As a Business Application Manager, it’s a fundamental responsibility to ensure that sales processes are streamlined and optimized for your sales team. It’s also part of your role to select, deploy, and manage sales automation tools so your sales team can excel in their positions and close deals efficiently. Sales tech is designed to help you increase revenue, drive down costs, and improve customer satisfaction.
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CPQ (Configure Price Quote) software is a customer-centric sales and marketing solution that helps you grow your business by enabling your sales team to be more productive and collaborate more effectively. A Digital Pricing Transformation, with a CPQ for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for sales, is necessary to ensure your sales reps are meeting goals and fostering organizational success.
In this article we discuss the top 10 do’s and don’ts that all Business Application Managers need to be aware of when planning and executing their Digital Pricing transformation with CPQ.
Top 5 don’ts when planning digital pricing transformations with a CPQ for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for sales
After speaking with and assisting some of the top Business Application Managers today, we’ve compiled some hard-won lessons for you to learn from and prevent these typical blunders. When planning a digital pricing transformation, try to avoid these 5 don’ts to ensure your digital pricing transformation is a successful achievement.
1. Don’t use too many disconnected and disparate tools
Using too many tools that are disconnected and don’t work well together can result in sales rep frustration and inevitable human error. Tools that do not talk to one another and require manually entering customer details or copying and pasting information, waste valuable time and are usually prone to inaccuracies and mistakes. If you haven’t already, it’s crucial to consolidate your sales stack and use tools that connect and work together seamlessly. For example, a CPQ for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for sales like DealHub CPQ, seamlessly integrates with your Microsoft Dynamics CRM and optimizes complex sales processes.
CPQ software eliminates the need to copy and paste any customer details or deal information back into your CRM. It also automates workflow approvals, guided selling, and subscription management to streamline the quote-to-close process.
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2. Don’t build a software solution in-house instead of purchasing best-in-class tech
Leave building software solutions to the experts. Don’t have in-house developers try and build you a solution that may not meet all of the organization’s needs and requirements. By the time you finish scoping requirements and eventually building a solution in-house, it may already be time to improve and scale the tool’s capabilities.
3. Don’t implement a solution that makes future business scaling difficult
It’s important when choosing to implement a software solution that you plan for the future. Do your research and determine what you need so that you can make the best decision, or alternatively, select a solution that leaves enough wiggle room for future unknowns.
You should also think about the features that are important to you and your business. For example, if your company has an international scope, then one of the considerations is how easy it will be for people in different countries to use it and how quickly they will be able to get up-to-speed. Leave room to scale-up or scale-down.
4. Don’t lose sight of your system’s ability to support any type of deal, no matter how complex
Whether your sales team is closing simple or complex deals, your system’s capabilities must be powerful enough to support any type of deal. For example, organizations that frequently close large deals with multiple stakeholders, must find a software solution that streamlines the quote-to-close process easily and efficiently, and brings a multitude of stakeholders into one common ground.
A powerful and modern tech stack will help your sales team close more deals. This is because it will give them the information they need at their fingertips so that they can make quick decisions and not lose a potential customer due to a lack of knowledge or immediate access to data.
5. Don’t over-complicate the sales process with too many manual tasks
Manual tasks increase the need for administrative oversight. In addition, sales processes with lengthy and error-prone manual tasks tend to frustrate sales reps, take them away from selling, and often have to be double-checked to ensure accuracy. Manual tasks are time intensive and slow the deal process down as well.
Top 5 do’s when deploying digital pricing transformations with a CPQ for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for sales
Now that you’ve successfully avoided the top 5 don’ts when planning your digital pricing transformation, it’s important to keep these top 5 do’s in mind while deploying your plan. To guarantee the success of your digital pricing transformation, follow these five important “do’s” to optimize your sales process, minimize mistakes and errors, and provide top-notch seller and buyer experiences.
1. Do include your sales reps in the tool selection process
When selecting new sales tech, it’s vital to include your sales reps in the selection process. Have a conversation with them and determine what they need or are missing to help them to their jobs as efficiently as possible.
When sales teams are involved in the selection process it increases their likelihood of tool adoption and reduces the likelihood of them reverting back to old processes and abandoning new tools. In addition, when employees feel heard about the tools they need to perform at an exceptional level, you will increase employee sense of engagement and therefore retention rates as well.
2. Do give your sales reps autonomy, while still having guardrails in place
With CPQ software, like DealHub CPQ, Sales Managers leaders have the perfect balance of control and flexibility. Guided selling controls discounting so sales reps can’t provide discounts out of predefined margins. In addition, any changes to Terms & Conditions can only be done by your legal department and not by sales reps who don’t have the appropriate skill set to change contracts.
Be mindful that not all process steps need manual approval; logic-based, frequently-repeated steps, can often be automated. Therefore, automated approval workflows and guided selling ensure guardrails are in place so sales reps have increased autonomy and ownership of the process, and can focus on selling.
3. Do consider the amount of required maintenance in selecting your tech stack
Software solutions that require frequent updates and third party maintenance tend to pose an operational burden. When selecting your tech stack, make sure you pick tools that don’t require heavy third-party maintenance.
Some questions you can ask yourself before selecting your tech stack include:
- Is the technology and infrastructure dependable?
- How often is maintenance needed?
- Is there a plan in place for preventative maintenance?
- Is it possible to easily get diagnostic and repair help when needed?
4. Do implement a user-friendly, “code-free” CPQ solution to enable business agility and flexibility
Modern and powerful tech solutions shouldn’t require coding if they aim to keep up with the pace of business change. No-code technology enables businesses to perform ongoing adaptations or changes without the need to employ development teams or outsource the task each time a new price list is set. These solutions provide your organization with agility and flexibility to meet changing business requirements, leveraging your autonomous system management. No-code technology also enables IT teams to decrease technical debt by simplifying and modernizing key operations.
5. Do monitor sales rep quoting speed and accuracy after implementing new software
To ensure your new sales tech is not doing more harm than good, make sure to monitor and compare quoting speed and accuracy before and after implementing new technology. If you notice that quoting speed and accuracy has improved, then you’re in the clear and you should reinforce the main drivers of change. On the other hand, if you notice that sales rep performance has been compromised, then you should probably consider investing in change management and preventative measures to offset the decline. An expert CPQ provider will guide you along this uncharted territory.
Deliver one fluid sales motion with a CPQ for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for sales
When contemplating and selecting tech solutions for your sales team, it’s crucial you keep these top 10 do’s and don’ts in mind to ease the selection process and ensure a successful implementation and maximum sales team adoption rate.
Your sales reps shouldn’t be jumping from tool to tool, especially those that don’t connect seamlessly or talk to each other. Sales teams that find themselves using too many disparate tools are often frustrated from having a hard time closing deals. Tech solutions that are difficult to scale or can’t manage complex deals will be quickly abandoned by your sales team so make sure to have an open-ended conversation with your sales team to determine what their needs are.
Lastly, lengthy manual tasks and overcomplicated sales processes are a waste of valuable time and inefficient. To improve your sales team quoting speed and accuracy, you should consider implementing CPQ software. CPQ technology reduces the amount of administrative oversight required and gives sales reps more autonomy and flexibility. With its powerful suite of integrated tools, it provides the flexibility to adapt to your unique needs.
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