WHY CONSIDER A
MULTI-VENDOR,
MULTI-CHANNEL
CPQ TOOL?
INTRODUCTION
Your customers want it all and they want it now. It is a problem we are all facing as we
strive to grow our businesses, keep our customers buying from us and keep them
away from the competition. To do so, businesses are increasing product ranges, adding
in extra complexity and constantly trying to find new ways to get to customers quicker.
eCommerce has helped a lot of us get closer to achieving this goal with a direct market
reach, overhead cuts, search engine optimization and same day delivery. Analytics are
helping us become more intelligent and we can learn a lot about how our customers
shop and what they need, however, there is still a lot of guess work involved when
Product Management teams try to ‘build’ the perfect solution. This consumes a lot of
time and delays New Product Introduction. What generic eCommerce doesn’t yet give
us (on a wide scale) is the option to truly configure a solution. Imagine giving your
customers the opportunity to build their own PC with all of their desired components
and accessories, the same way they would if designing their dream car on Jaguar’s
website. Imagine giving them everything they want from multiple Vendors and the
additional revenue you could gain by doing so.
Before looking at Multi-Vendor and Multi-Channel CPQ Software in detail, let’s look
at what CPQ Software is and what it gives to organizations…
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CPQ SOFTWARE
Configure, Price, Quote Software is a sales tool designed to help companies produce
accurate, configured quotes in the most efficient way possible. A CPQ tool makes
configuring complex products, easy. Typically, a CPQ tool is used for a single product
type or vendor. The tool has built in product validation rules, pricing, promotions and
stock which are available in real-time. It can then be integrated into your website and
internal systems. Sales teams can have everything they need at their fingertips to both
shorten the Quote-to-Order cycle but also free up the valuable resource which is your
technical support team.
CPQ tools can be designed to fit your brand/product requirements, show full
specifications, product images and descriptions, and provide the user with the option
to save and export. CPQ tools are intuitive and require minimal training to realize their
full potential.
Key Advantages of a CPQ Tool:
• Greater capability of managing increased quotation volumes
• A lower cost per quotation
• A growth in order value as a result of upselling and bundling
• Valuable insight in customer/market behaviour
• Improved time to market for New Product Introductions
• Reduction in costly product returns
• Less reliance on technical pre-sales
• Shorter Quote-to-Order cycles
© 2016 channelcentral.net Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 2
MULTI-VENDOR CPQ
Multi-Vendor Configure, Price, Quote Software receives all of your product-data
feeds, configuration rules, pricing and stock for all of your chosen Vendors’ product
lines hosted within the tool. Put simply, it allows all of your products to be available in
the same place, with maximum choice and accessibility. Your Vendor(s) product lines
can be set-up and presented as you desire. You could have them displayed under
Vendor categories or you may choose to have multiple Vendors listed under Product
Types, or both! Your customers can then simply access the tool to search for their
desired products and be offered compatible products/accessories with intelligent
background validation checks. For less experienced users or for those users that have
a specific solution to build, there may be built in filters in place to help your sales team
select specification requirements. For example; License Type or Memory Slots.
3 © 2016 channelcentral.net Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
ADVANTAGES OF A
MULTI-VENDOR CPQ
Aside from the typical CPQ advantages there are a number of additional reasons to
consider a Multi-Vendor CPQ tool:
• Pay the software license fees for one CPQ tool and not for two or more.
• Only need one (CPQ) support/maintenance team (unless outsourced to your CPQ
Vendor) which means lower costs.
• You make it easier for your customers to do business with you because you offer
multiple products in the same way. This means there is less need for training and less
possibility for confusion with both customers and sales teams.
• Save resource within product management teams by maintaining single product
feeds and adopting the same Go-To-Market Strategy for all products.
• Save resource within sales, technical solutions and customer services with a reduction
in support requests.
• Increase upsell opportunities with a greater variety of compatible product options.
• A real-time reporting format for all product areas providing critical market
information.
© 2016 channelcentral.net Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 4
MULTI-CHANNEL
- B2B OR B2C?
To realize absolute Channel efficiency your
CPQ tool should work for both B2B and
B2C - a Multi-Channel environment. A
fully integrated solution through data and
web services will allow for Multi- Channel
access to the tool and will open up your
market and maximize return on investment.
An example of this can be seen later on in
this whitepaper where the host of the CPQ
tool uses it for their internal sales teams
but with webstore integration, it allows the
consumer to use their tool.
Aside from the obvious market reach benefit,
this level of integration gives invaluable
information about your customers from the
bottom up. Too often a Vendor has limited
information about their Consumers as they
are reliant upon their Distribution Channel.
Those days have gone with intelligent CPQ
reporting.
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MULTI-VENDOR, MULTI-CHANNEL
CPQ AVAILABLITY
There are a growing number of CPQ providers in the market, so knowing which provider
to choose is becoming increasingly difficult. It is important that your CPQ tool offers you
complete freedom and flexibility so that you only have to make the investment once.
