Insights Practice Digitalization

9 Advantages of product configurators in sales

Reading Time: 1 Minutes 08.06.2021 Currents & Trends

A quick and cost-efficient way to meet individual customer requirements

Presumably every manufacturing company strives for accelerated sales processes and more successful business transactions. But how to implement them economically without risking a loss of quality? Product configurators might be the answer here. Thanks to their deep integration into the ERP system, they support your employees in every process from selecting a product together with the customer to creating a quote.

Now more than ever, it is important to have an overall view of the customer and their requirements. The continuous availability of all relevant data requires digital strategies, though. According to the survey "the factlights 2020 ", 76 percent of the interviewed companies are already experiencing an improved customer communication thanks to the digitalization of their processes. The companies see the top 3 of the greatest potentials in digital business models (23%), process efficiency (21%) and product customization (13%). Digital variant configurators are one way of using this potential.

In the following, we have listed 9 benefits for B2B sales:

Meet individual customer requirements
Customers in B2B prefer unique products tailored exactly to their requirements. Be it technical details, equipment, color, form, or size – standard products do not impress anyone anymore. Product configurators help you implement the new demands as cost-efficiently as possible by establishing digital process chains.
Visualize your products
Show your customer already during the sales meeting for what they are paying by creating a digital twin in the configurator. This might be sketches, part drawings or 3D visualizations, for example. It is particularly important that the customers can see their desired product before it is produced. This makes the decision easier and promotes faster closings in sales.
Connect your configurator with your ERP system
The growing variant diversity makes decision and production processes more and more complex. To stay on top of this development, relevant data like product features and costs should be defined early on. If the product configurator is deeply integrated into the ERP system, it immediately provides the data to the next process step. Consequently, even a lot size of 1 can be produced with highest efficiency.
Reduce the error rate efficiently
By means of a configurator, your sales department can immediately tell the customer whether a product variant is technically feasible and what it costs, provided that completeness and plausibility checks are available in real time. As a result, you already reduce your error rate in the sales meeting and avoid lengthy inquiries to specialists.
Estimate delivery times realistically
Reliable calculations of delivery dates increase the chance of a sales closing. The configurator calculates the planned delivery of the desired variant based on the actual capacity utilization. Furthermore, the sales department has direct access to further information like material availability and prices.
Create quotes more easily
A complete configuration can be used as the basis for generating a quote already during the meeting with the customer. It comprises the cover letter, the costs as well as relevant drawings and user manuals. Hence, the customer has all information at hand and can immediately decide on the most suitable variant. And sales? They save time and costs.
Accelerate your sales processes
Thanks to digitized processes in the routine business, you have more time for the actual sales meeting, which is an important prerequisite for targeted quotes and an improved success rate. Furthermore, your sales department can attend to more customers in the same amount of time and hence increase the number of closings.
Offer self-service online
If your products are mostly self-explanatory, the variant configuration rarely requires the support of the sales department or customer service. In this case, it makes sense to integrate the configurator into a web portal. The customer is hence free to design their desired product themselves from anywhere and at any time.
Establish digital process chains
Industry 4.0 is still trending, the concept of smart factory is particularly popular in the manufacturing industry. By means of product configuration, you can implement customer requirements purposefully, taking a first step toward consistently digitized process chains in your company.