The diagram above outlines the typical outcomes our clients seek for managing prospects, customers, and revenue. In any Quote to Cash project, large or small, defining the ‘north star’ set of outcomes is critical, and gaining alignment can be challenging. There are often natural conflicts – A CRO may prioritize faster quoting and approvals, while Operations or Legal may prioritize thorough upfront processes to ensure quality and mitigate risk.

Let’s turn our attention to technology selection and implementation best practices. Typically, we find clients have established ‘bookend’ providers of CRM and ERP, which often lack the capability to effectively support modern products and monetization strategies. Bundles, recurring revenue, usage and consumption, and cross-period commitments are just a few of the constructs that require additional technology components. Many clients are looking for solutions to best augment and unite their CRM and ERP systems – this is what we call ‘The Hinge.’ You’ve probably also heard this referenced as the ‘Middle Office,’ bridging the customer-facing ‘Front Office’ and the revenue operations ‘Back Office.’

ISVs in this space come in all shapes and sizes, each with a unique origin story. Origin stories are a critical evaluation tool – very often, understanding a company’s ‘why’ is the best way to understand their expertise, innovation strategy, and commitment to solving specific industry challenges. Some ISVs have been around a very long time, while others have popped up in the past 24 months. Some have focused on a single function, while others have evolved through the years – via acquisition or organic growth. Some have migrated from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to Software as a Service (SaaS). In the Hinge, there are 16 distinct ways that ISVs work with the basic Quote, Order, Contract, and Invoice objects, and when our clients are evaluating their technology options, it is essential that they know how the proposed solutions will interact with their existing systems and processes. Fair warning: CPQ, CLM, and Billing projects notoriously fail. Beyond the ‘marketecture,’ it is important to really understand the objects and get to a fine level of granularity on upstream and downstream impact to process and data. The diagram below reflects our view of the appropriate level of detail for clients to make decisions on ‘who does what’ across the domain. Craton works with ISVs to precisely identify their current and roadmap capability across this graphic, and how they interact with other key functions and data.

We use this 'heat map' template to capture the focus of a particular ISV. Note the redundancy of the same function listed in multiple boxes. This is typical in the Hinge and highlights the need to look deeper into the architecture to determine the right ISV(s) to meet the client need.

Enterprise clients require excellence in the solutions to manage their customers and revenue – this is the heartbeat of the company. They need software and consulting/implementation partners that will work together with their existing systems and teams to optimize their environment. No one wins when software and consulting teams operate in a vacuum. Successful Quote to Cash projects require great software, great consulting, and a great client, operating as one team. The diagram below depicts our observations for successful Quote to Cash projects.