the slowest reseller. Go find ways to get that problem solved and your entire channel program will become more competitive. Making yourself easier to do business with by automating bidding, estimating and quoting is a start.
Oct 01, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Making the Most of Sales’ Time Using Product Configuration Strategies
Bottom line: Product configuration systems and the strategies can drastically reduce the amount of time sales teams waste in trying to get their quotes approved and priced, then back to the customer.
Aug 20, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
The Vital Role Product Configurators Play in Creating Channel Loyalty
While product configuration is often seen as a strategy to interlink order management, supply chain management, and ERP systems together, all giving a uniquely consistent experience to customers, it is also a critical strategy for sustaining channel loyalty as well.
In these times of economic uncertainty the best path to more channel loyalty is to provide [...]
Jul 26, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Time to Cut the Cord from High Maintenance Customers Using Product Configuration
Louis Columbus
Cincom Systems
Typically product configuration strategies are more oriented towards creating multichannel-based strategies that give access to quoting, sales and product models across multiple channels. In fact research completed both at AMR Research and Cincom both support the idea of making sure product configurators are rolled out across multiple channels is by far the most [...]
Jul 23, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Finding Cash in Product Configuration
Unlike the typical perception that channel management, sales configuration, and product configuration strategies can take years to pay off, there is cash in product configuration quickly. The payback comes from getting away from manual processes – some requiring many hours for a salesman, product expert or production planner to work through – that can be [...]
Jul 18, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Making an Impact Begins With Scalability
Louis Columbus
Cincom Systems
Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, presented recently at the Stanford Technology Ventures ProgramSpotlight on Scalability. Her insights into how to make an impact with your business based on scaling key processes, from sales channels, to service, to content delivery, are well worth listening to. Below is a 4 minute video excerpt of a [...]
Jun 21, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Managing Contracts for Maximum Return – Time to Crack the Silos Open: Part I
Louis Columbus
Cincom Systems
Tying contracts to revenue management goals and benchmarks is the path forward-thinking companies are finding out of this recession. Having insights into how contracts impact their pricing in the short- and long-term, these forward-thinking companies are finding entirely new approaches to serving their channel partners, service providers, and suppliers in the process.
In this [...]
May 12, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Lessons From Recession Survivors – And What It Means For Channel Management
Louis Columbus
Cincom Systems
Being able to deal with risk and lack of start-up capital but still attract customers and stay in business forces any company to be more aggressive, focused and real with themselves as to the value they deliver. Considering the fact that Fed Ex, GE, Microsoft and many other companies were founded in the [...]
Apr 18, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Managing Transaction Pricing Through Multiple Channels
Louis Columbus
Cincom Systems
Getting beyond being dependent on price lists generated through automated macro reporting functions from your ERP system that don’t reflect real gross margins to using constraint-based software modeling to optimize pricing by channel partner is a strategy manufacturers are using to retain margin and minimize drains on salespersons’ time. Special pricing requests, price [...]
Apr 12, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Managing Pricing, Maximizing Profits Using Quoting Systems to Win More Deals
Louis Columbus
Cincom Systems
The one commodity no one has enough of right now is time. Transforming your manually-based, often antiquated quoting system to include pricing system updates gives your sales reps the opportunity close on deals when they present the quote. Too often quotes are only “ball park” or worse yet, based on maverick pricing defined [...]
Apr 06, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
