4 Reasons You Should Integrate CPQ with Your Co-Authoring Solution

For most manufacturing organizations the ability to compose and co-author highly complex, high-stakes documents like proposals, tenders, and contracts is where “the rubber meets the road” in terms of revenue generation. Getting the million-dollar collaboration right, and on time, can be a huge undertaking that is made even more challenging now that most bid teams are working remotely. Ensuring the right pricing, configurations, and deliverables is essential to meeting customer expectations and making the sale. Organizations that are effective at leveraging team collaboration and co-authoring will gain an advantage on the competition.

Co-Authoring as an Advantage

Developing co-authoring and virtual collaboration as a strength is one sure way to leave your slow-moving competitors behind. One way to do that is with XaitPorter, a cloud-based co-authoring solution designed for bid teams to collaboratively create, manage, and produce bids and proposals and other business-critical documents. Teams work and collaborate on document creation from anywhere in the world, while having complete visibility and control over what changes are being made, what information is being used, and the layout, accuracy, and effectiveness of each element.

Integrated Configure-Price-Quote

Another way to gain an advantage is to integrate configure-price-quote (CPQ) functionality into the co-authoring and collaboration process. Using XaitCPQ, for example, captures all your complex product and service pricing information and models in one place. From there, it makes it easy for sales teams to quickly and correctly present any combination of equipment and service offerings, and to do so at scale. The capabilities are especially powerful for large manufacturers with multiple product offerings, multiple service options and programs, and multiple countries involved.

Best Practices

There are tremendous opportunities today for manufacturing organizations to boost their revenue generation. But to cash in you need to develop a thoughtful strategy and adopt tools and techniques that enable your sales teams to sell more. Here are four important reasons why you should integrate CPQ with co-authoring.

1. Get a Jump on the Competition - Studies show that if you are the first vendor to respond you are more likely to land the deal. Since sales teams have everything, they need at their fingertips – versus the delays, inaccuracies, and hassle of using antiquated spreadsheets and manual work-a-rounds – they can respond more quickly and completely. Having an integrated CPQ solution gives sales reps an edge in speed and responsiveness that is simply not possible without it.
   
   
2. Make More with Each Deal - Advanced services represent an under-utilized gold mine for most manufacturers and can easily equal or exceed the profit made from an original equipment sale. This approach is increasingly important for manufacturers looking to complement their products and satisfy a broader array of customer needs. An integrated approach to co-authoring, configuration, pricing, and quoting leads to more deals at higher margins. Bundled sales can boost aftermarket services revenue by 30% to 60% for manufacturers.
   
   
3. Win More Profitably - An integrated approach improves the likelihood of winning the deal. And enabling sales teams to compose, price, propose, and close more deals at a higher margin has a direct and dramatic impact on the bottom line. Indeed, improving your win rate by just 12% can increase your revenue by 55%. And since selling bundled service/equipment configurations is often more subjective and variable than selling a straight-up equipment deal, having an integrated CPQ solution gives sales reps an edge in speed and responsiveness that is simply not possible using antiquated spreadsheets and manual work-a-rounds.
   
   
4. Leverage Virtual Selling - Virtual selling and digital transformation have caused a massive shift in the way that teams must work together. Using tools like XaitCPQ sales teams gain the ability to put together a virtual microsite for each potential buyer which is a game-changer in sales team enablement and effectiveness. Buyers see every quote in real time while being exposed to the best features and scenarios available. Unlike a common PDF proposal which is static and boring, virtual selling puts the sales team’s best foot forward and increases the value of each deal.

The world has changed for sales teams. Consider how the Xait suite of solutions can power improved sales and take your teams to the next level. Considerable competitive advantages are waiting for organizations that adopt a next-generation approach to collaboration and co-authoring with an integrated solution. You’ll build a more robust and agile sales proposal process that increases the chance of landing the deal, landing it ahead of the competition, and closing with higher revenue than ever before.

Related articles: CPQ Implementation: 5 Ways To Reduce Time to Value