Growth is supposed to make things easier. More revenue, more resources, more runway to invest in the business. And for a while, that's exactly how it feels. But somewhere between your third product line acquisition and your fifth new sales channel, something shifts.
Quotes take longer. Contracts pile up. The contracts that do get signed live in someone's inbox, or a shared drive nobody maintains, and the terms you agreed to six months ago are now anyone's guess. The reps who knew every configuration in their heads retired, and suddenly nobody can close a deal without multiple people in a room. The business is bigger.
For manufacturers with complex product catalogs, the business is also harder to run. That's not a coincidence.
The Sources of Growth (and Their Hidden Tax)
In manufacturing, there are key levers companies can pull to grow. Each lever is critical and celebrated, but each quietly adds commercial complexity.
- Product expansion. More SKUs, more configurations, more bundles. The catalog grows to win new segments or defend against commoditization. The quoting surface area grows with it.
- Customization and engineer-to-order. Customers want tailored solutions. Manufacturers oblige. Every bespoke configuration is a manual quoting event with engineering dependencies.
- Channel expansion. Direct sales, distributors, VARs, OEM agreements, eCommerce. Each channel has its own pricing strategy, discount structure, and contract requirements.
- Geographic expansion. New regions mean new currencies, tax regimes, regulatory requirements, and contract language. A standard MSA that works in the US requires legal review before it's usable in Germany or Singapore. And once those contracts are signed, tracking obligations, renewal dates, and compliance requirements across multiple jurisdictions becomes burdensome.
- Aftermarket and service growth. As manufacturers shift toward recurring revenue (service contracts, parts, warranties, subscriptions), the increased billing and renewal complexity requires ongoing tracking and management.
How Commercial Complexity Creeps into Manufacturing Operations
Every manufacturer's growth strategy includes one or more of these levers: more products, more configurations, more channels, more geographies. Often, however, what’s forgotten is the impact on the commercial engine of the business.
A 500-SKU catalog is manageable. A 5,000-SKU catalog with configurable options, regional pricing, channel-specific discounts, and service contracts attached is a different animal entirely. Your sales team gets bogged down or becomes highly dependent on engineering. Your quoting cycle balloons. Errors creep in. Contracts go unsigned in email chains. Revenue that should be automatic becomes a negotiation.
Research from World Commerce and Contracting estimates that poor contract management alone costs organizations up to 9% of annual revenue.
This is commercial complexity. It's not a failure of strategy, but instead a symptom of success without the right infrastructure. Common failures creep up on manufacturers over time:
- Quoting breaks down. Configuration rules live in spreadsheets and individual expertise. New reps can't quote accurately without a veteran in the room. Cycle times stretch.
- Pricing consistency erodes. Different reps quote different prices for the same product in the same situation. Margin bleeds silently.
- Contract risk compounds quietly. Every nonstandard deal generates a custom contract. Legal becomes a bottleneck. Redline cycles stretch deal timelines.
- Data fragmentation. CRM has the customer data. ERP has the product and pricing data. Legal has the contract. Nobody has the full picture in one place.
- Revenue leakage post-signature. Contracted terms don't match what was quoted. Renewal dates get missed. Obligations go untracked.
Where Manufacturers Begin Unwinding Commercial Complexity
Business leaders are rightfully focused on front-end issues that impact revenue acceleration—whether it be speed to market, deal velocity, or conversion rates. Another frequently overlooked area is risk management, including contract compliance, pricing integrity, and obligation tracking. Back-end go-to-market processes can often be the culprit of revenue leaks and customer friction.
The companies that solve commercial complexity well treat these as one system, not two. However, this can be challenging because the person that owns quoting processes often does not own the contracting process (and vice versa).
Both risk management and revenue acceleration are critical areas of focus. The right configure price quote (CPQ) and contract lifecycle management (CLM) and solutions can address different stages of friction. The choice of where to start isn't arbitrary. It depends on where your pain is sharpest, where your organization is most ready for change, and what your business is trying to achieve in the next 12-24 months.
To identify your starting point, map the buyer or seller journey and show where complexity is costing the most. This approach could be the key to reframing complaints that "quoting is slow" or “contracts aren’t consistent” into broader, more addressable concerns:
- Pricing and configuration. Rep can't build an accurate quote without engineering help. Wrong configurations make it to the customer. Discount requests go into an approval black hole.
- Negotiation. Non-standard terms require legal review on every deal. Redlines happen in email. Version control is a mess. The customer's patience runs out.
- Contracting. Executed contracts aren't searchable. Obligations go untracked. By the time someone needs to know what was actually agreed to, it takes a week to find out.
- Invoicing and billing. What was quoted doesn't match what was contracted, which doesn't match what gets billed. Revenue recognition gets complicated. Disputes emerge.
- Renewals. In manufacturing, where service contracts and aftermarket agreements represent a growing share of margin, a missed renewal isn't an administrative error. It's revenue walking out the door.
By understanding the true points of friction across each phase of a customer commercial engagement, and measuring the business impact (lost revenue, lost sales opportunities, or increased risk exposure) business leaders can start to prioritize investment and resources. MGI Research estimates that manufacturers and enterprises across industries can recover 2-4% of revenue simply by closing the gaps in their quote-to-cash processes, without a single new customer or new sales hire.
Conga and the Commerce Chain
This is where Conga's concept of the commerce chain becomes relevant. A supply chain connects materials and partners to deliver a product. A commerce chain connects the data and workflows inside your business to deliver value to customers and manage risk at the same time.
CPQ software and CLM software are critical components of the commerce chain. CPQ builds the front end of the process, streamlining product or service selection, pricing within guardrails, and delivering accurate quotes. CLM anchors the back end of the process, ensuring contracts are negotiated and approved quickly while giving visibility into renewals and agreements.
When those two systems share a common data model, you stop losing information between handoffs. The quote matches the contract. The contract reflects what was actually sold. The renewal surfaces before it's too late to act on it. And the customer experience is faster and more transparent.
CPQ or CLM First? Chicken or the Egg?
The next question that arises for manufacturers: where do you start first when resources are tight but see the urgency in driving value in your organization? CPQ and pricing first? Or lead with CLM? The answer depends less on the technology and more on where your business bleeds the most—and that's a harder question than it looks.
Learn more about how Conga CPQ and CLM solutions can support your business:
