As enterprise technology continues to evolve, so too do enterprise expectations for managing customers and revenue. At Craton, we understand that successful implementation of the Lead-to-Revenue technology stack requires not only seamless integration but also clearly defined outcomes for each stage of the process. Lead, Opportunity, Quote, Order, Billing, and Revenue Recognition are distinct functions that each play a vital role in delivering ROI.
Our Omni-channel Selling & Customer Engagement diagram highlights how customer interactions, channels, and back-end processes come together to support an efficient and effective Lead-to-Revenue journey. Craton maintains a library of thought leadership, best practices, and key outcomes across the end-to-end landscape.
Introducing the Craton Outcomes Framework
Understanding all the moving pieces of Omni-channel Selling & Customer Engagement is critical, but equally important is developing a comprehensive understanding of desired business outcomes across this process. A project’s success depends on understanding four key types of outcomes:
1. Point Outcomes are directly tied to the specific solution being implemented, such as increasing win rates or improving deal sizes in a CPQ system.
2. Downstream Outcomes are the effects that ripple across related processes, such as improved billing accuracy or reduced manual interventions as a result of CPQ optimization.
3. End-to-end Outcomes take a holistic view, considering how the solution drives overarching objectives, such as accelerating time to market for new products or monetization strategies.
4. Strategic Outcomes focus on long-term goals, such as ensuring that your enterprise architecture can support M&A activities or adapt to large-scale business shifts.
A high level view of Craton's Business Outcomes framework is provided in the eye chart below.
Over the past several decades, while technology stacks, monetization strategies, and business models have rapidly evolved, the desired business outcomes have remained relatively consistent. At Craton, we collaborate closely with our clients to develop tailored strategies that address current challenges while staying focused on those key outcomes and how they influence each other. We believe that any strategy, architecture, or solution not firmly grounded in clearly defined and prioritized business outcomes is vulnerable to unnecessary risks. By anchoring our approach in these outcomes, we ensure alignment with our clients' objectives and long-term success.
As an example, the following picture highlights the result of a two-day workshop for an enterprise client preparing for a CPQ project. Stakeholders from across the business represented their functions and landed on a high-level prioritized set of desired outcomes from their investment in a CPQ transformation.
Next Steps
In our next post, we’ll explore how the technology options across the Omni-channel Selling and Customer Engagement landscape have evolved over the years and introduce Craton's methodology for technology selection. For more information on optimizing your Lead-to-Revenue processes or dialogue on key business outcomes, feel free to feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or via email at [email protected].