CPQ: navigating the new sales terrain to stay ahead

The way customers buy is shifting. Is your business ready to seize a revenue advantage in this rapidly evolving market? In a recent webinar, leaders from Conga and AWS discussed why updating your sales tools is crucial for staying ahead. 

The panel highlighted some key challenges businesses face when adapting to new sales models and explained how a flexible configure, price, quote (CPQ) solution can be a game-changer in a Revenue Lifecycle Management strategy. They also showcased how the AWS Marketplace simplifies third-party software procurement, offering perks like consolidated billing and seamless onboarding. 

How evolving buying models are straining existing selling solutions

Today, it’s not uncommon for companies to sell multiple iterations of a product along with services. This can quickly result in SKU proliferation and bloated, unmanageable product catalogs, which can reduce deal velocity and slow time-to-revenue, as Rod Martinez, Product Marketing Senior Manager for Conga CPQ, explains: "In this environment, quoting cycles are prolonged because of delays in locating contractual agreements, lengthy approval processes, and going back and forth with incorrectly configured products."

The fact that commercial constructs are no longer straightforward only adds to the complexity. “Increasingly, products are sold via a subscription or pay-per-use basis,” notes Martinez. “Sometimes, installation and maintenance are included as part of the sale. It’s also not uncommon for companies to give customers the option to lease rather than buy machines or devices. For salespeople, assembling the correct components at the optimal price on a single, on-brand quote is no easy feat. They also need to factor in any promotions or rebates and incorporate negotiated prices while maintaining a clear line of sight into margins for the entire order.”

Meeting customers’ growing expectations for more personalized buying experiences—including the ability to self-serve across diverse selling channels—only adds to the pressure, leaving businesses with little capacity to innovate at speed and scale and grow their market share. 

Future-proof your organization with Revenue Lifecycle Management

If you’re wondering how to accommodate these new buying models and preferences without investing in costly modifications to your selling solutions or resorting to manual workarounds, you’re not alone. An automated CPQ solution deployed as part of a holistic Revenue Lifecycle Management strategy is the best way to support these new buying models efficiently.

It’s vital that your solution supports a unified approach, as Martinez explains: "A CPQ solution can't work in a silo. To truly achieve a revenue advantage, you must have a seamless flow from opportunity all the way to cash. This integration ensures that all processes, from pricing to billing, are automated and efficient, reducing time-to-market and improving the customer buying experience.”

He also highlighted the importance of selecting a solution that provides a unified data model and features advanced automation. “This will ensure all departments—including finance, sales, and legal—have consistent and accurate information, eliminating the need for manual analysis and speeding decision-making.”  

How advanced solutions support new buying models 

Let’s take a closer look at how modern CPQ solutions can help you boost revenue in a dynamic sales landscape by removing friction at every point in the revenue lifecycle and accelerating deal velocity: 

End-to-end solution selling 

CPQ solutions allow you to create product catalogs with various options for the same SKU. So, whether a deal is a subscription, a one-time sale, or includes items from a product range each with slightly different features, everything can be sold using the same SKU. Better still, the order will flow into a billing system that provides a single invoice. And if an order needs to be adjusted, you don't have to update the invoice manually; the system will automatically amend it. 

Unified data and a firm AI foundation  

A single data model provides clarity on what your current customers have bought and visibility of all contractual agreements in place, making it easy to identify renewal and upselling opportunities. “Instilling automated controls like price waterfall analysis and deal guidance to maintain margins, as well as suggested upsell and cross-sell based on what the customer already owns, will help you drive higher sales," explains Martinez. “Laying a solid data foundation is also vital for supporting any AI applications you deploy into your environment now or in the future,” he adds. 

Run today and be ready for tomorrow 

The best solutions will support your needs today while providing flexibility to adjust as your business evolves, for example, by introducing new pricing, configurations, bundles, terms, and other pricing and product scenarios. 

Operate with full integrity 

You can rest assured that you have robust contract and price governance guardrails in place, as all your data is unified, transparent, traceable, and verifiable. 

Measurable outcomes 

Martinez shared some of the compelling benefits being enjoyed by customers who have deployed Conga’s CPQ solution: 

Reduction in quote-to-cash cycle times by 62% on average

• 4% increase in average deal size
• 13% increase in renewal rates
• 6% decrease in revenue lost through over-discounting
• 40% reduction in customization costs due to platform-agnostic design  

Conga is available in AWS Marketplace 

If you’re considering investing in a CPQ solution like Conga to secure a revenue edge in a dynamic sales environment, AWS Marketplace is the ideal place to start.  

“AWS Marketplace is a solution for companies seeking to streamline their procurement processes,” explains Sierra Brand, Senior Technical Marketplace Development Manager, AWS Marketplace. "It allows customers to find, subscribe, deploy, and govern third-party software in a central, consolidated catalog. This centralization simplifies the procurement process and reduces the effort required to onboard new vendors.”

Brand highlighted the benefits of leveraging a private pricing agreement (PPA) or enterprise discount program (EDP) with AWS. "If a customer has some kind of PPA or EDP in place, it means they've committed to a certain amount of spend with AWS in a given time frame in exchange for a discount on core AWS services," she said. “This agreement allows third-party software purchases to count toward the customer's spend commitment, providing additional value.”

She also outlined some operational benefits, including a 75% reduction in onboarding effort and a 10% drop in licensing costs, as reported by a recent Forrester study. "A customer doesn’t need to have a spend commitment with AWS to enjoy benefits like consolidated billing, support from AWS field teams on purchasing decisions, and quicker access to the software. These benefits make the AWS Marketplace a valuable tool for companies looking to modernize their sales tools efficiently.”

If you’re interested in exploring AWS Marketplace but are unsure about the specifics of your organization’s relationship with AWS, check with your procurement or IT alliance teams.

For more insights from the team at Conga and AWS on modernizing your selling solutions, watch the full webinar above.