Jeff Koterba

Salesforce won’t invest more in CPQ. The market sentiment says so. Since the launch of RLM (Revenue Lifecycle Management), the market sentiment for CPQ has gone down. People are speculating: → no new advancement → differences b/w RLM and CPQ → CPQ as an outdated tool and more. Here’s the most absurd yet believable speculation: In light of RLM, Salesforce will discontinue CPQ in 2-3 years. But all of this may be just that - speculation. There is nothing to worry, yet. Because RLM isn’t ready to use. It is still in beta. I’ve been getting a lot of queries around - how to migrate from CPQ to RLM. My answer - There is no straight forward way. Even if we do, the migration is going to be costly. What do you think about the future of Salesforce CPQ? #cpq #salesforce #salesforcecpq #rlm

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When one SalesOps person quits, another gains a new hobby: Salesforce archaeology. Why does this happen? No documentation. Often, there wasn't any logic to why it was set up that way. It often didn't even support the current business practices, which is why so many of the salespeople rebelled against using it. What's the solution? Rebuild it. Rebuild right. Rebuild it with documentation. But that will take forever! Unless you have shortcuts and swipe files like we do in our Salesforce Accidental Admin Accelerator. If you want a sneak peek at the accelerator watch this webinar replay: https://lnkd.in/g297XegA

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Revenue leaders plan to invest in 3 areas in 2024: 1. Sales forecasting 2. Sales enablement  3. Sales engagement Why are companies investing heavily in these revenue activities? They have to stop Revenue Leak. In Clari’s Revenue Leak Report, revenue teams shared their ultimate goal of enhancing the accuracy and reliability of their revenue predictions. Get more Revenue Leak insights (and how to stop it) here: https://lnkd.in/g9gnGrdz  

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The launch of Salesforce’s Revenue Lifecycle Management has given birth to doubtful market sentiment: → RLM vs. CPQ → no new CPQ advancement → the death of Salesforce CPQ In my opinion, it shouldn’t be a point of debate. RLM is a smart move towards automating and managing the product-to-cash process. It caters to businesses of all sizes and industries, aiming to streamline operations across: → product/service design → price management → contract lifecycle management → configuration, quote, and order management → billing, collections, and revenue lifecycle intelligence Salesforce RLM isn't a standalone product but a suite of offerings designed to address the full revenue lifecycle for a diverse range of customers. This includes: → Salesforce CPQ → Salesforce Contracts → Salesforce Billing → And RLM itself I have written a full article explaining RLM and the operational areas it covers. Link in comments below. #salesforce #salesforcecpq #rlm

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New Salesforce Revenue Cloud Advanced (#RLM #RCA): See how customers can now easily self-serve their add-on orders in this quick demo of amendments and pro-ration from the Shiftlogic.io team

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Don’t miss these sessions on how Salesforce solutions address challenges in the Manufacturing sector. CDS Visual has been a trusted ISV partner for 2 years. You can find us on the SF Exchange @ https://lnkd.in/ehaf-QZN #dover #manufacturing #commercecloud #manufacturingcloud #revenuecloud #partable #Aftermarketpartsearch

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Wondering how to start your Salesforce #AI journey with #Einstein? This Salesforce+ video with Nitin Kohli and Kamal A. on "How to Start Your Generative AI Journey" provides a road map to accelerate your organization's AI adoption as well as work to implement generative AI into the roadmap. If you are hesitant about starting the journey alone, Salesforce's professional services offer an #AI #Coach that can work with you throughout your AI Journey. https://lnkd.in/e2-WgUpd

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Two great articles by Scott Addington describing how 'lead generation' has changed and what actually constitutes a valuable prospect - registering for a webinar or clicking a link in an email does not represent buyer intent. All ERP vendors are fighting the same battle and the metric they use to quantify marketing success should not be based on the volume of MQLs churned out. To evaluate true buyer-intent, marketing teams must look deeper and consider the context and environment from which the prospect emerged. At Compare ERP, our prospects only have one intention. https://lnkd.in/e_bxA8_E https://lnkd.in/eYRc_CMG

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Good content here if you are weighing the journey from #salesforcecpq to the #RevenueCloud.

