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Simplifying the quote to cash process

A global organisation devoted to building software to help businesses succeed has recently partnered with one of Australia’s largest forklift providers. MHD reports

The quote to cash process is an end-to-end business process that covers the entire customer lifecycle, including sales processes, order management and billing.

In today’s fast-paced economy, the quoting process has moved beyond the basic functionality of a spreadsheet and customers expect comprehensive and prompt quoting practices from their suppliers.

James McDougall, Business Development Manager at Cincom, a global software solutions provider, says business has largely become a first in, best dressed scenario. “Those who can quote quickly, accurately and efficiently are seeing the strongest sales conversion rates,” he says.

With this in mind, many businesses are looking for efficiencies in the quote to cash process so they can shorten the time they need to get back to their clients.

Cincom is a global leader in configure-price-quote (CPQ), its solutions are geared towards enhancing organisation’s capabilities, optimising processes and delivering a better experience for customers.

With a mission to ensure that its customers are able to win and retain more business, Cincom has a suite of software solutions that are designed to help businesses operate more efficiently and effectively.

“Organisations are increasingly time-poor, by streamlining the quote to cash process we remove the low-value tasks of repetitive and mundane processes so that sales reps can focus on higher value tasks such as building and retaining good business relationships,” James says.

The software also enables organisations to have better control of pricing and the ability to cross sell or upsell complementary products with ease. It’s customisable and flexible whatever the sales process and is designed to reduce complexity.

“Whatever sales channel you use, our platform will streamline the entire process so that you don’t have to go through three of four types of processes to get to the same end-goal. By doing this, you can significantly reduce quote times as well as inaccuracies,” James says.

Cincom has been proven to reduce quote times down from weeks to days or even hours, James says. Furthermore, if a sales model changes it is easy for the platform to adapt.

Additionally, James says that one of Cincom’s strengths is its ability to service customers locally in Australia. “While we are a global company, we are invested in this region. We have service support based here in Australia and we can support our clients with personal and tailored support on the ground.”

Operating across a breadth of industries, Cincom has extensive experience in the logistics and transport industry and works with industry heavyweights such as MAXITRANS and Toyota Material Handling Australia.

Toyota Material Handling Australia (TMHA) recently selected Cincom CPQ to improve its sales effectiveness and efficiency by automating and streamlining the pricing and quoting of its products and services.

Cameron Paxton, Vice President and COO at TMHA says after an exhaustive process of reviewing various solutions, Toyota selected Cincom due to their alignment with their values, especially in regard to their appetite for kaizen or continuous improvement.

Cincom and Toyota met at transport and logistics expo MEGATRANS last year and according to James, Toyota were impressed with Cincom’s commitment to the materials handling industry.

Toyota was finding it difficult to find a solutions partner who could quote on both rental and purchase options for its clients.

“The ability to configure the application and show both options such as lease and purchase was a major priority for Toyota,” James says.

With Toyota offering hundreds of products and services, configuring, pricing and quoting is a challenge and the business had been using an in-house configuration tool created by a dealership it acquired more than 24 years ago.

Cameron Paxton, Vice President and COO at TMHA says that the front end of this inhouse solution was fine in allowing them to produce accurate and timely quotations for customers, however as it had been designed for a dealer, not an OEM, so it had limitations particularly in the back end support.

The system also lacked integration with TMHA’s ERP, leading to double handling and processing.

With hundreds of models of forklifts, as well as sweepers, scrubbers, tow tractors and more there can be more than 100 possible pricing configurations so Toyota required a more comprehensive and smart solution.

By selecting Cincom, Toyota will have a higher back end functionality and will be able increase accuracy and time with its quotations and pricing. “At the moment the front end is very, very quick, so we will maintain that. But the back end, which will mean it is more accurate, will increase, and it will cut days off our processing times. If there is a change that needs to be affected, instead of it taking potentially weeks, it will be done within hours,” Cameron says.

It took five years for Toyota to find a solution before selecting Cincom because of the lack of options around software that could include both rental and purchase options

“We believe that Cincom CPQ will serve us into the future and as such, we need a partner who will stand the test of time and be devoted to helping us to continue to integrate and refine our processes. We believe Cincom can and will provide that degree of engagement,” Cameron says.

James says that Cincom’s point of difference is its commitment and support it provides to its customers and this was a huge factor in TMHA selecting Cincom and throughout COVID-19 Cincom has been able to provide Toyota with the support and customer service needed to introduce a new software solution during one of the most challenging times for businesses around the world.

For more information, contact James McDougall, Business Development Manager on +61 408 488 709 or visit www.cincom.com.

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