Archive for the ‘Attach Pattern Web Service’ Category

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Channel Partner Experience – The New Trifurcation Channel Model

October 19, 2020

Earlier this year, Forrester’s Jay McBain included in his channel trends analysis, a newly evolved channel model – Trifurcation.  This model identifies three key streams to the channel, influencing different buyers at different stages in their buying journey: 

Influencer channel: affinity partners, referral agents, affiliates, advocates and ambassadors with potential to influence a buyer during their pre-purchase research. With more B2B buyers expecting a customer experience (CX) similar to that of a B2C buyer, Forrester found that 68% buyers are spending their buying journey digitally before speaking to a salesperson and 71% reaching vendor selection after a digital-only journey.1 Influencers have just that effect; the potential to recommend a product or service through social media, even if they’d never be directly linked to a sale. 

Transaction channel: in which the buyer operates, and sales take place.  Configure Price Quote (CPQ) supports eCommerce and facilitates ‘as-a-Service‘ in this stream. There are additional opportunities in this traditional part of the channel.  McBain believes that tweaking channel data management, automation, insights, onboarding, incentives, co-selling, and co-marketing will determine winners and losers here.’1 

Retention channel: consultants, integrators, adjacent ISVs, accountants and digital agencies. This stream has increasing relevance, as vendors move towards ‘as-a-Service’ models, working with customers to ensure adoption, integration with existing tech and processes.  The customer needs to experience integrated communications from the vendor and partners with the same mutually beneficial consistent messages. More than 80% of these (potential) partners will show up before or after the sale, and channel leaders need to break the transactional channel model.1 

There is an opportunity for vendors to support influencer and retention channels.  As part of that ecosystem, we recognise the value that CPQ offers in enhancing the CX, whilst facilitating as-a-Service in the IT channel for Manufacturers, Distributors and Resellers, and influencing their new complementary channels.

1 What I See Coming For The Channel In 2020 blog post by Jay McBain, Principal Analyst, Channel Partnerships & Alliances, Forrester, JAN 7 2020 

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Posted in Attach Pattern Web Service, channelcentral.net, CPQ, CPQ Software, eCommerce, Quote Software, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Don’t waste time on a poor CPQ User Experience

May 18, 2020

The configure element of Configure Price Quote (CPQ) consists of combining parts available to create a product that will operate.  The more complex the component combinations can be for a product, the more highly configurable it is. 

There are several approaches to configuration which affect the User Experience (UX) in a CPQ application.  Each has its benefits for different types of users; however, being performant is critical to the application’s success.

Free flow, including accordian

A user can add any option or part to a quotation or basket. Errors are permitted, e.g. overpopulation, but the system generates warnings alerting the user that the errors need to be corrected. Many of channelcentral’s CPQ applications use this approach.

Free flow is ideal for regular users that have some knowledge of the products and options, or technical information is readily available.

Always correct

The configuration system constrains options so that anything that a user adds is functional.  As a user adds more options, the remaining choices are restricted further. Some of channelcentral’s light eCommerce customers adopt this approach, using boost! and APWS.

Always correct is ideal if a user is infrequent or has limited knowledge of products, to simplify the process of selecting parts.

Pre-Qualification

The user is asked a set of questions up-front, and the configuration system limits options and therefore, complexity based on the responses.

Pre-Qualification is ideal if a user has no real knowledge of products and options available but does know clearly, the solution they require in purchasing a product.

Forrester has recently announced a top trend for 2020 will be an increase in ‘self-service for end-to-end customer journey‘, including customer-facing CPQ solutions for B2B buyers. 1  channelcentral designs all its CPQ and eCommerce applications with users in mind, so that users can self-serve. 

Is a poorly designed performant User Interface equally bad to ‘egg-timer time’?  Present the user with a form that takes one second to load but 30 minutes to complete is worse than something that takes a few seconds to load on each click but only takes 10 minutes to complete.