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You don't need to buy another tool for account mapping, when it's already available in Salesforce. Not only valuable for individual deal-health, but also important for validating your ICPs and Personas. Even better when you connect it to product usage for a full 360 of buying, usage, and renewal behavior.

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What does CPQ stand for? Here’s the answer you get when you ask someone who’s not in RevOps that question. 🤣 In my case, I know what cpq stands for :) But I still have A LOT of other questions about CPQ, like: How big is a typical company when they adopt their first CPQ system? What are the main mistakes people make with a CPQ deployment? And a lot more. Our friends at Subskribe are hosting a CPQ&A session in a few weeks, They’ll have RevOps folks who have worked in biz tech at places like Okta and Lacework So heres my question for you - if you could ask these biz tech ninjas anything, what would you ask ❓ We’re collecting questions in advance so drop em in the comments below👇🏻 Ps - thanks to my awesome wife Kimberlee Petrie Volm for being a good sport at 5:30am while I asked her a RevOps question on camera 🙂 #revops #revenueoperations #cpq #salesops #salesoperations

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In ERP as with all else “Practice Makes Perfect”: https://ow.ly/bBYT50SkaLb Making the decision to implement (audition) ERP is the easy part – the challenge comes with the actual implementation itself and it is here where experience wins the day and is key for performance success.

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If you are one of the 98% of Fortune 500 companies using Salesforce, read on….. You have nailed "adoption"—well done. Now it is time to focus on optimization - a little harder. Many think the issue with optimization is having too many separate systems.  But the real issue is ineffective implementation and poor integration. To tackle these integration challenges, we should focus on: - Simplify: Consolidate systems to reduce complexity - Integrate: Ensure seamless communication between systems - Transform: Enhance usability to maximize Salesforce features What have I missed? #DigitalTransformation #salesforce #salesforcedevelopers

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Make your processes flow...

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You’ve probably heard the buzz about Salesforce’s next-generation revenue management platform, RLM or Revenue Lifecycle Management, which will eventually become a successor to Salesforce CPQ. As Salesforce’s preferred migration partner from CPQ to RLM, the team here at Prodly has been building the tooling to streamline migration for the past eight months, and I’d like to share some learnings ahead of time. To begin with, there are some fundamental differences between CPQ and RLM. 1️⃣ RLM is built “in core” or inside the Salesforce platform. 2️⃣ RLM  has a much more robust—but also more complex—configuration data model. Whereas CPQ has a pretty flat structure, RLM has multiple levels of hierarchies with product classifications, attributes, and attribute groups to name a few. 3️⃣ RLM is API first, which makes it much more composable and customizable. 4️⃣ RLM is built for omni-channel, so you can expose the same product catalog and pricing to your internal sales team, to partners through a partner portal, or to customers for self-service. All in all, RLM is a highly configurable & flexible but also more complex platform. Stay tuned for the next post in our CPQ to RLM series, where I discuss migrating bundles from CPQ to RLM. #salesforce #revenuecloud #cpq #revenuelifecyclemanagement #rlm #migration

