Is the CPQ Space Lacking Innovation?

By Shaowei Mao, Co-founder and CEO of Veloce

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I read a blog post recently complaining that Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) space is stagnant and lacks innovation. I completely disagree with that. We have been innovating in the CPQ space since 2017 and brought a very powerful CPQ platform to the market that can solve both simple CPQ problems for Small and Medium Sized Business (SMB) easily and complex CPQ problems for the big enterprise. 

Our platform is both:

• highly customizable for big enterprises who have their unique selling process, 
• while providing an out of the box CPQ solution that has features needed by SMB. 

While an SMB using Veloce grows, our CPQ solution can scale up to enable them to sell more complex products to their enterprise customers. Below are some innovative features we brought to the CPQ market:

Intelligent Solver configuration engine 

Our intelligent solver configuration engine uses proprietary goal search and constraint propagation algorithms to find optimal configuration solutions quickly. It supports both constraint and rule and is highly customizable for complex CPQ problems. At the same time, it can be used to solve simple CPQ problems easily. 

In addition to allowing for easy configuration, our engine is high performing (averaging 200 millisecond response time for most configurations, and 2-3 second response time for large configurations that have more than 10k line items). Several innovative features are built into our engine. For example, we support concurrent product model development among the team if you have a complex product model.

Configurable pricing engine 

Our pricing engine provides substantial out of the box features to meet most pricing requirements. At the same time, it is highly customizable. You can define your own steps to calculate the pricing. Veloce also supports very complex pricing rules to avoid having to write custom scripts to meet special requirements.

Deal metrics calculation engine 

Subscriptions and service companies want to measure the quote by different deal metrics like Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), Annual Contract Value (ACV), and more. We built a powerful and performant engine to calculate these deal metrics so that sales teams will be able to see the impact of the quote to the company's bottom line.

A powerful document generation engine 

CPQ wouldn’t be complete without document generation. Our document generation engine can query any amount of data from Salesforce and transform that data to a digestible format to display in the document.

Powerful subscription management 

Veloce CPQ provides all features SaaS and Telco companies need to manage their customers’ subscriptions and services. Imagine being able to upgrade, downgrade, renew, ramp and cancel simultaneously with complex configuration. Veloce gives you this functionality.

Metadata driven development tool

Our CPQ solution consists of metadata. Developers can develop this metadata with a modern Integrated Development Environment (IDE) coupled with a modern repository in a team environment and move metadata among different environments with an automatic command line tool. 

Intuitive UX development tool 

Our front end is Angular based and you can develop any UX using our development tool.

API based architecture 

All backend functionalities are exposed in REST(ful) APIs and you can develop custom application using REST(ful) APIs

Veloce supports big enterprise customers and SMB customers. Our SMB customers appreciate the ease of our platform while knowing that their complex CPQ requirements will be met as they scale their business. Enterprise customers enjoy being able to create and maintain a powerful Veloce CPQ solution that meets their unique sales process with their own resources. They love having complete control of their critical system.

Conclusion

Perhaps the overarching innovation in CPQ has to do with paradigm. For decades, CPQ has been experienced as bogged down systems. Business leaders are continually required to find workarounds for system limitations, and this is seen as completely normal. 

For Veloce, our greatest innovation is in seeing the customer first — the customer’s needs and wants — and developing a solution that is customer focused. Fancy features don’t mean anything unless they directly affect your ability to do business. That’s where we think CPQ shouldn’t dictate your business process. Instead, invest in a CPQ that will actually support your growth.