In these difficult economic times, businesses are looking for ways to improve efficiency and reduce the cost of doing business. More than ever, efficiency and profitability are going hand in hand and organisations are seeing the benefits of automating and streamlining business processes to the max. Adding more processes to an already automated chain, further revs up the speed of processing. And that is exactly what CPQ B2B Commerce Cloud Connector does.

While every business and organisation is different, we keep hearing these recurring themes from our customers and prospects:

• Many businesses are switching from a simple product sell to a subscription and consumption business model, which has a huge impact on the processes inside these organisations.
• There is a lack of convergence between front office and back office, which can lead to revenue leakage or lost opportunities.
• In an age where the customer is king and customer experience is a big thing, offering a seamless experience across channels is the holy grail of many organisations.
• Businesses don’t want to limit their efforts to just streamlining and automating the quote-to-cash process, they want to add intelligence and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

These are complex challenges that require a strategic vision and adequate tooling. CPQ B2B Commerce Cloud Connector rises to the challenge, by providing the missing link between two Salesforce clouds: B2B Commerce Cloud and CPQ & Billing. These are two great products for B2B buying and selling.

CPQ & Billing is great for complex direct and indirect sales (direct selling, internal quoting, cross, up-sell, renewal, recurring subscription, manage opportunities, replace spreadsheets,…), while B2B Commerce Cloud is a perfect fit for high-volume online transactions (online selling, self-service, online carts, multiple payment types, simple reorder, online catalogue browsing, split shipments,…). Each of them already automates a series of processes. By linking these two chains together, organisations can extend the magic and go for straight-through processing, eliminating manual interventions as much as possible. By connecting these two clouds, businesses can synchronise products, pricing, quote requests and order history across both clouds.

B2B buyers…

B2B commerce has changed a great deal over the years, and B2B buyers expect the same convenience and customer experience from a B2B commerce system as they get in their personal lives from the large B2C commerce sites. Whether they are one-time buyers of a product or a partner that buys regularly, B2B buyers require easy access to product and pricing information, and a seamless end-to-end experience. And that’s what B2B Commerce Cloud delivers.

… and sellers

On the sales side, organisations are looking to automate the quote-to-cash process as much as possible, thus creating a single source of truth. Besides eliminating loopholes in the sales process, it enables cross-selling and upselling and faster revenue intake. CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) is a key building block in streamlining the quote-to-cash process.

CPQ B2B Commerce Cloud Connector advantages

• The new CPQ B2B Commerce Cloud Connector takes the automated processes to the next level, as it allows you to use one single data model and pricing engine. Let’s look at a few of the advantages more closely:
• Synchronisation of products and pricing: by connecting CPQ and B2B Commerce Cloud, you can reduce redundant master data management between the e-commerce channel and the direct sales channel. When anything changes in the product catalogue or the price book, these changes are automatically synchronised between Salesforce CPQ, Salesforce Billing and B2B Commerce.
• Customer experience: the connection is completely transparent to customers as it allows them to browse your product catalogue online in B2B Commerce and easily request a quote from Sales through CPQ. This makes buying easy for the customer and significantly speeds up the sales process.
• Uniformity of pricing: negotiated prices or prices contracted in CPQ are automatically reflected in B2B Commerce. This ensures that the customer always gets the right price when reordering from B2B commerce against an order previously placed in CPQ.Unified orders: some customers will buy through different channels, for instance ordering some products from direct sales, and placing online orders in B2B Commerce. By integrating B2B Commerce and CPQ, customers can receive a consolidated invoice through Salesforce Billing. Along with that the customer also gets a consolidated overview of their orders whether placed directly from B2B Commerce or via direct channel through CPQ. This makes reordering easier, not just for orders placed via commerce but also the CPQ ones, thus boosting revenue growth.

CPQ B2B Commerce Cloud Connector creates a win-win situation for both the B2B customer and the vendor. The customer experience is enhanced by getting comprehensive information and receiving customised quotes faster. Vendors can improve their master data management and further streamline their processes.