Our CPQ applications have not only complexity, but also a lot of dynamic data (notably price/stock), that enables them to generate complex configurations.   So, we are refactoring (altering the code architecture) to make them as performant as possible for the best possible UX. By optimizing the architecture and the UX design, the future releases of our CPQ applications will enjoy the best of both worlds.

1 Top CRM Trends for 2020, Forrester blog by Kate Leggett, Vice President, Principal Analyst, 11 February 2020

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Posted in Attach Pattern Web Service, configurator, CPQ, CPQ Software, Data Services, Quote Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Optimizing CPQ Applications

September 9, 2019

User experience covers a variety of topics. A poorly designed user flow or a badly designed screen layout is irritating, but nothing gets users more frustrated than application latency. On initial launch, a CPQ application can have really good performance, but over time it degrades: application optimization is not a single task, it’s more like a maintenance contract! CPQ applications spawn data, valuable data and simply archiving that

At channelcentral we used to speak about a four second rule. It’s an arbitrary number, but we believed that if a user didn’t see a result on click within four seconds they’d click again as the assumption is they didn’t click correctly OR the application needs a reminder. Today: four seconds needs to be nearer one second – user expectations are higher due in part to the Smartphone experience.

channelcentral recently undertook an architectural review of the applications that run in its “CMS” framework. One finding was that a lot of latency was caused by “Web Services” where applications pull in data to enrich the content with time sensitive data (notably price and inventory). Users were experiencing wait times of between four and 10 seconds and that was clearly unacceptable.

The Development Team looked at Microservices (MSA: Micro Service Architecture) as a potential solution to latency caused by data requests. Once deployed, application performance improved by up to 10X.

Moving from monolithic to modular has other benefits in terms of deployment, fault detection and code maintenance. There are some ‘cons’ with Microservices, but improving performance to that extent makes it an architecture we’re investing in.

Watch the video summary here:

Posted in Attach Pattern Web Service, Channel Business, channelcentral.net, configurator, CPQ, CPQ Software, Data Services, Marketing, Product Management, Quote Software, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Do Not Dilute – Innovating CPQ with Web Services

January 9, 2019

channelcentral sells subscriptions for Configure Price Quote (CPQ) applications that plug-in to Web Stores operating in the IT Channel. So, what happens when we talk to a prospect who doesn’t allow application plug-ins on their Web Store? We innovate.

When so many Web Stores use plug-ins, what’s the objection other Companies have with application plug-ins? From the feedback we’ve received over the last decade, mainly from Retailers/Resellers, there are three main reasons:

  1. Companies view their Web Stores the same way as companies would view a traditional High Street Store: with pride. They don’t want the user experience influenced by a third-party application that may look and behave differently.
  2. Many Retailers and Resellers pride themselves on a level of vendor independence. It’s a key differentiator, especially when a vendor sells direct. That impartiality also increases their portfolio (and in turn their addressable market) and credibility.
  3. Operating a Web Store is complex, so hosting numerous plug-ins increases that complexity. Making a change to, for example, a site’s security could cause plug-ins to fail.

In other words, these Companies don’t want to risk diluting their brand, their impartiality, or their eCommerce robustness.

So, how do you improve the user experience for Configure Price Quote in a Web Store that is incapable of delivering Configure Price Quote?

Use data instead.

channelcentral has invested in Web Services that deliver configuration data, so that any Company can deliver Configure Price Quote as a totally integrated experience. Here are some great examples:

HPE ProLiant Servers: https://racksimply.com/

Dell PowerEdge Servers: https://www.centralpoint.nl/

These Companies simply subscribe to a Web Service, and this service drives the user experience that they created.

Not everyone feels this way of course. Plug-ins are affordable, easy to deploy and very functional. channelcentral offers both.

Watch the video summary here:

Posted in Attach Pattern Web Service, channelcentral.net, CPQ, CPQ Software, Data Services, eCommerce, Marketing, Product Management, Quote Software | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »