Sales agreements are notoriously tricky. Not only do you have to predict the profitability of the deal in the current environment but also what those values will be across the period of the deal. That’s not easy to do when the information you need to make informed decisions is scattered in multiple locations. You might need to consider things like seasonality, which further complicates things. Then there’s the painful approval process, which can involve pricing, finance, logistics planning, and product development.
Without a systematic and automated process, agreements can be difficult to manage— but they’re worth it. Agreements can help secure and manage long-term relationships with customers, preserve market share, and optimize customer lifetime value. There’s too much at stake to leave sales agreements up to manual processes and guesswork.
PROS simplifies the sales agreement process in 3 big ways:
- Self-sufficiency to create the right offer without lengthy approvals —Picture this: as soon as the sales rep receives the request for a special price, using PROS Smart Configure Price Quote on the PROS Platform they can start building a product list, including terms like volumes, payments, sold-to, ship- to, and deal length. AI-based price recommendations provide the best price for the specific context; the sales rep doesn’t have to worry about compliance issues because there are guardrails around the list of products eligible for that customer. In addition, the pricing logic and the policies are built in to prevent over-discounting. Now the rep can go straight to the customer to negotiate the offer. Once the customer agrees on the product, price, and terms, the agreement then gets stored for future transactions so that when the customer requests an order again, the agreed upon prices will appear.
- Easy lifecycle management enabling collaboration between pricing and sales—PROS makes it easy to manage the lifecycle of an agreement, which is critical since sales agreements span multiple months or years. One of the most important capabilities is the ability of the pricing team to make mass price changes to all agreements based on things like material cost changes or strategic moves. In this case, the sales rep is notified within CRM of all the impacted agreements and what changes the pricing team is making. The sales rep can then open a discussion with the customer to finalize the change to the agreement on the PROS Platform. This enables your business to focus on maximizing the expected revenue from a negotiated agreement and maintaining margin as the market changes while keeping in compliance with the original terms and conditions of the agreement.
- Central storage of agreements to analyze performance—All the aspects of an agreement are stored in a repository for easy reference, including agreement start date, price, terms and conditions, and line items. Analytics enable pricing, sales, and management teams to easily view and determine the business impact of every agreement on the business at a moment’s notice to ensure that pricing strategies and profitability are being executed according to forecasts. It can also help assess customer’s compliance on agreed terms and notify which actions should be taken for the agreements like a round of re-negotiation of the pricing or terms.
Accelerate deal velocity—Cut sales agreement tasks from days to minutes
When it comes to sales agreements, there’s a lot on the line to get right, and your business could be facing the consequences of the decision for months to come. With features like automated workflows to reduce touch points, collaboration between pricing and sales teams, and central storage of data to analyze performance, PROS gives you control over the sales agreement process to maximize value while providing a great customer experience. See our solutions in action by reading these customer success stories about How PROS Helps ExxonMobil Modernize their Pricing and Quoting or How the PROS Platform Drove $74M Revenue Uplift for an Office Supply Distributor.
Learn more:
- Watch the full recording of the webinar here.
- Learn about upcoming webinars here.
- Talk to an expert about how PROS can help you take control of the sales agreement process to drive profitable growth in your company.
About the Authors
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Heather Richey Senior Strategic Consultant, has a passion for solving complex problems and has spent 6 years working closely with PROS prospects and customers to ensure their success. In her free time you can find Heather listening to true crime podcasts and watching Real Housewives. |
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Virginie Hemmi a Senior Product Manager, is leading the CPQ and Agreements product strategy and roadmap. With 15+ years of experience in the CPQ space, between marketing and product management functions, she brings forth value at any point of the innovation chain: from market discovery to features delivery to go-to-market activities. |