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In last week’s post, I discussed some important differences between CPQ and RLM (https://lnkd.in/gTJ7bU-C). In this week’s post, I’m starting a deeper dive into the mechanics of migration for each of the major areas of CPQ, starting with features and options (or bundles and kits). Migrating features and options from Salesforce CPQ to Revenue Lifecycle Management is a relatively straightforward process — with one exception and some critical considerations. Here’s what you need to know: ✅ MIGRATION 1️⃣ Both CPQ and RLM use the standard Product (Product2) object to represent a SKU, though they enhance it with a different set of fields. This is both good and bad. Good because CPQ and RLM can peacefully co-exist in the same org. Bad because migration is required to move from one to the other. 2️⃣ In CPQ, possible selections within a bundle/kit are stored in Product Options (SBQQ__ProductOption__c) object. These map pretty cleanly to Product Related Component (ProductRelatedComponent) object in RLM. 3️⃣ In CPQ, product options are grouped into Product Features (SBQQ__Feature__c) object. Again, these map pretty cleanly into Component Group (ComponentGroup) object in RLM. *️⃣ The only wrinkle is that in RLM, bundled products must have Type field set to “Bundle”. Since that field can only be set when you create a new Product (Product2) record this means you have to at least duplicate bundled SKUs between CPQ and RLM. ❗ CONSIDERATIONS The object mapping described above achieves what I call a lowest common denominator migration. It will create functional bundles in RLM, but it fails to take advantage of the power of the RLM data model to build a scalable product catalog. For example, RLM allows you to configure Product Classification Components, which are basically placeholders that reference a dynamic product template that gets resolved to actual products at run time. This enhances scalability considerably and facilitates the management of large product catalogs at scale. And there is no equivalent functionality in CPQ. All things considered, this migration allows for a high level of automation, which simplifies the process, but I strongly encourage you to take this opportunity to refactor your product catalog to take full advantage of RLM functionality. Next week I’ll be covering Configuration Attributes. Stay tuned! #salesforce #revenuecloud #cpq #revenuelifecyclemanagement #rlm #migration

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🚩 Here's something I hear a lot in calls with companies who need to move fast but are struggling with their quoting processes: They have a problem with a legacy CPQ solution that promised to be reliable and enterprise-grade but turned out to be a bulky load to carry. Initially designed for manufacturing over two decades ago, legacy solutions struggle with flexibility, integration, and scalability. Their reliance on third-party implementation complicates change management and adds to the difficulty of adapting to market changes, speed of sales cycles, creating inefficiencies, and reducing customer satisfaction. 🕵️ Here's why it looks hard to solve: Making any changes to a legacy CPQ solution requires tackling system complexities, significant costs, and risks to sales activities. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? ⛔ Here's why others have failed: Attempts to patch or incrementally improve legacy CPQ systems can break down because they overlook the root issues of inflexibility and poor integration with modern technologies. Such partial fixes can complicate the system more and increase maintenance difficulties, all without notably boosting efficiency or improving the user experience. Businesses end up having to choose between ease of use and scalability. 🏆 Here's how a CPQ without limitations solves this: Next-gen CPQ solutions offer flexibility, fast implementation and easy integration with other business systems, intuitive user interfaces, and robust scalability. The no-code environment enables operations teams to continuously adapt to changing business needs, like pricing and product updates, in real-time without the need for third-party intervention. With a guided selling system, price quotes can be configured easily even for the most complex products. Contract management is streamlined. Subscriptions, billing, and invoicing for all pricing models are seamlessly connected. Businesses don't have to choose between ease of use and scalability; they can get both without having to compromise. Adopting an agile CPQ solution streamlines sales, boosts data analysis, enhances customer satisfaction, and increases revenue. #cpqexpert #adaptability #CPQ #RevOps

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Judith O. reposted an insightful article by David Hilcher yesterday titled: Turns Out ERP Vendor "Best Practice" is BS! with the comment "Let's invest in getting the foundation right. As many have said in the past, digging is easy.. knowing where to dig is the mystery" https://lnkd.in/eAwJiRVg The question remains: Is it possible to forget about "Best Practice" ERP altogether. Jan Baan has taken up this challenge and together with Gemini defined an alternative. See the attached article: The Digital Enterprise doubles EBITDA in the short term! https://lnkd.in/ea-DwJzY

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How can Salesforce increase revenue and profitability? Listen to the expert on the topic. Andy Moldenhauer just launched his VLOG - begining with a "Summer Series" - first video is on the Pipeline Inspection Tool designed to increase the quality of your forecast. If you learn something valuable, like it and subscribe to the channel!

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