Lots of channelcentral’s competitors use a Software Licensing billing methodology: cost per seat usually. Some bill based on utilization: the more you use the tool, the more you pay. It’s proportionate. It’s fair. It’s also madness; here’s why:
• Customers don’t like variable costs, at all.
• If you, or your customer, is trying to promote the use of CPQ tools versus manual ways to provide quotations to customers then why tax on use?
• Does adding a customer, or processing a quote, cost a CPQ Company anything?
• Win/Win billing systems (e.g. taking a commission from orders) quickly turn into Lose/Win or Win/Lose.
From the outset channelcentral set out to avoid ‘Tax on Use’. An annual subscription covers the cost of the service and includes the license, hosting, support and IT integration services. It includes unlimited utilization by Employees and Customers. Those subscribers know exactly what they were going to pay for the contracted term. Customers like predictable costs.
The more the customer uses the CPQ Application the lower the cost per quote or transaction. If channelcentral improves the functionality of the CPQ Application, resulting in better results or greater utilization – the subscriber is getting ‘More for the Same’.
On a similar thread some of our competitors have different costs for different feature sets. This is a stealth tax – demanding higher costs for features that already exist and don’t really cost more to add. Having a fully inclusive service for a customer adds to the subscription feel and generates greater goodwill and loyalty.
channelcentral’s experience is that its subscription model promotes higher utilization and delivers better results, with less complexity than models that tax on use.
It shouldn’t be all about the sales teams! The marketing folk tend to get forgotten when the industry talks about Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) Software and the benefits that it brings. The truth is, there are probably even more benefits to a Marketing Manager than a Sales Manager. Here are the key ones:
Return on Investment (ROI) – Time and time again Marketing teams are asked to show their return on investment and it’s not always easy to do. Seeing your quote volumes increase YoY after adopting CPQ Software with detailed reporting not only demonstrates your ROI but breaks it down to a granular level.
Promotions – Ensure your promotions are not missed or forgotten with auto-add technology in your CPQ Software. Detailed reporting will show you the typical configuration types for market insight.
Go-to-Market Strategy – Control exactly when, what, where and who sees your new products and promotions.
Market Research – With real-time, detailed reporting find out exactly when, what and where your customers are quoting for valuable segmentation data for your next promotions and campaigns.
Advertising – The most targeted adverts you’ll ever run! Get right to the heart of your market by advertising in your CPQ Software or better still, if your CPQ Software is Multi-Vendor like Freebird, why not sell advertising space and make some money?!
New Product Introductions – A new and additional route to your customers. The greatest value here is for Channel Marketing teams where Multi-Channel CPQ Software such as Freebird are used. Add your new product at host level and release it to every instance of your tool and instantly you’re market-wide!
Upsell – Something we are all asked to do more of! It has never been easier with auto-add features as well as recommended options.
Brand – Beat your competition with faster quote-to-order cycles and lower error rate (less returns) for a reputation all marketing teams would be proud of.
To learn more about CPQ Software, how it can integrate into all your internal systems and how it can help your marketing (and sales!) teams visit our website or contact us.
channelcentral are creating efficiency in the market by introducing the above model to the the IT Channel.
channelcentral provides services to IT manufacturers, Distributors and Resellers to help them become more efficient in their processes and to become easier to do business with. It does this by creating cutting-edge cloud tools; combining software as a service (SaaS) and content management to help manage portfolios through its application development. The tools include CPQ (Configure/ Price/ Quote) software, Return on Investment calculators, Incentive calculators, B2B web stores, web integration and Smartphone Apps.
Unlike other SaaS providers, channelcentral offers a unique service which takes product lifecycle management into consideration. All provided by a team of experienced Channel experts and developers who understand business and want to maximise Return on Investment for customers.
HP iQuote now has Options search enabled in the Storage section. This utility enables you to perform custom searches for options from within a quote. Users can now search for items in the HP Storage Section of HP iQuote through a part number(s) or word(s).
The search function for the HP Storage Section will save you time when building a quote as you don’t need to open up option categories and scroll through the part numbers. The options search will only display parts that are compatible with the system unit you’re quoting.
Today iQuote introduces a new tool, enabling you to perform custom searches for options from within a quote. Users can now search for items in iQuote through a list of part numbers or a set of keywords.
Option 1: search for a list of parts, e.g. “507720-B21, U4496E, 500656-B21”
iQuote returns details on all the valid parts you have entered, allowing you to add them to your quote in the normal way.
This is also a great way to check whether a particular part number works with the system unit you’re quoting – iQuote will let you know when a part you have chosen is incompatible with your system unit.
Sometimes you will be wanting to quote an option that doesn’t yet exist in iQuote (not common, but these things happen!). In that case iQuote will confirm the description to you but you won’t be able to add it to the quote. But all is not lost – our Support Team will be informed instantly, and will investigate and get back to you as soon as possible.
