Technology Transforms Discreet Manufacturers’ Product Processes

Today, manufacturers face three common challenges: flat/declining sales; increasing costs; and brand commoditisation. Flat/Declining sales are usually the result of unproductive sales representatives and long lead times for introducing new products. Cost increases are driven by order errors, rework and scrap, a duplication of efforts across the board, and a plethora of manual processes. With inconsistent service and unreasonably long lead times, the manufacturer becomes difficult to work with, and brand commoditisation occurs.

According to Shanon Ramdaw, Business Development Manager – Infor Services at iOCO, Infor’s Gold Partner in Africa, the manufacturing sector and its micro-verticals need a complete solution that drives efficient processes – from configure, to price, quote, and fulfilment of the order.

“These are the critical elements in the product development and sales process. The right solution will configure more than just products, by including systems of products and services. It will drive accurate pricing to the end consumer while also calculating costs, margins, discounts, and price-adders to drive dynamic pricing models. It will not merely provide a quote document but will address the need to enable mobile self-service quoting across all sales channels, helping the user to manage even the most complex quoting requirements. It must also automate the quote-to-order conversion process to fulfill the manufacturing requirements to the shop floor, while integrating with the business’ Enterprise Resource Management tool to manage order changes.”

While this may seem to be a tall order, Infor’s “Configure Price Quote” (CPQ) solution delivers these features in a flexible, agile, and easy to use offering. The goal is to empower manufacturers with easy configuration of complex products, in a tool that offers multi-channel quoting and ordering. With powerful visualisations comprising dynamic images, drawings and models, compelling proposals are delivered – bolstered by anytime, anywhere access.

“Essentially, Infor CPQ enables manufacturers to design, market, sell, make, and deliver their products faster, and more efficiently. With CPQ, customers address tough challenges (declining sales, increasing costs, and brand commoditisation) using robust capabilities that drive real value,” adds Ramdaw. “Using this solution helps manufacturers to increase sales, reduce costs, and differentiate themselves from their competition.”

With more quotes going out faster, manufacturers can achieve more sales and act efficiently to deliver large orders meaning increased sales. With full system visibility, cross- and up-selling is optimised, and personalised proposals created. Market share is grown with new product introductions, and a dynamic view of pricing structures ensures the best margins can be achieved for the best price. With fewer returns, less scrap and rework, decreased headcount due to the automation of non-value add activities, and less duplicate efforts, costs are reduced. This, and the efficiencies that are gained using CPQ, makes it easier to do business with the user, creating more customer loyalty and faster turnaround times to meet customers demands. This is a highly unique differentiator in the market.

“A study by Aberdeen showed that CPQ users enjoyed a 104 percent increase in the average deal size, a 27 percent decrease in the sales cycle time, and a 17 percent increase in lead conversion rates,” concludes Ramdaw. “With rapid configuration available on-premise or in the cloud, the standard-based technology platform is tailored to every user, for a great user experience.” 

Issued by Perfect Word Consulting (Pty) Ltd

For more information, visit www.inforum.infor.com or contact perfectword2@trinitas.co.za

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About iOCO

Established to simplify ICT, iOCO is Africa’s leading integrated technology services company, with the largest concentration of skills on the continent.  As a Level 1 B-BBEE end-to-end ICT managed service provider and Cloud systems integrator, iOCO operates with over 20 years’ experience.  Its team of more than 4 500 specialists delivers custom development and integration, open source, enterprise applications, data and analytics, compute, and platforms, and manage and operate solutions to over 1 000 customers.

Inspired by digitally native internet organisations (iO) and creative organisations (CO) of the future, iOCO helps customers navigate the path to an exponential future.  To achieve this vision, iOCO holds strategic OEM partnership agreements with more than 90 global leaders.

iOCO is part of the EOH group of companies.  For more information, please visit: ioco.tech