Doing nothing is also a choice (and the most expensive one you can make)

You know how it goes. That one salesperson who always says, 'Let me do it in Excel, it's been working that way for years.' Or that engineer who complains as soon as something changes the way of working: 'We shouldn't want to digitise too quickly.' 

And yes, at first glance it seems logical. Quotations get send out. Products do eventually get produced. You are still meeting your targets just fine. So why change? 

But what if we tell you that doing nothing is also a choice, and perhaps the most expensive one you can make?

A company that kept doing what it always did...

Imagine a manufacturing company that has been successful in building custom-made machines for 20 years. The sales team knows the products like the back of their hand. Quotations are built manually in Excel, with attachments updated in Word. Engineers check the configuration as soon as the order arrives. 

Until something goes wrong.

A customer orders a product that turns out to be technically impossible. A missing safety module leads to an emergency adjustment on the shop floor. The delivery time get delayed by three weeks. The customer is angry and orders from the competitor next time. Internal frustration grows. But the real damage? That occurs slowly, almost invisibly. 

What started as a ''small mistake'' turns out to be the tip of an iceberg. 

Stagnation is decline disguised as routine

Because if you keep relying on loose Excel sheets, manual pricing calculations and knowledge in heads rather than in systems, something crazy happens. You think you have a grip, but you lose it more and more.

Quotes get slower. Mistakes creep in. Engineers are checking instead of developing. And the sales department? It misses opportunities because it just takes too much time to make an offer to that new customer with that complex project.

Meanwhile, the competitor is growing. They work with a CPQ solution, letting their customers build their own configurations and link that directly to production. They're not smarter than you, they just automated their processes better. 

The costs of doing nothing are hard to see. Until it's too late.

Nobody will send you an invoice for continuing to work in Excel. But you do pay - in mistakes, missed deals, internal frustration and postponed growth. And that's not just an assumption:

• According to State of Sales 2024-rapport van Salesforce, sales professionals spend on average 70% of their time on non-sales-related tasks, such as administrative work. Only 30% of their time goes to actual sales.
  
  So, a process that's slowing down is not a coincidence, it's a consequence of choices.
   
• Digital Trends in Supply Chain Survey van PwC (2023) shows that only 16% of companies know how to translate digital investments into real changes in their business model.
  
  So many companies do invest, they just don't actually change.
  
  
• That same Salesforce report mentions that only 35% of sales professionals trust the accuracy of their data. 
  
  Without a system for product knowledge and logic, you sell based on feelings, not by certainty. 

Yet it doesn't feel urgent. Because right now it's still working. But tomorrow?

The choice that changes everything

There comes a time where you don't win that one offer. Where engineering has to say 'no' to sales. Where the market moves and you are standing still. And then you realise: we should have changes earlier. 

But you're not too late.

With configuration software that you can manage yourself, such as Elfsquad, you bring structure to your processes. You take knowledge out of heads and turn it into logic. You make error-free quotations. Fast. Linking them directly to production. And your sales people? They can finally focus on selling, instead of searching for the right price or option.

And that moment... could start today

The first step doesn't have to be big. No revolution, no huge project. But a clear choice: we will no longer stay stuck in how things have always been. We want to be scalable. Error free. Fast. And ready for the future. 

Because the only question that matters is: What will it cost you to do nothing? 

Would you like to know what that can look like for you business?
Schedule a demo, and we'll show you live.