With the rapid developments in technology these days there exists no single software solution that handles everything for a modern manufacturing company. You need to combine a few different specialized systems to achieve everything from marketing to logistics. Therefore we have provided a system overview of the typical functionalities required for a full setup of a Visual CPQ from CMS (website) to ERP. See our CPQ dictionary for abbreviations.
Depending of what systems you choose to combine they can cover different parts of the map. Investigate what functions and features is included in each system.
The big difference towards the internal systems like an ERP is that with a customer or distributor portal you can work with external users (with or without a login) which provides a huge leverage when scaling sales and marketing operations. This also means that you need a strategy for roles and access rights to selected parts of the system.
It’s very common to provide a fully public part of the system to act as a lead generator to attract new potential clients. This means that the user can start their product configuration without even having to log in. The user still needs to be converted to a registered user at some point to provide the actual quotation and hopefully generate a recurring customer.
The cloud solution DynaMaker for visual configuration and CAD automation is one example of how the visual product configuration block could be used together with CPQ systems and ERP.