Online Configurator

                In a perfect world, there is a forum for everything. With the internet, I suppose the world is moving closer to this opinioned perfection. You can find a forum for everything online, from handbags to power tools. And, of course, anything and everything Star Wars is always in demand. If only these forums could be taken from the virtual world, where you could talk to everyone in person and see how they work…

                Wait! That does exist at BigMachines. Our Customer Success Forums provide the chance to talk about your BigMachines product with other BigMachines users and experts from the company. Having trouble with figuring out how to phrase a certain aspect of your selling process? Maybe Joe Gibroni from Phrasing Experts Inc. will have a solution for you (note: Unfortunately, Joe Gibroni will not be able to attend this year).

The great part about being able to interact with everyone face-to-face is the ability to network. Unlike an online forum where you have to do some serious LinkedIn investigating to find out who anyone is, you get the whole package right in front of you.

In addition to the benefits of everything being physical, there is also the chance to participate in BigMachines product roadmap brainstorming. This is our way of letting you give us as much input as you want regarding our product development. Any and all suggestions are more than welcome.

Save your spot for a 90 minute consultation with a BigMachines expert. Experience a mini Breakthrough Opportunity Analysis (BOA)^SM to evaluate your company’s sales configuration processes. The BOA is an onsite workshop conducted by BigMachines experts that helps a company evaluate the need for business changes and identify opportunities to improve and streamline its sales processes. We understand that with time, many factors within a company changes and we want to ensure that your company is utilizing our solution to its fullest potential.

The BigMachines Customer Success Forum is coming to your house this May, that is if you live in Denver or the Bay Area. Check out these dates and places to see if there is a Customer Success Forum by you:

Denver Area – May 3^rd, 2012
Hosted by Spectra Logic

Bay Area – May 10^th, 2012
Hosted by Brocade

 If you don’t live in these areas, no problem! More forums are being scheduled as we speak.

• Customers ideas via the My BigIdea innovation web portal
• Interactions at Regional Customer Success Forums
• Votes on most-requested enhancements during BigIdeas in the United States and Europe
  

• Intuitive drag and drop interface allows for high quality UX layouts of configuration pages.
• New AJAX commerce rules enable dynamic updates without the need to refresh pages, resulting in a rich end-user quoting experience
• One stop migration center administration provides enhanced ability to compare data between local and remote instances as well as seamlessly migrate data
• Enhanced step administration user interface simplifies management of workflow set ups

Customer Innovation Awards will be presented for the following categories:

• Big Innovation Award is presented to the BigMachines customer that demonstrates the most innovative use of BigMachines within their company.
• Big Success Award is given to the company that demonstrates a significant return on investment (ROI) from using the BigMachines Selling Platform or demonstrates how BigMachines enabled them to eliminate costly tools and processes in their company.
• Biggest Idea Award recognizes the customer that contributes the most innovative idea to enhance the BigMachines' platform. Ideas are submitted online through the My BigIdea innovation portal on the BigMachines Customer Support Center.

For more information on the Customer Innovation Awards, or to submit a nomination, visit http://www.bigmachines.com/bigideas/big-awards.php

"The Customer Innovation Awards program recognizes excellence within our customer community," said Will Wiegler, Vice President of Marketing at BigMachines. "At BigMachines, we not only deliver innovative software to enable our customers to sell more and sell faster, but we also deliver customer success. At BigIdeas, we take the opportunity to highlight truly inspiring examples of innovation and accomplishment among our customers. The conference offers attendees to hear from many BigMachines customers in a variety of industries, to learn from their achievements, and leave with best practices that they can incorporate into their own business processes."

For more information and to read the full release, visit: http://www.bigmachines.com/third-annual-customer-innovation-awards.php

If you sell directly to other businesses or consumers, you already know how important speed, accuracy and presentation are to close deals.

BigMachines offers a variety of solutions to add speed and accuracy to the quoting and proposal, and order process. Here's how a BigMachines Customer utilizes product configuration, quoting and proposals to sell more and sell faster.

Configure products and services in minutes instead of days using BigMachines Guided Selling, which organizes product specifications as a series of question menus to guide users through the configuration process.

Send custom, validated, configurations on for review and approval via automated workflows. Sales Management, Product Engineers or Finance teams can approve sales quotes on the go via email and eliminate bottlenecks.

Once approved, use BigMachines Document Engine to send a dynamic, personalized sales quote, proposal or contract to customers. Easily add product datasheets, custom terms and conditions, customer logos and more via print, email, or fax in MS Word, Adobe PDF, and/or HTML format.

Need your document signed? BigMachines supports integration of leading electronic signature vendors to provide convenience and fast turnaround for your customers.

When you're ready to submit, use BigMachines to eliminate manual order entry and send approved quotes automatically to back end accounting or ERP systems; orders can even be routed through another approval process as needed with the electronic workflow.

Finally, take advantage of BigMachines Reporting and Analytics to stay on top of the pipeline by generating reports to help you improve quote management, forecasting, and product management.

Now what? Let BigMachines help streamline the renewal process for your existing customers. Quickly and accurately repackage or extend agreements for service and support, software licenses, subscription annuities and more.

