According to a recent study, the modular/prefabricated housing industry is going up like a highrise, with an expected 1.1 million units estimated to be shipped by 2020.
If you work in the industry (and at IQX, we have many clients that do), this fact won’t surprise you. If you work in manufacturing or supply chain management or construction and are thinking about a move into modular housing, the time has never been better.
And while we're a best fit for quoting software in most every vertical market, there's something sort of special in the modular housing market. Because the same way they put together a house--one module at a time--is the same way they use our CPQ solution to put together a quote.
Because modular housing and sales proposal automation are both about:
Efficiencies: both in costs and processes
Repeatability: find a architectural plan/sales proposal that works, and roll it out nationwide
Quality control: the centralized manufacture of prefabricated homes and a centralized repository of products and pricing deliver increased oversight and consistency of products and quotes, respectively
It’s no puzzle, but there are pieces
@@The best quoting software helps you put proposals together like a puzzle with a few pieces@@ (not hundreds). And, just like when you see a prefab home being trucked down the highway in two pieces, it’s immediately evident how a quote comes together when you’re using a CPQ solution.
Step 1: Choose a template
Just like some modular homes are placed on a slab, your quote has to be built on something, and that means you almost always start with choosing a template. And the leading sales proposal software solutions have more than a few professional templates built-in.
Just like it can be the owner’s responsibility to “customize” the outside of his or her modular home with a new paint job and landscaping, it’s up to you to customize your templates with a look and feel that supports your business. Something as simple as a logo on each page can help reinforce your brand in the eyes of each prospect.
Step 2: Choose products/services/pricing
To continue the comparison between prefab homes and CPQ, a modular structure is just that — a structure — until the owner adds funiture, curtains, art, and more that transform it into a home.
And it’s when you add products, pricing, supporting services, and other information to your template that it becomes a custom quote for the prospect reading it. Most proposal automation solutions offer a cloud catalog of products and pricing that make this step as easy as point-and-click.
Step 3: Tracking and reporting
We tried, but unlike steps 1 and 2, there’s no real comparison between what happens with a modular home after its residents move in and what happens with a quote after you send it to your prospect.
But it’s this step in CPQ tools where your reps can truly eliminate many of the manual processes they have used in the past, steps that not only take time but that create opportunities for error. The tracking and sales analytics tools built into the best quoting software on the market give a sales manager more visibility into the pipeline, allowing them to see which quotes are moving, and which aren’t (as well as which reps are driving business and which aren’t).
The connection of CPQ tools to to modular housing — or any industry — is simply that they create an easy way to drive increased efficiencies and improve revenue streams. And, in the end, that’s all any business wants.
If you'd like to learn more about this topic or see IQX for yourself with a free demo, contact us
