May 30 by Eric Dreshfield
Hence, the CEO, CFO, other members of the C-Suite and their direct reports give top priority to four major issues:
• Revenue – generate sales that allow the organization to consistently grow and gain market share
• Profitability – secure returns from the sales team for backers and for reinventing in the business
• Customer experience – improve ease of doing business for customers to increase market share, customer satisfaction, and repeat business
• People – gain greater productivity from staff by encouraging collaboration and alignment of behaviors with corporate objectives
Further validation of these goals comes from Gartner Research’s annual CEO survey.
The Quote-to-Cash process plays a strategic role in achieving progress with these outcomes at an operational level. It is instrumental in helping enterprises secure optimal results in sales and buying cycles. Key business measures are impacted, such as: improved sales accuracy, increased sales efficiency, improved sales effectiveness, larger deal sizes, higher win rates, improved margins, more opportunities, more simplicity, and increased speed-to-market.
More specifically, Quote-to-Cash tackles many of the underlying challenges that hinder performance against these measures. For example, if revenue growth goals are contingent on larger average deal sizes, lack of product knowledge and rogue discounting presents obstacles. QTC applications like Configure Price Quote (CPQ), catalog management, and deal management help sellers assemble more compelling quotes for prospects and better manage discount requests.
Quote-to-Cash Transformation Solves Underlying Business Challenges
Benefits:
Improved Accuracy
Challenges Solved:
• Inaccurate quoting
• Billing and invoicing issues
• Rebate mismanagement
• Inaccurate commission payments
• Frequent customization of T&Cs and SLAs
Increased Speed-to-Market
Challenges Solved:
• Slow Quote-to-Cash cycle time
• Slow new product introductions
• Reps respond to customer requests slower than competitors
• Delays in delivery of subscription services
Larger Deal Size
Challenges Solved:
• Difficulty cross selling, upselling and selling across the entire product suite
• Maverick discounting
Improved Margin
Challenges Solved:
• Legacy sales system
• High legal fees
• No visibility into operational performance
More Simplicity
Challenges Solved:
• SKU proliferation due to excessive product/service options and multiple customer segments being served
• Limited customer and partner visibility
• Multiple entities (e.g. sales partners, solution integrators, outsourcing) involved in serving Customers
Increased Sales Efficiency
Challenges Solved:
• Frequent executive involvement
• Low value-added tasks and low workforce productivity due to manual processes along sales cycle
• Inadequate tools (e.g. mobile, offline quoting)
More Opportunities
Challenges Solved:
• Poor partner channel effectiveness
• Lack of/insufficient E-Commerce platform
Higher Win Rates
Challenges Solved:
• Renewal mismanagement
• Low sales conversion rates
• Suboptimal pricing
Improved Sales Effectiveness
Challenges Solved:
• Poor sales enablement (e.g. onboarding, product training, job-specific training)
• Low quota attainment and high sales turnover