In the field and on the go? Generate quotes even when you're offline from the Internet using BigMachines Unplugged. Offline users can configure, price, and generate quotes as well as go online to upload and download quotes to and from a central database.

Ready to extend your reach? BigMachines eCommerce Engine allows you to build a self-service, guided selling and configuration platform for your B2B and B2C customers to shop online.

BigMachines interactive training classes are designed to teach administrators and users the fundamentals of setting up, customizing and maintaining their BigMachines software solution. Yellow Belt certification classes provide the building blocks for implementing and administering BigMachines, and are a prerequisite for more advanced classes that lead to Blue Belt certification.

“Our customers and partners can feel confident that a BigMachines certified administrator will have the skills required to expertly implement and maintain their BigMachines platform,” stated Tim Handorf, Vice President of Product Management, BigMachines. “Our new training programs ensure that all BigMachines certified administrators achieve the same expertise, whether they take classes in person or online.”

BigMachines customers and partners can choose to take certification classes in the way that best fit their schedules, learning styles and budgets.  Classes are offered at BigMachines’ training centers in the United States and Europe, can be given at a customer’s office or can be taken via the new online learning platform. The new online option allows each customer to learn at his or her own pace, save on travel costs and still receive the same high level of administration training that an in-person class offers.

“Our company makes extensive use of Configuration, Commerce, and the Document Engine for guiding our users to a complete quote,” said Jason Parpart, Systems Administrator, Schenck AccuRate.  “As our company’s BigMachines administrator, comprehensive training in all aspects of BigMachines administration was a must.  After taking the Yellow Belt training, I felt confident in my ability to tweak and maintain our site as it went live.  After completing Blue Belt training, I now feel like I have a vast new set of tools at my disposal to make just about anything possible.  The training team has done an excellent job of putting together a rigorous but well-paced curriculum and they teach it well.  Training up to at least the Yellow Belt level should almost be a requirement for any BigMachines administrator.”

To learn more about BigMachines training or to register for a class, visit www.bigmachines.com/training.  Additional training opportunities are also available at BigIdeas Chicago, October 23 – 25, 2011.  BigIdeas Chicago is one of the largest cloud conferences targeted for B2B sales professionals and offers new insights to help them optimize their sales processes to sell more and sell faster. To learn more, visit www.bigmachines.com/bigideas.

"Sell more, and sell it more quickly" is the mantra for many an industry. But if there's one impediment to rapid selling, it's product complexity. Buy a PC online today, for example, and you may have to navigate through 500 core options — some top-level, others stemming from choices you make — not to mention an array of accessories and add-ons.

To tame this product complexity and proliferation for salespeople and customers, and to streamline proposal generation and price quotes for products, many companies work with Innoveer to integrate a "product configurator" with their CRM system. Top candidates for such technology include anyone selling goods that come in various shapes, sizes, bundles, and with "similar but different" names and SKUs — from businesses in the high-technology and manufacturing sectors to over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and even financial services.

To discuss how and when to use a configurator, I spoke with Melanie Gipp, Director of Marketing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at configurator developer (and Innoveer partner) BigMachines.

Which industries typically have the biggest product configuration challenges?

Gipp: Industries in which companies have products that are very complex or have very large product catalogs. We started in the manufacturing industry, but now we have customers in the high-technology, software services, telecommunications and even finance, amongst others.

For example, BigMachines is being used by Kodak to configure the large, commercial printers it sells, as well as the services associated with them. Kodak has integrated BigMachines with its Oracle CRM On Demand software, which enables in-house salespeople to more easily create quotes and close sales.

Other businesses are using BigMachines more for e-commerce purposes. For example, AGCO — a manufacturer of tractors and farm equipment — has opened its systems to distributors. So, dealers that want to buy an AGCO tractor can configure it through the AGCO website and order that system. That’s a relatively new use case for us.

If companies aren't using a configurator such as BigMachines, what are they doing?

Most often, we replace Microsoft Excel and Word. And that's shocking to hear — how these really large corporations have binders with price books that never get updated. Furthermore, every salesperson creates their own proposals, there's no standard corporate design even on them. Plus prices may be wrong, product descriptions inaccurate, and products incorrectly configured.

During a configurator implementation, do you face resistance from salespeople?

Sometimes, but that resistance comes with any new system that you’re implementing. Our goal is to design the BigMachines application for salespeople, and make it — and their life — as efficient as possible. That’s so they can more quickly produce accurate quotes and give better data to sales managers for planning and forecasting. That, of course, gives managers better control of their sales team. All of which can create friction, obviously. But these are the same challenges that a regular CRM implementation would bring, no doubt.

How much time does BigMachines buy salespeople?

BigMachines customer Siemens reports that they were able to reduce the time required to generate a quote by 65%, and at the same time increase quote volume by 25%. Other advantages for the sales person are the ability to more easily create an error-free quote, and the guided selling process, which eases their workload and allows less experienced staff members to create valid quotes.

