Sales Business Processes

Introduction

This chapter describes the business process that will be available on the CPQ system to meet the needs of Valio. The system should enable its users, be they sales representatives, managers or Sales Admin to carry out the various processes needed to optimally capture customer requirements and offer them products with the most competitive prices possible.
To achieve this, the system users, depending on their roles and authorizations, can interact with the system according to the following use cases :

Customer and opportunity management : System users can create customers and update customers information and manage the related opportunities
Quotation and Agreement creation: This is the end-to-end process of creating a quote and then generating an agreement contract. This process is generally initiated by the Sales , or possibly the Sales managers, and is designed to meet the customer's specific needs while respecting the pricing strategy.
Contract Amendments and renewals: The agreement is a contractual negotiation, it can be modified by creating an amendment, or be renewed. System users such as Sales Representatives or Sales Support can therefore initiate an amendment or renewal process.
Quoting Data setting: Users can establish product and prices which can be automatically be retrieved when creating or modifying a quote, or when amending or renewing an existing agreement. This process is for instance executed by Sales Managers in the Pricing application.

Customer Management

Customer Creation

The customer creation in CPQ happens when the sales users want to creates an offer for a new customer or prospect. This involves the initial setup of new account data within the system. It begins with the creation of an account, where general customer information such as company name and identification details are captured, such as “Customer Group” and “New Customer” Fields. Once the account is created, the process continues with the creation of contacts records, typically including individual stakeholders or representatives associated with the account. This ensures that the sales team has the necessary contact points for communication and follow-up. Finally, if the Sales needs to capture general information regarding the deal, the process concludes then with the creation of an opportunity, to represent a potential sales engagement or commercial initiative tied to the newly created account.

Newly created customer records are maintained exclusively within the CPQ system. There is currently no process or integration in the project scope to cover the transfer of these records to external systems.

Customer Update

Valio existing customers information will be integrated from Zilliant Price Manger using a dedicated intreface. This interface will initiate the basic cutomers informations. The Customer update use case cover these records.

The customer update use case might happen when an existing customer’s information needs to be modified or expanded. It starts with an account update, which may involve changes to company details or status. There might be also contact creation or update step, which allows for either the addition of new contacts or modifications to existing ones. The customer updates includes also the creation or update of opportunities, enabling the sales team to reflect the latest commercial context, such as new business prospects, ongoing negotiations, or revised deal details.

To distinguish new Customers from Existing Customers, Exisiting customer will have External ID Set with Customer ID, from Price Manager (See. Data Mapping In Mapping Out TDS)

Quotes creation

The quotation process begins when the user logs into the CPQ System and selects an account. Once the account has been selected, the user can create an opportunity and then a new quote. The user can fill in header information such as : Quote name, Sales and distribution channel information ….

The sales user then opens the quoting application to search for and add products from the Catalog . He/she has access to products catalog containing collections that can be filtered by different criterias. He can also browse the catalog,import a set of product using Excel file or select a predefined set of product in a template for specific customers. After adding product to the Quote lines, all prices are calculated on the fly, using the Price Manager Integration. Some of the pricing-specific information will also be set by default from the product information or customer information.

The user can add product groups to set discounts and Head office fees conditions. Once products, pricing information and product groups are set, The sales user can save the Quote and submit it for Approval, the system evaluate all the triggers for the approval workflow and start the approval process. Approvers are informed via email and can take action on the quote by approving or rejecting it in the CPQ, at the Quote level. Once approved, the proposal can be generated in a document and sent to the customer. The document should gather all relevant information to share with the customer and help the sales close the deal.

If the proposal is accepted by the customer, the Quote can be converted to an agreement, the latter is the starting point for any further duscussion with the customer for amendment and renewal.

Agreement Management

As Agreement features are still in development in CPQ, the specification below take into account the features that will be implemented.

In the context of Valio CPQ implementation, the management of agreements represents a critical process that extends beyond simple quoting. Agreements formalise long-term commercial conditions with customers, encompassing pricing, validity periods, and potential amendments and renewal over time.

Two core processes must be supported post-publication:

Amendment: Triggered by Sales Support when the content of an agreement changes (such as adding/removing products, switching suppliers due to items end-of-life). This process requires a formal workflow with potential system-generated opportunities and approvals.
Renewal: May be automatic or manually initiated depending on contract expiry date. A renewal creates a new Quote referencing , and cloning the content the previous one, recalculated based on updated price and product rules.

Both processes should reuse existing the same quoting logic, simplifying user training and minimizing complexity.

CPQ Data Management

CPQ Data Management process groups all activities related to maintaining the system up and running for business, by the Businss Admin Roles . These activities cover

Data management in the Lookups : Lookups are locally managed data tables in the CPQ that should contain relevant data for the execution of the sales and quoting process.
Product data maintenance : Product information that will be synchronised from Price Manager, should be enriched and maintained by the Business Admin in the CPQ.
User management : Sales Admin should be able to declare new users and assign the to the corresponding role, he/she can also disable users when necessary.