We recently brought business leaders together at our Salesforce CPQ Campfire Event in San Francisco. One thing was made clear from our discussion right away—CPQ is critical for the front and back office. If a sales organization is not using the right processes and technology to close deals, it risks critical errors that start at the quote level and cascade down to billing, payments, and finally revenue recognition. This causes havoc in the face of the new ASC 606 accounting rules that our colleagues in Finance have to abide by.

Leaders from Barraduca Networks, Merrill Corporation, and Aerohive Networks were gracious in sharing how they leverage Salesforce CPQ to drive success across their business. Here’s an overview.

With CPQ Automation, a win for Sales is a win for Everyone

Imagine a tool that gives you an easy way to create quotes and close deals. Imagine that same tool giving Operations the ability to standardize deal structures, process orders, and automatically forecast—virtually hands-free. This is the kind of opportunity we have with automated CPQ.

Barracuda Networks, which specializes in cloud connected security and storage solutions, has such a story. VP of Business Operations, Leslie Paulides reported that with Salesforce CPQ, they were able to reduce their error rate in orders, improving not only velocity, but also the customer experience. Barracuda then takes the solution further with guided selling and improving on upsell opportunities. Reps are now using Salesforce CPQ business rules to quote advanced threat protection products with every eligible deal, offering valued solutions to close significantly more business.

If You’re not Scaling, You’re Doing it Wrong

Something we’ve been adamant about here at Salesforce is blazing trails and finding innovative solutions that work now and in the future. This usually forces us to focus on ways we can automate and scale.

This sentiment was echoed by Axel Kirstetter, VP of Product Marketing & Pricing at Merrill Corporation. Merrill helps companies with solutions for secure content sharing, regulated communications, and compliance. They know a thing or two about navigating complex processes and rules. So when Axel and his team found themselves to be a bottleneck in approving quotes and deal structures (hundreds of quotes per day … yikes!), instead of throwing more people at the problem, he decided to use CPQ to automate.

When you think about it, leaning on technology and automation to relieve these bottlenecks is the smart thing to do. It’s also being a good corporate citizen—we recognize that sales is here to grow business and it’s up to the rest of the company to find ways to streamline things. It is mighty tempting for leaders to opt for bigger teams and expand their kingdoms. But if we’re focused on what’s best for the customer, automation and scale become a higher priority.

Locking In Contracts For The Long Haul

CPQ solves for sales productivity and scaling operations. It also solves for control, enabling businesses to standardize deal structures and manage customer engagement throughout their entire lifecycle post-sales. This is exactly how Aerohive Networks is using Salesforce CPQ.

Senior Director of Licensing and Renewals, Yann Gaucher described how our solution helps them automate their renewals process. Aerohive Networks has a 100% channel sales structure, so their reps are focused on working with partners and maintaining customer relationships. In the past, entitlement visibility and renewals were all managed using spreadsheets—no real lifecycle management. Imagine the time it took to track the right data just to prepare for a meeting with a partner, or engaging with a customer. Now, with the right contract data just a click away, they’re able to strategically deliver service, ensure customers are happy come renewal time, and lock in renewal lift.

To be honest, you can do so much with CPQ, it really is a missed opportunity if you don’t make this a priority when you’re looking at your technology strategy. Moreover, our CPQ Campfire event proved that it is even a bigger miss if you’re not talking with your colleagues over in Operations and Finance about it.

I encourage you: be innovative, blaze your trail, and make life easier for everyone both in your sales world as well as for your new friends in Operations.

We’re hosting another CPQ Campfire in New York on September 18th. If you’re in the area, please join us!