Likewise, one of our customers that develops financial software, Bottomline Technologies, found that using BigMachines increased sales productivity by 25%. After 18 months, it also led to a two-thirds reduction in the company’s 90-day debt, meaning that the company was more quickly invoicing customers, and thus getting paid. Likewise, it saw an 85% reduction in accrued revenue, which does wonders for cash flow.

Learn More

What's the number-one challenge when implementing product configurators? As with implementing CRM software, it's to ensure that users not only adopt the new software, but embrace it. Accordingly, when implementing a configurator, balance management requirements (price enforcement, standardized reporting) with must-have capabilities for salespeople (faster and easier quotes and sales, easy pricing).

Meanwhile, while product configurators help organizations streamline and automate their product configuration and pricing, many companies also stand to benefit by cleaning house. Namely, they should always clamp down, aggressively, on creating new product names, options, bundles, SKUs and configurations. Master our related, top tips for controlling product proliferation.

PLATO Learning is a leading provider of education technology solutions, offering innovative online courses for kindergarten through adult learners that include reading, writing, mathematics, science, social studies, and life and job skills. They have more than 50 years of experience in the educational technology market.

PLATO chose to self-implement the BigMachines Selling Platform, replacing their existing quoting and pricing tool. Prior to implementation, members of the PLATO team attended BigMachines Administrator Training, where they learned how to set up and maintain their BigMachines software platform. With guidance from the BigMachines Professional Services team, they were able to implement their new web-based selling solution in under three months.

BigMachines now supports product selection, improved sales proposals and a tiered pricing structure. BigMachines is integrated with PLATO's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system from salesforce.com. BigMachines also automates PLATO's sales tax calculations. In addition, BigMachines is used to automate discount approvals, ensuring pricing controls and accuracy.

"BigMachines has taken our quoting process to a new level and the integration with our CRM and tax software helps this business process run more efficiently," said Mitch Wacker, director of finance operations for PLATO Learning. "By self-implementing, we have enabled our internal team to continuously improve and add features beyond our phase one deployment. The professional training and support we received from the BigMachines team has been great throughout the entire process. In the end, the greatest benefit will be the ability for our sales professionals to deliver higher quality, tailored proposals that will meet or exceed our customers' expectations for contracting requirements and turnaround times."

"We congratulate PLATO on a successful self-implementation of BigMachines," said Shane Anastasi, Senior Vice President, Services and Support, BigMachines. "We have developed our implementation processes using best practices from hundreds of successful BigMachines customers. This streamlined methodology enables customers like PLATO to manage their own self-led implementation. PLATO's success is validation of our methodology, and we look forward to helping more customers sell more and sell faster using BigMachines."

Join BigMachines at Cloudforce Boston to learn more about the benefits of integrating BigMachines with Salesforce CRM.

BigMachines will be available throughout the day at the Cloudforce Expo with demos of our latest solutions for cloud-based product configuration, quoting, proposals and more!

What's new with BigMachines and salesforce.com?

• Leveraging the social collaboration capabilities for Chatter in the Force.com platform, BigMachines users can now automatically push real-time updates to Chatter when they create and update sales quotes.
• BigMachines received the AppExchange Best of '10 Award for Best Quoting and Order app for the third consecutive year based on reviews from salesforce.com customers.
• Built using Force.com, BigMachines QuickConfig for SMB users is now available on AppExchange 2 and is an ideal solution for businesses that use Salesforce Real-Time Quotes but need to add guided selling functionality.

• easily define product data,
• configure the user interface and
• maintain configuration rules,

1. Provide product datasheets, descriptions and details from within an online product catalog. Your customers want information and no matter the time of day, day of the week, or busy schedule of your field reps, the information your customers and prospects need to make the decision to buy can be readily available via eCommerce web sites.
2. Link prospects to multimedia marketing materials. Remember that YouTube video the marketing team created? It's time to give more exposure to a one-time campaign and provide relevant media files from directly within your sales toolkit.
3. Include warranty information where it is most likely to be read. Whether you choose to include warranty information with product descriptions and datasheets, or provide it from within an eCommerce shopping cart, you can ensure your customers are aware of the terms and conditions associated with their purchase.
4. Let happy customers do the selling for you with user reviews and product ratings similar to Amazon.com's thriving review community. Have you ever bought something with less than a 3-star rating? Your prospects don't want to either.
5. Integrate with social networks and promote social sharing and user communities.
6. Enable auto-suggest search for prospects who may not know what they need. This widely adopted tool allows users to start typing a phrase while related product searches are suggested.
7. Empower prospects with Guided Selling. Create survey-like questionnaires for customers to provide requirements, needs, and budget to return best-fit solutions.
8. Provide product comparisons to engage prospects in the evaluation process and allow them to understand the benefits of multiple models or service packages.
9. Include recommended items to increase average order value, and ensure customers never place an order without full knowledge of the parts needed to receive maximum benefits.
10. Automate the renewal process with self-service options for eCommerce users. Besides the traditional shopping cart functionality, eCommerce portals can integrate directly to ERP and CRM systems to enable customers to renew, reorder, and renegotiate contract terms as well as process payments online