Option 2: search for keywords, e.g. “external SAS cable”
An extremely powerful feature – use it to find just about anything – by description, model name or technology.
Results are returned from multiple Option Categories; the category that has the highest average hit-rate is listed first.
All the search terms that iQuote can find are highlighted in the results, with Best Matches at the top.
iQuote is becoming more intelligent, giving Sales the knowledge and resources to build comprehensive quotes with minimal fuss. The search function will save you time, and build your sales confidence!
iQuote Users can now select Cache Options for HP Smart Array Controllers. Under Server Options there is now a section called Cache that lists the options that are supported by either the Integrated Smart Array Controllers or the ‘after-market’ PCIe Smart Array Controllers supported by the specific server. Use the information icon (the i in the blue circle) to get compatibility information. Then select the option that matches your configuration.
This is phase 1 of our planned Cache Option selection process. Phase 2 will warn the user if they add cache memory for a controller that isn’t present (either pre-installed or after-market) and to remove the error the user would need to add an after-market PCIe Smart Array Controller that supports that cache.
iQuote Cosmetic Improvements. The small details are often what makes the difference between something being good and being great. So channelcentral has updated and improved the interface of iQuote, changes that will result in iQuote’s interface becoming easier to use and more importantly offering benefits for users and businesses.
What improvements have been made? First up a fix! Regular users of iQuote will have noticed that once an option category had been selected there was the need to scroll down to view options. No longer, iQuote will now automatically scroll down to view options and as a result save users time. Great!
Easier to Attach Sell. Next some improvements with real business benefit. The iQuote Team has created more sub-categories, resulting in a clearer and concise options form for users. We originally did this with software but now this has been extended to two additional product categories:
Warranty (see graphic) now displays options grouped by HP’s Service Level.
Cables have also been updated with sub-categories to assist with improvements in selection of options for PCI cards and (coming soon) Tape Drives.
Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPSs) now display two sub-categories: tower and rack chassis options.
If you have any feedback on these new changes please contact channelcentral.net Limited or join the iQuote User Group on LinkedIn (Search on iQuote in LinkedIn Groups).
Return on Investment (ROI) is a vastly important tool to evaluate business decisions and purchases. iQuote is an innovative Sales System that delivers a strong ROI through its unique features. This week the Blog will detail and serialise our ROI White Paper created to highlight the potential benefits that iQuote’s Distributors and Resellers currently enjoy.
Leverage & Plan Inventory Shippability! Resellers may place quotation requests into a few Distributors to see who can ship an order quickly. The Distributor that can complete an order often wins the order provided price is competitive. Promotional and End User Special Bid Pricing often means that complete orders must be placed on a single Distributor. To stand a better chance of winning an order from a Reseller quote items that are either in stock or on a short lead-time. Sometimes it is possible to achieve similar configurations to a customer solution using different options – so switch selling is possible.
How does iQuote help with Inventory?
When Sales are doing a quotation in iQuote they are shown stock availability by part number. For options this can be in a single view so comparing different configurations is easy. If you had a choice would you choose a System Unit as your base model with no stock and a long lead-time? No Sales would switch sell to a model you have. This reduces weeks of stock and price protection risk. iQuote highlights ‘shippability’. iQuote will also start to produce inventory reports that show weeks of stock per part number based on current stock position and recent quotations.
Return on Investment (ROI) is a vastly important tool to evaluate business decisions and purchases. iQuote is an innovative Sales System that delivers a strong ROI through its unique features . This week the Blog will detail and serialise our ROI White Paper created to highlight the potential benefits that iQuote’s Distributors and Resellers currently enjoy.
iQuote Return on Investment – Stock Alerts Inventory is a scarce commodity even though it doesn’t always feel that way. Often Resellers will have ‘requirements’ registered with several Distributors for items in constraint. A proactive Sales Person will monitor constraint items as the first person to tell a Reseller they can ship an order has a good chance of getting the order. This may not be the first Distributor to receipt free stock of course.
How does iQuote help with Stock Alerts? As part of a major development we call Quotation Health Check, iQuote will inform Sales if something has changed from non-shippable to shippable. We will also bring in the concept of stock thresholds so if something is in stock but selling fast iQuote will prompt Sales if it hits a level that they can define.
important tool to evaluate business decisions and purchases. iQuote is an innovative Sales System that delivers a strong ROI through its unique features. This week the Blog will detail and serialise our ROI White Paper created to highlight the potential benefits that iQuote’s Distributors and Resellers currently enjoy. 
Return on Investment (ROI) is a vastly important tool to evaluate business decisions and purchases. iQuote is an innovative Sales System that delivers a strong ROI through its unique features . This week the Blog will detail and serialise our ROI White Paper created to highlight the potential benefits that iQuote’s Distributors and Resellers currently enjoy.
channelcentral Blog 