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Companies usually have different sales cycles, which can vary significantly depending on the framework conditions and the adopted business model. Sales cycles can quickly last several months. If you shorten those sales cycles, profitability and sales figures can be quickly increased. Quotation software, or CPQ (Configure-Price-Quotation) software, can help reduce the duration of these sales cycles by helping sellers create standardized and optimized offer documents with just a few clicks.
In conjunction with contract software or CLM (contract lifecycle management) software, CPQ systems can lead your company to greater profitability and even shorter sales cycles. Here are a few reasons why:
Software makes your offers and contracts look professional — always
Creating and managing contracts is a process that requires time and care. Sometimes a flood of new deals gets in the way of a meticulous contract process. The job of CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management) software is to streamline the process of creating, drafting, and managing your contracts based on professional templates and guidelines that have been carefully developed and improved over time. Even if the telephone distracts your sales staff from carefully drafting and negotiating your contracts, we've got your back.
Contracts created with top.legal always look perfect and match your corporate identity. A contract creation assistant ensures that only the clauses that fit the respective scenario are used.
CPQ and CLM solutions ensure that sales only sell the products you actually have.
Traditional cash-to-quote processes often cannot, and only with great effort, ensure that your sales staff actually sell the products that your company actually offers. It's not uncommon for salespeople to sell the products they're most familiar with even though they're no longer available. With a complex range of products and services, it is also often the case that some products and by-products must be sold together or simply cannot be sold together. If you bring a complex pricing structure into play, it is often only possible with great effort to combine the right product with the right price.
In view of the increasing complexity of the products and services to be sold, you can't really blame sellers that at some point they lose track of which products they should offer at what price.
Contract and offer systems can help you navigate the jungle of complexity. By creating product lists and corresponding services, including unit prices, directly in the software, individual errors can be reduced to a minimum. The seller simply has to select the product being sold and the appropriate services and service parameters are automatically reflected in the contract or offer document. Limits for discounting prices are of course also met and do not have to be checked retrospectively before the document is sent to the customer.
With offer and contract software, offers and documents can be signed electronically in a legally secure manner without effort
While contracts can still be created within a few hours even without software, waiting for your contracts to be signed can take a few days, sometimes even weeks, depending on the number of signatories and compliance policies in the organization.
If, on the other hand, you use contract or offer software, all affected parties are regularly informed as soon as a new draft contract is available. The electronic signature embedded in the software and contract documents then enables all parties to sign in good time without you having to email the signatories individually.
Contracts must be renegotiated and reformulated regularly — contract software can help with this.
During the contract process, there are often changes to the contract, sometimes due to simple rewording or substantial changes to some clauses. Normally, you would now have to open your Word document again, enter the changes and send the contract back to the customer via email. The usual email ping pong starts.
With contract software, you can significantly speed up the process, as comments and changes can be made directly via the same document. Recurring changes can be counteracted directly in the templates using alternative clauses and, however, they can add explanations. This means that you always have a single source of truth and do not have to search for changes in emails or handwritten notes.
Contract software can help you with your renewals
Managing contract renewals can be a daunting task, as you have to pick out deadlines from contracts first, keep an eye on them regularly and then react accordingly.
With contract software, you can set reminders directly when creating a contract or negotiating. This keeps an eye on all deadlines. When the deadline has come, you will be sent a convenient email reminder and the creation of the document required for the extension is just a click away.
How do CLM, CRM, and CPQ software work together?
Many companies rely on CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems to manage customer data. CPQ and contract software (CLM) can usually access the data and also transfer the finished contracts and documents back to the CRM.
If companies do not want to rely on the offer software that is often already integrated into the CRM system, the CPQ system prepares offers. The CLM system includes the parameters offered in the offer software and is combined with liability conditions, term and other legal regulations. The offers created can also be integrated into the contract via a link.
In principle, it is also possible to keep the business running without the mentioned software systems. However, there is a high probability that, as demand rises, errors will creep into offer and contract documents. This often creates frustration on the part of customers and considerable legal risks can gradually build up on their own side. In addition, with better sales management through the document creation process, you leave sales potential on the road.
