CPQ Kickoff Planning
The Salesforce CPQ Journey Series
The Salesforce CPQ Journey always starts with important decisions, namely “Is Salesforce CPQ right for us?” and then “Are we positioned to do this on our own?” Even after answering those key questions with “Yes!” and “It would be great to have help!” the rest of the iceberg still remains. What are the important things to consider or do next to ensure you and your implementation partner are best set up for success?
Here are a few ways to help your project team get to where you want to go:
Define Processes First
This might seem obvious, but more often than not when we ask clients how something should work, there’s no definitive answer. This slows project delivery. Your business practices should dictate what your system looks like, rather than the other way around - so mapping out your commercial operations and decision paths is the best place to start in streamlining the project.
Make a Plan
Be clear about your deadlines and criteria for the project’s success, then come up with a strategy for how to get there. This includes grouping work into phases, how and when to deliver the functional requirements, and how to use the project to effect positive change on your organization. Your partner will work with you to put this together, but there’s business context you have that they won’t.
A few key considerations regarding timeline:
What other strategic initiatives are planned that we need to work around?
When are our busy times? (You don’t want to interrupt month- or quarter- end!)
Are we rolling out new pricing soon? It probably isn’t worth building out product pricing twice.
Organize Your Products
Kicking your implementation off with a polished and organized product portfolio - taxonomies, attributes, pricing mechanics, approvals, etc - is crucial, as this is a major foundation of CPQ. However, the knowledge of this portfolio that’s required to build it in Salesforce is not something your consulting partner, or even internal technical resources, will possess to a sufficient level. Further, given how complex the scenarios often are, it can be challenging to get that knowledge from your head into theirs. We suggest getting started earlier than later on designing clean product classifications and structures, and fully documenting how each product works - both on its own and in combination with other products.
Specify Reporting Needs
CPQ can facilitate all types of data about your business, but your specific requirements will influence a lot - the project plan, the data model, etc. The earlier you can communicate what information you need, the better. The more specific you can be, the better too. What data do you need to see? In what format? Line or Bar chart? How will you use it? Helping paint the full picture helps your project team get you what you need.
Outline Renewals & Amendments
Work with your partner to understand the tradeoffs associated with different renewal and amendment practices. Do you want to immediately generate renewal opportunities when a contract is created to help forecast ARR? Are you comfortable with how much harder that makes contract amendments? There are dozens of design considerations like these that are important to play out.
Delay Integrating ERP
Most people clean and decorate before throwing a housewarming party - a metaphor you should try to extend toward marrying CPQ with your ERP. There are things you’ll learn along the way and changes you’ll want after go-live that you’d benefit from addressing before you formally connect to external systems. While there’s often pressure to do this in Phase I, putting a stopgap measure in place for 3-6 months can help you avoid technical debt and substantial time investment.
There’s a lot more to consider beyond just these, so if you’re feeling stuck and/or would appreciate advice from an expert who can help guide your roadmap, let us know!
As an 11x certified Salesforce professional, Josh combines his background in market research with his deep Salesforce expertise to help our clients reach the next level.
Josh is a Salesforce Certified Administrator, Sales Cloud Consultant, Service Cloud Consultant, Field Service Lightning Consultant, Sharing and Visibility Designer, Application Architect, Data Architecture and Management Designer, Platform App Builder, Platform Developer I, Pardot Specialist and CPQ Specialist.