Salesforce CPQ Implementation Handbook

Madhu Ramanujan

• Éditeur: Packt Publishing
• Année: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781801075749
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Computer Science
• Sous-sujet: Entreprise Applications

An end-to-end practical guide to implementing Salesforce CPQ solutions, shortening your sales cycle, and generating a higher ROIKey Features• Maximize sales by reducing turnaround time and providing a quick analysis of profits and losses• Get up to speed with Salesforce CPQ concepts, best practices, and tips when choosing the right CPQ implementation strategy• Implement CPQ configurations and automations for B2B and B2C business scenariosBook DescriptionSalesforce CPQ is innovative software that enables you create better quotes, improve quoting accuracy, and maximize sales and deals. It also provides a quick analysis of profits and losses, helping you improve the overall execution of sales processes, and allows a great deal of flexibility for your prospects, customers, and business partners. The book starts with the Quote-2-Cash business process in Salesforce and shows you how to assess when a business needs to implement CPQ. You'll then progress to configuring opportunities, quotes, and CPQ products. As you advance, you'll understand how to define and configure price books, price rules for CPQ quote automation, multidimensional quoting, and more. Next, you'll look at how to configure CPQ guided selling and create package configurations, contracts, and amendments. Later chapters will demonstrate how to perform data migration from a legacy system and the order in which the objects are to be migrated. You'll also explore CPQ billing and its advantages with the help of different use cases before learning about Industries CPQ and how it is different from standard Salesforce CPQ. Finally, you'll discover best practices for achieving optimal CPQ performance and avoiding performance bottlenecks. By the end of this Salesforce book, you'll be able to implement Salesforce CPQ for any business.What you will learn• Understand Quote-2-Cash business processes and configure opportunities and quotes• Create custom CPQ actions and use custom filters for automating business needs• Discover how to configure products and product rules• Understand the CPQ pricing structure and methods, rules, multidimensional quoting, and quote automation• Explore the CPQ data model and use the Salesforce Schema Builder to view and configure object relationships• Configure contracts, amendments, and renewals in Salesforce• Focus on CPQ billing and its advantages• Gain comprehensive insights into Industries CPQWho this book is forThis book is for Salesforce administrators, business analysts, functional consultants, sales managers, Salesforce architects, and those looking to gain Salesforce CPQ certification. Working knowledge of the Salesforce ecosystem is recommended to get the most out of this book.

Section 1: Getting Started with Salesforce CPQ Implementation

This section focuses on providing Salesforce CPQ foundational knowledge. You will understand the quote-to-cash process and get an overview of CPQ Using simple examples, you will learn how to create CPQ quotes from opportunities and understand the relationship between opportunities, quotes, and products. You will focus on how products can be configured and customized, how complex pricing can be automated with applicable discounts, and how to create quotes accurately. You will understand how product rules, price rules, and quote templates can be customized for any business easily.

This section comprises the following chapters:

• Chapter 1, Getting Started with Salesforce CPQ Implementation
• Chapter 2, Configuring Opportunities and Quotes
• Chapter 3, Configuring CPQ Products
• Chapter 4, Configuring CPQ Pricing
• Chapter 5, Generating and Configuring Quote Templates

Chapter 1: Getting Started with Salesforce CPQ Implementation

In this chapter, we will learn what Salesforce CPQ is, as well as begin to identify situations and business needs that can be aided by Salesforce CPQ. Typically, sales personnel spend a lot of time creating quotes, calculating prices, seeking approvals, and working through multiple legacy systems. These legacy tools may not be up to date and so are inaccurate, leading to delays in closing deals as well as impacting customer satisfaction. Salesforce CPQ helps to automate and streamline sales processes and create quotes quickly and efficiently, resulting in increased business revenue, the ability to forecast efficiently, and increased customer satisfaction.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• The relationship between the sales process and cloud computing
• Understanding the quote-to-cash process
• Introducing Salesforce CPQ
• Salesforce CPQ advantages
• Salesforce CPQ versus Industries CPQ
• Installing Salesforce CPQ

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to install Salesforce CPQ either in a Salesforce test environment or in a production environment. You will also understand when your business needs Salesforce CPQ. With the examples provided in the upcoming chapters in this book, you will learn how to configure, test, and automate Salesforce CPQ.