Even if your Company’s requirements are for managing a single product set or Vendor
today, choosing a CPQ tool that is designed to cope with one or more (multiple) product
sets from the start will protect your investment should your company’s needs change in
the future.
A number of available CPQ tools will only allow for products from a single Vendor and
worse still, may only allow for a single Channel. Always look for a CPQ provider who can
offer Multi-Vendor and Multi-Channel. This is particularly relevant for Distributors and
Resellers who will be supporting multiple Vendors which may require paying for and
learning multiple tools. Freebird is a CPQ service which does Multi-Vendor and
Multi-Channel and multiple product types too!
© 2016 channelcentral.net Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 6
Freebird is a Multi-Vendor CPQ tool that will
also operate in single Vendor mode so it is
ideal for Manufacturers, Distributors and
Resellers. It can also support your entire
market as the service can be fully integrated
into an eCommerce site to provide pricing,
stock and buy now functionality. This can be
done at any level in the CPQ Ecosystem.
7 © 2016 channelcentral.net Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
channelcentral offers Freebird as Software as a Service on a non-exclusive license. As
the CPQ Vendor channelcentral will set-up the Host Instance and manage any webstore
integrations.
Freebird is browser-based and is designed to
give complete freedom and flexibility to the
subscribing host. Freebird is a project name for
this channelcentral service. The tool itself
assumes full branding and corporate styling of
your company as the host – it’s your product.
Through the admin panel you can have as little
or as much control over the service as you wish.
If you want to manage your own support, product
feeds and styling – no problem. If you would like
channelcentral to manage these areas then that’s
no problem either – we offer Support Services and
Product Lifecycle Services as an additional module.
It really is a tool to make your very own.
Within Freebird, different ‘instances’ can be created accepting different data feeds and
currencies. The overall look and feel of the tool will remain the same but it allows for
flexibility between your customers and regions. Better still it can integrate into your
internal systems, including your CRM.
The greatest benefit of this flexible service is that you only pay for what you need. With
different subscription packages available you can be assured that you are only ever
paying for the level of service you require. Basic for your internal sale teams, Integrated
for your customers and Complete for your Customers’ own Customers. What better way
to shorten your time to market and extend your reach?
BASIC
INTEGRATED
COMPLETE
Which Freebird service will you choose? Learn more on the next page.
© 2016 channelcentral.net Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 8
Which Freebird service will you choose?
Freebird is available in 3 packages each designed to suit your CPQ needs and your
budget: Basic, Integrated and Complete:
Basic
Freebird Basic provides the full CPQ experience with pricing, stock
availability and technical validation (configuration) at a market
leading price for entry into the CPQ market. You manage the
product lifecycle content and configuration rules. Basic can be
deployed to your internal sales team(s) on an unlimited seat basis
within a matter of weeks.
Integrated
Freebird Integrated builds on our Basic service by adding external
access to your customers, on an unlimited seat basis. With
Integrated the Freebird Service is fully-integrated with your
eCommerce web store to provide your customers with the full
Freebird CPQ Experience; real-time pricing, product availability, and
‘add-to-basket’ online transactional capability.
Complete
Freebird Complete provides CPQ service suite. With Complete, you
have the power to add customer-facing instances of Freebird to
your customers’ web stores (where applicable). With Complete,
your ‘cascaded’ Freebird instances reside as a service to your
customers to reach their customer base. You continue to control
the content, pricing and product offering, on a per-customer basis
as you require. Complete is the value-add Freebird service that
enables the compelling ‘value-add’ CPQ and eCommerce service
wrap to your customers – on an unlimited basis. Differentiate your
service offering to your customers, and disrupt your competitors’
reach with Freebird Complete.
Selected System: Range Laptop W10
Part Type
Part Number
Care Packs
A001
Rage Pro Standard Build
Case
Installed Memory F0V00EA-008
Microsoft Office A006
Monitors
A005
Description
Quantity
Price Per Item
No Care Packs
1
$0.00
RM H1 DM (Pentium 3558U)
1
$1,123.45
1
$37.55
1
1
$0.00
$0.00
Total price
$1,161.00
8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz
LR SODIMM
No Microsoft Office
No Monitor
Exported Quote
Home Page
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Configurator
NEXT STEPS:
• Learn more about Freebird, watch the video
and request a demonstration online at
www.channelcentral.net/freebird
• Request a demonstration of Freebird via
email [email protected]
• Learn more about CPQ Software by
downloading our companion Whitepaper at
www.channelcentral.net/cpq
• Request a CPQ scoping session. Provide us
with your issues and requirements and we
will present a solution to you in a short
informal Seminar.
See www.channelcentral.net/Seminars
© 2016 channelcentral.net Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 10
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Email: [email protected]
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