In this lesson, we focus on the Quote to Order stage within the Lead to Cash business process.
Within the Quote to Order stage of the Lead to Cash process, several important actions take place:
First, the company receives a request for quotation (RFQ) from a potential customer who is navigating on the website (omnichannel e-commerce). The company then creates a quote based on the given requirements and specifications, ensuring that it accurately reflects the products or services being offered.
Once the quote is generated, internal approvals are managed. This step involves ensuring that the quote aligns with the company's pricing strategy, complies with relevant regulations, and meets other necessary criteria before being presented to the customer.
The next step is to present the quote to the customer. In this stage, the company shares the quote, often accompanied by sales and marketing materials such as product demonstrations, brochures, or other relevant documentation that supports the value proposition presented in the quote.
Following the presentation of the quote, negotiations with the customer take place. This phase involves discussing the terms, conditions, and pricing of the quote, addressing any questions or concerns, and working towards an agreement that satisfies both the customer's needs and the company's objectives.
Let’s look at the following image for clarity.
SAP Customer Experience solutions play a crucial role in this process by providing tools and functionalities to streamline quote creation, manage internal approvals, create attractive and professional quotes for customer presentation, and facilitate negotiations to drive successful conversions from quotes to orders.
These solutions help companies optimize their Quote to Order process, ultimately leading to improved customer satisfaction and higher sales effectiveness.
You can see in the following image some of the applicable solutions and business uses of this Quote to Order stage:
- The salesperson offers various preconfigured and highly flexible-priced solution bundles that are available in the SAP CPQ system, catering to diverse customer needs and requirements.
- Later, the Quote for the Solution Order is negotiated with the customer in SAP CPQ until commercial and legal terms are finally accepted. An appealing PDF quote document is created for the customer in SAP CPQ.
- The quote is seamlessly transferred to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud platform, where the designated employee verifies and validates the automatically generated solution order to ensure accuracy and completeness. This streamlined process helps to ensure efficient and error-free handling of the sales order.
When the solution order is released, the follow-up orders for provisioning and fulfillment are created in SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP Subscription Billing.
Let’s look at the Quote to Order stage by watching the following video.
Quote to Order Stage
Summary
In this lesson, we learned that during the Quote to Order stage, the salesperson uses SAP CPQ to receive and manage quote requests.
The cloud-based solution enables them to access customer information, product details, and pricing data to create personalized and accurate quotes efficiently.
This streamlined process helps in converting quotes into orders effectively.
Further Reading
For additional information on this topic, refer to: Quote to Order.