The client is a security-as-a-service provider that enables large and mid-sized organizations to defend, protect, archive, and govern their sensitive data. The multi-tiered platform includes solutions, platform technologies, and infrastructure to secure over a million systems across the world. The solutions are offered both on-premise and SaaS-based installation models.

The burden of legacy and the case of unsuccessful CPQ implementation

It is common for software products, especially in the SaaS world, to have complex pricing models with multiple slabs, discounts, and offers. These variations are generally created to provide flexibility to the buyer and help them choose the right model depending on the business situation. Companies need a robust Configure, Price, and Quote (CPQ) system to manage such complex workings.

However, when not implemented and managed well, the complex pricing models can create a chaotic situation for the business. This is exactly what our client was going through. The situation worsened when they had an unsuccessful CPQ implementation and did not wholly upgrade from the older home-grown CPQ system.

The key challenges included:

• Severe delays and iterations in configuring the quote and sending proposals to the customers
• Quote inaccuracies as pricing logic and calculations were manual
• Since contracts were offline, the sales team manually sourced physical copies of contracts to find prior purchases, contracted pricing and active subscriptions
• Inadequacies of the old quoting tool forced users to download the system generated quote onto their local machine, make changes manually and import (using a custom utility) into Salesforce
• High likelihood of user error on the Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) selection and pricing
• Complex approval matrix leading to long sales cycles with multiple iterations for each quote
• More time for sales onboarding and new hire training owing to complicated systems and processes

It’s not just the tool. It’s the expertise that matters.

Brillio was already working with the client supporting their Salesforce Sales Cloud at that time and was engaged to revive their unsuccessful attempt at CPQ implementation. As the engagement with their vendor ended unexpectedly, the implementation was left in an incomplete state. Brillio did not have access to any documentation for the build or visibility into the design decisions for the current state of system. Additionally, due to the extended nature of project timeline, the client team that was involved in requirement scoping had transitioned and were no longer involved in the initiative. It was up to us to take this semi-built org and make it work.

The client had faith in Brillio’s CPQ expertise and our ability to turn the situation around. The experienced Brillio team started the engagement in a structured way through a detailed discovery session with the new team. This scoping exercise helped in articulating the requirements, the approach, and to ensure that the entire team had a common understanding and were completely aligned. Since the client had already lost valuable time, we created a phase-wise approach to ensure that the system is used at the earliest. Since their amendment and renewal pricing was extremely complicated, we started with their new opportunities quotes. This helped the sales teams to create new deals, get comfortable with the system, and start generating the data that could now be leveraged to lay out a foundation for amendments and renewals. Key aspects of the solution include:

• Migrated from home-grown quoting tool to Salesforce CPQ
• Built a hierarchical catalog of products that aligns product attributes and features to product family and categories
• Created multi-currency Org with high SKU volume (7 currencies, 11 price books, and over 30000 SKUs)
• Included customizations such as 100 price rules, 403 product rules, 601 summary variables, and 1.7 million lookup data variables
• Built a custom pricing engine that considers a predefined set of attributes to set the original price when a product is selected
• Specified validations and default settings using the JS calculator plugin
• Executed custom amendment and renewal pricing calculations based on prior purchase, contracts, and original discount

• Configured advanced approvals to reduce approvals to consider:
• • Only the highest-level approver
  • Highest discounts, product families, Quote ARR, and discount above the standard discount for partners

• Automated features, such as annualization over multiple amendments for annualized renewal values and contract dates /terms for accurate renewals

Unlocking the power of Salesforce CPQ

The implementation of CPQ enabled complete visibility of the Lead-to-Cash process from initial purchase through renewal, which did not exist through first purchase before implementation. Specific benefits include:

• 70% increase in the quote creation efficiency and sales team productivity
• Reduction in time to deal closure and iterations on quote configuration
• 40% reduction in new hire training time
• Increase in accuracy through automated product selection, pricing, custom contracting, custom amendment pricing and custom renewal pricing
• Faster approvals of quotes leading to quick deal closure

CPQ is a core element to digital businesses, and getting it right is the key to success of any business. Have you implemented your Salesforce CPQ yet? Talk to our Salesforce CPQ experts at info@brillio.com and know if your business is ready for CPQ or if your CPQ implementation is delivering the desired results.