The relationship between the sales process and cloud computing

In the past, the sales process was done manually. Sales representatives used printed catalogs and assembled quotes by hand. These quotes would then be physically delivered to customers. Changes to a quote or fixing errors in either the product or pricing meant the quote process had to be started again.

Before cloud computing, closing deals included business cards and manual processing. Over the decades, though, the sales process changed along with the advent of technology, and businesses started using automation as a result.

A business that hosts everything in-house is called an on-premises model. The on-premises model of using software also has its own challenges in the form of a lack of flexibility and agility for the sales rep. When data is disconnected, sales reps struggle to keep up with demand. Without the sales process being automated, businesses would face longer sales cycles, resulting in revenue loss.

The limitations that businesses face with an on-premises model were tackled by the introduction of cloud computing. Cloud computing has taken the world of software by storm and the sales process has not been left out, consequently getting a boost in the form of automation with speed, enhanced security, ease of use, centralized reporting, and an efficient sales process.

Salesforce is one of the leading Customer Relationship Management (CRM) vendors, having realized the limitations of the traditional on-premises model, leading the transformation of the sales process through their cloud computing software.

With the evolution of cloud computing, the Salesforce sales process has also benefitted. We'll explore the quote-to-cash process in detail in the next section.

Understanding the quote-to-cash process

The sales process is key for any business to be successful. Although this seems pretty simple, right from leads entering the system, generating opportunities, quotes, shipping the products or services, and invoicing the customer, this process can become complex as your business grows. The quote-to-cash process refers to the sales process right from opportunity creation to the invoice being paid by the customer.

In any business, once the marketing team completes the lead generation process, the potential leads will be handed over to the sales team. This marks the entry point of the quote-to-cash process for the sales team. The first step in the quote-to-cash process is creating an opportunity to deliver a quote to a customer. Here is a look at the high-level quote to cash process (this is a generic sales process and this can be tweaked as per the customers' business needs):

Figure 1.1 – Quote-to-cash process

The following are the major steps from Figure 1.1 for the quote-to-cash process:

1. Opportunities are pending sales. You can create an opportunity in your system when the customer is interested in your business's products and services. In Salesforce, an opportunity can be created for an existing account or by converting a qualifying lead.
2. Using CPQ software, you can start configuring the products and services, create product bundles, and automate product selection.
3. The price is calculated automatically, and relevant discounts can be applied.
4. You can then present the quote to the customer. Multiple quotes can be generated to adjust products and prices as per the needs of the customer and the terms and conditions.
5. Once a quote is finalized and necessary approvals are completed, an order can be generated.
6. Based on your business model and the type of product you are selling, subscriptions and contracts can be created. For example, if there is a one-time purchase such as hardware for the products and services you are selling, there won't be a need for a subscription. If you have a warranty associated with a product, then you need to create a subscription associated with the product.
7. Once the customer agrees to place an order, it can be generated, and goods and services are shipped to the customer.

Shipping and invoicing is not a pure CPQ process. Salesforce Billing can be used as an add-on to CPQ and helps customers to have an end-to-end solution on a single platform.

8. Finally, an invoice will be created, and the customer is ready to make a payment. Once the customer pays, billing and payments can be processed for the order.

In the upcoming chapters, you will learn in detail how to configure and implement Salesforce CPQ to automate this process. You will also see how renewals can be combined with cross-selling and upselling to increase revenue and continue selling to new and existing customers.

From the preceding brief description, you will realize the important role that the quote-to-cash process plays, from quote creation to payments for your products and services.

When the quote-to-cash process is part of an integrated system, it will result in the following:

• Revenue growth for the business
• Speed and accuracy in the sales cycle using automation
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Improved overall productivity and accuracy
• Profitability for the business
  Important Note
  All technical references in this book will be with respect to Salesforce only. You will be advised otherwise...