Archive for the ‘eCommerce’ Category

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How does CPQ work?

September 24, 2021

Configure Price Quote (CPQ) is the standard process of helping a customer go from approximate requirements to “ready to purchase” as efficiently as possible.

Earlier this year, Forrester stated that with the rise in omnichannel sales and proliferation or Everything as a Service (XaaS), the CPQ category is experiencing a renaissance. Forrester notes that customers use CPQ technologies to self-educate, and sales reps rely on CPQ to compress cycles and increase order value and margin growth.1

The configuration element shows users compatible products and respects the rules of the system. These validation rules could be counting slots or bays to ensure a product is a workable solution on delivery. channelcentral’s configurator includes elements of demand shaping and shows available local inventory.

A CPQ tool shows the actual buy price but also factors in local promotions and incentives. Allowing users to add margin is also very important. channelcentral helps to instigate promotional pricing through to assisting with rebate claims. 

Users can export a quote to Excel, Google Docs, CSV, custom XML, Email, HTML and co-brandable brochures. channelcentral supports a ‘buy now’ function placing the quote’s contents into a webstore shopping basket.

A CPQ tool increases sales and improves your customer experience.

1The Forrester Tech Tide™: Sales Technologies, Q1 2021, 15 Technologies That Underpin Sales, February 16th, 2021, Mary Shea, PhD, Principal Analyst, Caroline Robertson, Kate Leggett, Laura Ramos, Jennifer Zhang, Kara Hartig

Posted in Channel Business, channelcentral.net, configurator, CPQ, CPQ Software, eCommerce | Leave a Comment »

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Don’t settle for immature B2B eCommerce. Your customers won’t.

June 10, 2021

How mature is your B2B eCommerce? 

B2B buyers, especially over the last 12 months, want to self-serve at their convenience without waiting for quotations, product information, or complicated manual discounting. Forrester’s recent report concludes that being a B2B digital seller is about more than eCommerce – it is leveraging new business models for direct and channel selling and having a critical 360-degree view of the customer journey.1

Forrester concludes that B2B buyers defect to sites where the friction is lowest, search is easiest, and the selection is broadest and deepest. How can you provide the best webstore experience for your B2B customer when selling complex products, and maximize selling opportunities?

  • Make it relevant. Analyze your customer behavior and offer customers products and services that they want – consolidate your eCommerce and Configure Price Quote (CPQ) data sources to derive this information – quote and sales data can accurately drive future demand shaping.
  • Make the customer journey as simple as possible. Provide a webstore configuration experience that is user-friendly and intuitive – your CPQ should work with your webstore and can be achieved with industry-standard APIs, processing complex configuration rules overlaid with a simplified customer user interface.
  • Take the manual aspect out of complex discounting. Offer instant discounting via your sales enablement and CPQ with user prompts to optimize the buyer journey.
  • Leverage Product Management for recommendations. Allow your user to see similar products if a product they are viewing is out of stock. Additionally, suggestions should be made on other attach items ensuring they are compatible, competitively priced, in-stock and a manageable number of alternatives is displayed.
  • Ensure workflow is set up to your CRM. Route incomplete or abandoned transactions to your CRM to trigger a follow up on criteria-defined opportunities.

channelcentral CPQ services can help your webstore achieve all of the above. We can help your webstore mature to the buyer user experience your customer wants and expects.

1 Forrester, Gauge Your B2B E-Commerce Digital Maturity Assessment: The B2B E-Commerce Playbook by Joe Cicman with Allen Bonde, Brandon Shaik, Kara Wilson, and Madison Bakalar, January 8, 2021

Watch the video summary here:

Posted in Channel Business, CPQ, CPQ Software, Data Services, eCommerce, Product Management | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Channel Software Tech Stack 2021

May 19, 2021

Earlier this year, Jay McBain (Principal Analyst – Channels, Partnerships & Ecosystems – Forrester) published a Forrester blog post entitled: Channel Software Tech Stack for 2021. We are delighted to be recognised under three categories for what we consider to be our successful CPQ applications. The categories in which we have been recognized are described in Jay’s blog are as follows:

Channel learning and readiness – Supports partner development through the administration, tracking, and delivery of educational training courses and enablement resources, including learning management systems, accreditation and certification management, content management systems, partner portals, communities, and sales enablement.

