The art of scalable dealer management

This article was written by Stephan Joesten from Elfsquad (Content Marketeer)

Transcript:

It is important to extend the advantages of CPQ through all of your distribution channels. Elfsquad CPQ’s suborganizations module was created for this exact reason.

My name is Eelke, and in this video I will tell you all about the suborganizations module and what it can do for your manufacturing company. We know that a lot of different sales channels and sales processes are possible within your business. Therefore, the suborganization module is much more than just a dealer module.

You could also use the suborganizations module for:

1. Resellers,
2. Agents,
3. Dealers,
4. Sales departments or business units.

The benefits for you and your sub organizations, however you wish to use them, are massive.

Before we dive into all different applications and advantages, it is very important to have a clear understanding of how the suborganization module enhances Elfsquad CPQ.

Adding the suborganizations module allows you to divide your configurators main organization into separate smaller organizations. Effectively: suborganizations.

As the main organization, you manage all aspects of a suborganization. This includes:

1. Sales permissions & price settings,
2. Personalization and localization,
3. Roles and permissions.

You manage what suborganizations can- or cannot sell.

You do not only determine which products a suborganization may sell, but also which options are possible for every product. For instance: some machines are not suitable for the American market. As such, your American dealer will not be able to configure these machines. But the machines they do sell should of course comply with US safety regulations. Which is why your American dealer is able to choose different options than your dealers situated in Germany.

Additionally, you manage what margins and purchase discounts are applied to your products. You can do this on both the organization level and the product- or part level. For example, you agreed on a 25 percent discount on your entire productr ange with dealer A. On top of that, dealer B gets discounts for specific products or specific parts of those products, and dealer C purchases these products for the gross price and sells them with a predefined markup.

Each suborganization gets their own look and feel, so that its users log into a familiar environment. Some of the different options are:  

1. Brand identity such as theme, colors, logos and fonts.
2. Personalized quotation templates per language and quotation status,
3. And their own set of customer relations.

Some of the options to let a suborganization fit its location are:

1. Currencies and exchange rates,
2. Countries,
3. Languages and translations.

To efficiently manage all of these suborganizations, you provide your suborganization users with the right roles and permissions.

• It is possible to appoint sellers for each suborganization to sell your products,
• Appoint administrators to manage settings and pricing,
• And to appoint sales managers to oversee and support the sales of multiple suborganizations.

For instance: your regional managers ensure that new requests are assigned to the right sellers in the right suborganizations,. While your suborganization administrators keep pricing up to date. However you could also decide to manage all of this yourself.

Through the suborganization module:

• Your suborganizations will quote flawless offers,
• They will input perfect production orders,
• Your sub-organizations will immediately know the latest product and price updates
• You will have better insight into the entirety of your sales pipeline
• All the while making it commercially appealing for your suborganizations to sell your products.

In short: with Elfsquad CPQ and the suborganizations module your distribution channels will be infinitely scalable.