Cloud products have entered into
the market quite recently and spreading their reach in different sectors / domains. Oracle BigMachine Configure,
Price, and Quote (CPQ) is recommended as quoting solution in many sectors. Here
is a point of view on the CPQ capabilities for some sectors.
Professional services
Even today, many professional service sector companies rely on Microsoft Excel (XLS) files to create a quote. As in other sectors, using XLS file for quoting has many limitations like manual errors, discrepancies in different quotes as no version control on XLS, no single system to show all the quotes, etc. Other problem could be when quote is accepted by the customer, sales user has to create project and other details manually in resourcing system like e-business suite (EBS).
CPQ can play a big role in streamlining the quoting process. In usual professional service quotes, we see job titles, their rate cards, project planning information, and others. Depending on this information, final quote value is calculated. CPQ can hold these job titles and their rates in its data tables. While configuring the quote, sales agent needs to select only the required job title and number of employees of that title. CPQ will calculate the price according to the rate card. Different variations like onsite / offshore billing rates, hourly / weekly billing rates can be configured in data tables.
Similarly, project information can be captured on
configuration page by introducing few new attributes. This information may or
may not have pricing impact. For example, introduce an attribute which captures
the number of weeks each role / employee working on a project, or whether an employee
works full time or part time. If required, specific information like which role
will work on the project from which date / week can be captured. For instance, a
business consultant will be on project only for first 2 weeks, senior developer
will start from second week and will be on project till fifth week, etc. Simple
formulas can use this information and give final cost of the quote.
If the quote is accepted by the customer, the sales agent
can pass on this information to resourcing system like EBS to create project
and corresponding opportunities / employee requirements. It is a direct
integration between CPQ and EBS with no manual intervention requirement and reduces
sales agents' work considerably in EBS as they have ready project created in EBS.
Resource manager can directly start assigning employees to the newly created
opportunities.
This will be beneficial to many service companies some of
which got employee straight more than 100K and work on multiple proposals at
same time.
Manufacturing
The CPQ has strong presence in manufacturing sector. With its
new bill of material (BoM) feature, it has become quite easy for companies to
integrate their CPQ system with fulfillment
systems like EBS. As CPQ can create sales BoM similar to manufacturing BoM
required in EBS for fulfillment, manual
order creation in EBS is now a thing of past.
While configuring the CPQ product, BoM details can be
imported and saved in CPQ data tables. According to the functional requirements,
BoM can be added depending on values selected on configuration attributes. CPQ
also offers functionality where user can select attributes for BoM item.
For instance, a Japanese robotic company wants to configure
its CPQ system where customer can configure robotic hands depending on its requirements.
Robotic hands come in different shapes and sizes with different requirements
for power ports, motors, and other spare parts. Company can create BoM for each
of the robotic hand style and add entire BoM structure to quote when customer
selects a hand. Customer also has option to select the BoM item attributes. For
example, customer wants all its power sockets in two pin instead of three pin, customer
can select so on Power Socket BoM item. If this selection needs adding new
transaction line in quote for two pin socket, then CPQ can do it automatically.
Above example shows how the complex products in
manufacturing sector can be easily configured by CPQ with no manual errors. Once
quote is accepted by the customer, sales agent can trigger the order creation
in EBS from CPQ action. CPQ to EBS integration has significantly simplified as
CPQ sales BoM are similar to EBS. BoM in CPQ can also eliminate 'need to
configure BoM mapping' rules in EBS.
Insurance and finance
CPQ and insurance sector are not new for each other.
Insurance plans can be configured in CPQ quite easily employing current product
models and parts or with new feature like BoM.
To understand it better, let us take an example where a finance
company 'WealthGuru' is setting up its insurance plan on CPQ. To start with,
company can have multiple product lines like tax saving plans and high yield plans.
For each plan, there could be fixed set of holdings options. Either customers
can select which holding / shares they want to invest in or WealthGuru can
suggest how the investors should split their money. In tax saving plan,
WealthGuru gives the fixed split. Simple recommendation rules and data tables
can be used to configure plans and their corresponding holdings. Depending on
plan selected, fund information section will be editable for user. User can
capture the amount that customer wants to invest and on selecting the plan, CPQ
can show how that amount can be invested in different holdings.
Holdings can be large cap shares, mid cap shares, emerging markets,
and more. If WealthGuru wants to go beyond just holding names and give specific
stock details under holding, then multi-level BoM can be employed. As BoM can
have parent-child relation, CPQ can show
under which holding which companies' shares are considered. So when customer selects
emerging market, WealthGuru can show on quote the exact markets in which
investment will happen. This will be a real customer delight as they will come to
know where exactly their money is getting invested.
Similarly, WealthGuru can explore option of 'Customer Asset'
page to show customer's holdings from previous financial transactions. This
will be useful to show customers how their investments are performing and they
can take informed decision on their next investments. CPQ can estimate the
returns on investments if financial advisors configure the formulas in the
system.
So all in all, investment products can be configured in CPQ
with all its variants.