Do you need a CRM like Dynamics 365 for Sales to use a configure, price, quote (CPQ) solution to automate your sales proposal process?
The short answer is, “No.” Some online sales proposal tools may be used as standalone solutions. In fact, with an ability to store contacts and documents, some can even serve as a “mini CRM” for the small business.
But the short answer is not always the best answer. Because while you can use IQX as a standalone CPQ, it becomes far more impactful to your bottom line when used in conjunction with a CPQ system (which is one reason why we’ve developed single sign-on integrations for both Dynamics and Zoho CRM solutions).
The short answer is, “No.” Some online sales proposal tools may be used as standalone solutions. In fact, with an ability to store contacts and documents, some can even serve as a “mini CRM” for the small business.
But the short answer is not always the best answer. Because while you can use IQX as a standalone CPQ, it becomes far more impactful to your bottom line when used in conjunction with a CPQ system (which is one reason why we’ve developed single sign-on integrations for both Dynamics and Zoho CRM solutions).
So who should use CPQ as a standalone and who you should integrate? Here are some examples and use cases.
Standalone CPQ: mom & pop +
Let’s be serious: if your business would benefit from automating the sales proposal process, you’re likely not a “mom and pop shop.” What does that even mean, anyway? Maybe in TV’s Mayberry that sells (and with a “shoppe,” even), but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone doing B2B sales successfully that refers to their business as a mom & pop.
Businesses that could benefit from a standalone CPQ are businesses that:
Don’t have too many customers (20 accounts or so)
Don’t have too many sales reps (less than 5 or so), and
Don’t have a ton of revenue (couple hundred K or so), BUT
Are still in a competitive space where being late to reply to an RFP means lost revenue (think local service businesses and the like).
This is not to say businesses like these wouldn’t benefit from a CRM implementation, but let’s be serious once more: a business making $400k annually with two sales reps and 10 accounts probably doesn’t need an enterprise-level CRM like Dynamics 365 Sales or Zoho or Salesforce.
(Note to Dynamics and other resellers: when you meet prospects “too small”for a full-on CRM roll-out, a standalone online sale proposal tool like IQX might be the remedy.)
CRM & CPQ integrated: just about everyone else
Simply put, if you’re in B2B sales, using a tool like Dynamics 365 to capture, nurture, and convert leads into business, there’s no other choice but a completely integrated CPQ-CRM solution when you reach the “converting” part.
This is starting to become crystal clear to most sales organizations — as well as to the technology providers who equip them — as it’s increasingly rare to have a conversation about business productivity tools without also discussing the sales proposal process. After all, it’s the sales proposal that makes business “official.”
But a few years ago, it wasn’t this way. CPQ was an afterthought, an add-on, a “nice to have.” Now, it’s a necessity.
It reminds us of when Word added the ability to create infographics (they called it “SmartArt” among other things). Used to be that if you wanted to add a visual to a document (and who doesn’t?), you had to create it outside your Word document, and then include it via OLE (object linking and embedding).
Just like sales proposals and CRM. It used to be that if you wanted to include a sales proposal within your CRM’s sales process (and who doesn’t?), you had to create it outside your CRM (using Word, ironically), and then attach it under separate cover. Then you had to track proposals separately, too.
Now, even though Microsoft has yet to have a native CPQ for Dynamics (same with Zoho: no native CPQ yet), it’s usually part of every implementation conversation.
So while there are a handful of businesses out there that could use CPQ as a standalone solution, for most businesses the question we asked at the outset can sort of be switched: Can you use CRM without CPQ? The short answer is, “Yes, but you’d be nuts to do so.”
