Welcome
At FPX, our mission is simple: We develop solutions that help businesses sell smarter while delivering experiences that increased engagement and build loyalty. With decades of experience in the CPQ space, we know firsthand that the needs and values of customers change over time. That is why we strive to deliver cutting-edge innovations and thoughtful processes that streamline and optimize all aspects of the buying and selling experience.
CPQ is no longer just a selling tool. Today, it's about delivering an efficient, user-centric experience across all buying and selling channels. By leveraging CPQ as an Experience Management Platform, we believe businesses ranging from global enterprises to those in the SMB space can deliver on the promise of a better user experience.
Mark Bartlett
Chief Experience Officer at FPX
Market Guide for Configure, Price and Quote Application Suites
- Mark Lewis | Guneet Bharaj
- 27 October 2016
CPQ application suites enable sales organizations to automate and optimize the creation of quotes and capture of orders, and streamline the communication of customer intent. This Market Guide provides application leaders with an overview of the market and a representative list of CPQ vendors.
Key Findings
- There are more than 50 vendors offering configure, price and quote (CPQ) solutions today. There is low market penetration and no clear market leader. Expect the market to consolidate over the next three years. One or two vendors will emerge as leaders.
- Most vendors are investing heavily in their SaaS, cloud solutions. This is where innovation is happening and vendors are seeing revenue growth.
- Vendors will merge or be acquired to deliver end-to-end offerings that streamline the complete lead-to-cash process.
- The market is expected to grow as companies implement CPQ for the first time, or they replace their legacy on-premises CPQ applications and ERP quoting and ordering modules with modern SaaS software that is tightly integrated with other front-office processes such as sales force automation and incentive compensation.
Recommendations
- Evaluate existing business processes to determine whether a CPQ application could improve close rates, margins, revenue or order accuracy, or reduce the cost of back-office proposal creation, sales operations and bid desks.
- Review the effectiveness and cost of maintaining existing CPQ applications. Determine whether this is the right time to transition to a cloud-based solution.
Market Definition
This document was revised on 2 November 2016. The document you are viewing is the corrected version. For more information, see the Corrections page on gartner.com.
CPQ is part of the larger quote-to-cash business process. Some vendors are building or acquiring CPQ, contract life cycle management (CLM), order management (OM) and billing capabilities to offer a one-stop solution for the entire process. Leading CPQ solutions support the creation of quotes and capturing of orders across multiple channels of customer interaction (such as direct sales, contact center, resellers and self-service).
CPQ solutions have demonstrable, bottom-line impacts that justify the investment in software, implementation and ongoing management:
FPX Insights in Experience Management
Delivering on the Promise of a Better User Experience
Gartner's 2016 Market Guide for Configure-Price-Quote applications identified over 50 CPQ vendors and presented several key trends shaping the CPQ sector. With projections ranging from new product innovations to vendor consolidation, the prevailing topics include how CPQ technology can improve the user experience and allow manufacturers to achieve tangible financial results.
Technology-Out Strategies are Holding Organizations Back
The problem with "technology-out" strategies is that the expectations of today's B2B end users have shifted dramatically. Today's user expects a cohesive and consistent experience across all omnichannel engagement points – the same type of experience they have with their beloved Amazon account or countless other mobile devices and applications, which live at the heart of their digital life.
The Customer-In Revolution
At FPX, we encourage businesses to take a "customer-in" approach as a way to break free from "technology-out" constraints. End users don't think in terms of business systems and organizational functions, they think in terms of needs and tasks – user journeys. Businesses must leave behind the one-off solutions and instead focus on delivering experiences that better meet the expectations of modern users. If the experience can better map to the user journey, from end-to-end, across all channels and touchpoints, then users find value in the experience and businesses can increase their chances of user adoption and engagement.
What's Stopping Businesses From Adopting Customer-In Strategies?
The primary challenge preventing businesses from going all-in on customer-in is that there is no single enterprise system that serves the entire user journey. Instead, multiple solutions service individual needs, for example: product master data lives in one system of record, while pricing exists in another while customer information is scattered across the organization. This is a core limitation of a technology-out approach. But out of this void, FPX sees an opportunity for CPQ to bridge the gap in creating a true omnichannel, customer-in approach.
What's Next For CPQ and Customer-In?
Imagine a world of B2B buying and selling solutions that are as seamless as a user starting a Netflix show on their TV, finishing it on their tablet and falling in love with a new "recommended" show once the first series has been binged to completion.
