The art of many channels

Whether in mechanical and plant engineering or in medical and electrical engineering, sales channels in the B2B business have become more differentiated across the board in recent years.

In addition to the once exclusive direct sales, companies now also use distributors, value-added resellers, system integrators and e-commerce platforms to serve new markets.

If companies want to remain competitive, an omnichannel strategy is essential in business with corporate customers today. Many SAP users have introduced the Hybris e-commerce solution, for example.

To start with, they sell standardized products and services via the platform. The task is much more difficult when it comes to selling complex, multi-variant products and services across all sales channels.

Omnichannel strategy

This challenge is illustrated by a study recently published by market researcher Forrester Research, according to which around 32% of all B2B sales are processed via e-commerce channels such as Hybris. However, the aim of the companies surveyed is to generate more than 50 percent via e-commerce channels.

The trick is not to limit yourself to just one or two channels, but to simultaneously develop all other sales channels in line with an omnichannel strategy.

Companies therefore need to find a solution to sell complex products and services that are custom-made or configured precisely, cost-effectively and easily across all channels.

CQP solutions, for example, provide the approach for this. With such a system, SAP users are able to use and process data from a wide variety of sources in order to master this complexity.

They use technologies such as Hybris, Hybris Cloud for Customer (CRM Cloud), SAP Variant Configuration and SAP ECC - both via YaaS (Hybris as a Service) and data hub frameworks.

As companies often use other standard business software in addition to SAP, a CPQ solution should also allow the integration of IBM, Microsoft or Oracle applications, for example via web services.

With such a platform-independent, modular solution that works with a relational data model and independently of the application layer, companies are able to standardize customer data, product catalogs, price books, business rules and attributes in one place.

The advantage:

Sales employees then always have access to up-to-date and consistent data when preparing quotations. This eliminates the need for manual work to compile data from many sources. Users can also flexibly add new products and adapt rules without having to create program code.

For sales, this means that employees can easily respond to all inquiries from interested parties about a wide range of products and services in a short space of time in the form of complete offers - regardless of which sales channel the inquiry came from.

Once the business rules have been defined, it is ensured that even complex pricing structures, including package solutions and discounts, can be taken into account in the cost proposals without a great deal of effort.

With a CPQ solution that integrates seamlessly into an SAP environment, companies can reduce the time and effort from customer inquiry to quote generation and create the conditions for improving customer satisfaction and strengthening customer loyalty.