Guided configuration is not a new
term in the world of configurators, but with augmenting complexity of products
and services, it is playing a critical role in reducing the configuration time
and improving error-free quotation process.
So, what is Guided Configuration & How is it different from Guided Selling?
Guided Configuration is the
mechanism of using attributes, not as adjectives to product, but as questionnaires
to help sales reps reach to a configuration which is near to final. These
logical and relevant set of questions help system to narrow down the
configuration options and auto-include or exclude product components and set
quantities based on answers.
While Guided Configuration is to
narrow down product components within the configuration, Guided selling helps
sales reps or customers narrowing down the product catalog. By answering guided
selling questions, user gets the sub-set of product catalog, which is more
relevant to the customer and has better chance of selling.
In nutshell, Guided Selling works
on Product Catalog, while Guided Configuration works on underlying Product
Configuration.
So, the next question is Why Guided Configuration?
In the competitive sales world, 2
critical factors to increase your sales probability are quoting time and
error-free quotes. The increasing complexity of products and services imposed adverse
effects on these 2 factors. Guided Configuration is a powerful, yet easy to
use, technique to narrow down the configuration process, increase sales rep
efficiency and helps generating error-free quotes. The logical and relevant
questions ensure that incompatible components are excluded, while mandatory
ones are auto-included. Also, if underlying CPQ system supports, it ensures
that correct quantities of components are included. As example, while
configuring a hosting solution, the set of questions regarding security,
protocols, accessibility, backups etc can help sales reps reaching to a near
final configuration in quick time.
So, let’s consolidate the list of advantages of using Guided Configuration.
- For complex products and services, it helps quickly reaching to nearly final configuration. Which means less time for complex configurations.
- It eliminates the incompatible components and ensures addition of mandatory items. This assist in error-free quotes, from composition perspective.
- The Guided Configuration questions are assume to be simple and lucid. Which enables even the naïve sales reps and users from other channels to configure and sale effectively.
- If underlying CPQ system supports, Guided Configuration can also helps in setting correct quantities of product components.
Conclusion
With increasing complexity of
products and services, along with urge for speed and error-free configuration,
Guided Configuration could be an effective technique to quote faster and
error-free.
Advance CPQs like Apttus,
provides out of box extensive support for Guided Configuration.
Please wait for my next article on
how the new Attribute Based Configuration (ABC) framework of Apttus CPQ, brings
Guided Configuration to a much higher level.