Channel marketplaces, financials, pricing, and inventory – Manages indirect-sales-related revenue and costs, determine the correct value of transactions, automates key financial reporting processes, and prevents errors in payment, commission, and rebates. It addresses pricing, inventory planning, gross-to-nets, discounts, compliance, tracking inventory levels, and price protection.

Channel ecosystem management – Manages the influence, transaction, and retention channels across the entire customer buying journey. It supports the recruitment, attribution, account and partner mapping, enablement, collaboration, technology/API integrations, and overall ecosystem management, covering all transacting/non-transacting and traditional/non-traditional partners.

Our key strengths are our depth of knowledge and expertise in the IT Channel, with the ability to take complex data sets and provide user-friendly CPQ tools and services, allowing sales personnel and buyers to generate accurate quotations quickly. As the B2B buyer increasingly wishes to self-serve, our CPQ tools and services support an improved customer experience for Partner webstore environments.

We fully appreciate the talent and expertise of all of the companies that appear in Jay McBain’s Channel Software Tech Stack 2021. It’s extremely rewarding to see so much work and support for Channel Businesses around the globe. Kudos to Jay and the team at Forrester for the work that goes into the Tech Stack each year.

Channel Software Tech Stack 2021

Watch the video summary here:

Posted in Channel Business, channelcentral.net, CPQ, CPQ Software, eCommerce, Marketplace, ROI, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

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The Rise of the PIM Vendor

November 16, 2020

PIM pivotal 

Hot Air Balloon

Forrester’s recent Market Snapshot announced that it is time to consider PIM as pivotal to a successful digital experience strategy and that the PIM vendor landscape is in transition to meet CX needs. Solutions to manage product data are undergoing a transformation, driven by the impact of PIM on CX, scale of products and proliferation of touchpoints.

channelcentral met with Pimberly, a UK-based Product Information Management (PIM) Vendor last year. Multi-vendor sellers have to manage huge volumes of product data in a variety of different formats, connecting to multiple, non-standard systems. PIM Vendors not only normalize the data but also offer merchandizing and demand shaping functions to help improve the Customer Experience (CX).

Product data fuels CX

Many poor B2B Customer Experiences are due to insufficient or low-quality data integrated into the buying process. The product data exists but may be spread across multiple systems or stored in non-user-friendly format. Forrester emphasizes that product data fuels CX.1 channelcentral considers a project to consolidate and automate data sources as fundamental in ensuring that capabilities can be added, and error removed. An example leading to poor CX could be displaying a different inventory level in eCommerce to the one shown in CPQ. Businesses should identify the best (Golden) data sources and real-time delivery mechanisms.

Vendors aim to offer a consistent CX, regardless of where the product or service purchase is made in the omnichannel.  For a relevant product category, well applied PIM can significantly enhance the buying journey when coupled with Digital Asset Management (DAM).  Forrester stresses the importance of DAM and PIM collaborating to form compelling content for B2B buyers, recommending the integration to improve the omnichannel experience.

Adding value

Web Services play a huge role now, turning data from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems into the dynamic data required by eCommerce and CPQ Systems. Expecting Product Managers to run reports or upload spreadsheets manually is not scalable. PIM vendors recognize this opportunity and in multi-vendor situations, where there is often more than one available data source (e.g. Vendor or Icecat), allowing eCommerce Store or CPQ stakeholders to set Golden sources per vendor or product line.

