Is your sales team working in full speed? Would you like to answer your customer needs in an agile way?

Digitalization has changed the way the customers think, and they are used to getting everything faster. Therefore, working at sales is extremely busy these days. Salespeople should write down and execute customers’ wishes quickly. In addition, making offers should be extremely fast. With traditional tools this might not be possible – especially if the product is complex and configurable. The automation of sales process will help making more offers with the existing sales team and resources.

The salesperson can make more offers with the same amount of time when all the right tools are in use. The right software reduces the risk of errors and, therefore, the customer will receive just the right kind of offer and more transactions are completed.

With a software made for Offering Management it is easy to make the sales process faster and more effective. When the compatible parts have been defined in the software, the salesperson can choose the right elements for the offer together with the customer. The software will tell if there are any parts that do not fit together. When all required elements have been chosen, the software will calculate the price and produce the offer document. Unfortunately, many companies still work with spreadsheets when configuring offers to customers which leads to errors in later phases.

Offering Management supports different variations of product complexity with the product pricing models. For some companies flat options and feature-based pricing is enough while other companies might need more advanced rule-based pricing or cost-based pricing, which is based on a structural product model.

Sometimes the sales tackle with how offers are turned into orders, and how orders are moved to production. Typical challenges, why companies struggle are that sales models and production models do not support each other, and sales can sell products that manufacturing cannot produce. This leads to production errors, losses and to a lot of confusion in product delivery. In the worst-case scenario, customer will get product that does not fulfil the order.

It is essential that the product data can be used in similar form in all process phases. When the company owns and knows the current up to date product data it is easy to make additional sales tailored to a specific product individual in the form of parts replacements, add-ons, feature upgrades, functionality upgrades or software updates. The customer pricing does not have to be based on a one-time invest any longer, but it can be offered based on the need of product usage. The Offering Management software also enables the data sharing with retailers and other stakeholders. However, the company that owns the up-to-date product data is the one mastering the business knowing exactly what kind of functionalities the product or service in use has.

Business based on data management changes the product pricing both in the sales and in the aftersales. One time invest changes to a continuous cash flow and spare parts, or additional services are not purchased independently but they are for example included in the monthly payment.

Offering Management that is based on data management will give companies more possibilities to create different kinds of business, pricing and sales models. It enables developing the sales function, selling more with lower costs and creating more offers in the same amount of time.