Watch the summary video here:

Posted in Channel Business, channelcentral.net, CPQ, eCommerce, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Helping the B2B Complex Buying Journey with Credible Empathetic Content

October 29, 2020

A recent Forrester report has identified that B2B marketers’ content ‘shows a deeper understanding of the concerns and challenges buyers face.’ To engage B2B buyers, Forrester says content should be empathetic and easy to consume.1

B2B customers want more than customized content; it needs to be genuinely helpful and embrace the outcomes that they desire.  Also, customers want reassurance that information they receive is from a trusted source. 

‘business and IT decision–makers say vendors give them too much material and most of it is useless.‘ 

Understand what is important to buyers in their job 

Focus on what helps your customers – engaging them in sustainable business conversations.  82% of buyers say it’s important to have a credible, authentic story showing how you help customers succeed. 1 

Make content accessible – shorter format, consumable content.  Forrester reports that 61% of B2B buyers prefer gathering information on their own. Preferred formats include ROI analyses/business cases, brief brochures, reports, case studies and guides, infographics, short articles and blogs, webinars and short videos. 1 

Make content credible and empathetic – 46% of global technology decision-makers find a business case format with ROI Analysis most useful marketing content format when making a technology purchase decision. 1   

What are we doing to instil confidence in our subscribers and their customers? 

We demonstrate with every communication that we have a full understanding of their industry – we know the IT Channel, IT Products, Configure Price Quote and the commercial realities and challenges our customers face. From customer case studies, through to demonstrating ROI with monthly BI Reporting for all customers. 

Giving your customers access to a self-service sales enablement tool allows them to quickly and correctly Configure Price Quote and then buy the products and services they need, exactly when they need. 

1  Credible Empathetic Content Wins Over Elusive B2B Buyers: Four Practices Deliver Value And Engage Your Buyers’ Attention, Forrester Research, Inc., April 30, 2020, Laura Ramos with Caroline Robertson, April Henderson, Miriam ElKorchi, Kara Hartig 

Watch the summary video here:

Posted in channelcentral.net, CPQ, eCommerce, Marketing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

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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 

Watch the summary video here:

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

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Impact of Covid-19

April 30, 2020

Everybody at channelcentral recognizes the human tragedy created by the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. Life will never be the same; it seems. We’ve been very fortunate so far to have only one staff member testing positive for the virus, and that person is recovering, albeit with challenges.

Many of our customers and suppliers have responded to the economic conditions by furloughing staff, moving to home working and gearing their services to support the current (extraordinary) needs of people consuming IT.

Frank Sohn, a Configure Price Quote (CPQ) specialist at MGI Research LLC, has commented in a recent blog, on data that G2 has shared showing a surge of interest in sales tools over recent weeks, including CPQ tools.1 These tools offer the digital transformation of sales processes, essential for selling remotely and driving eCommerce – both critical factors for many businesses at present.

We had no real expectation of the impact of Covid-19 on the CPQ services we offer, and it’s been interesting:

1. Utilization has been lower but not ‘super low’. Even allowing for countries with strong lockdowns in place, and also being high users of our applications (UK, US, Spain, Italy, France as examples), people are still quoting tech products.
2. The disruption to the global supply chain has meant that:
a. Orders that would usually be executed directly from the factory, now, understandably, have much longer lead-times.
b. Vendors who also offer products for sale from Distributor Inventory have seen more interest.
3. Companies with robust eCommerce offerings have fared better than those without.
4. Very large companies tend to view investments over a much longer timeframe, so although the disruption seems like a long time, it’s hopefully going to be one or two quarters. Hopefully.

That’s not to say that the market is buoyant: it isn’t. We expect that once the virus infection levels start to recede, we’ll see a spike in demand for technology as businesses re-start projects. It’s highly likely that some companies may re-engineer, maybe to enhance their online customer experience (CX) or put renewed focus on local inventory.

Everyone, please stay safe.

1 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/configure-price-quote-software-support-recovery-from-covid-19-sohn/?trackingId=yChUGNFrSZOpEHUI4f%2FcvQ%3D%3D

Watch the video summary here:

Posted in Channel Business, channelcentral.net, CPQ, CPQ Software, eCommerce, Quote Software, Reviews | 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 »