CPQ Configurator

With the latest release of KBMax, your products can be shown and configured with a new level of flexibility.  This blog entry introduces you to the new Layouts feature, and gives you some examples.

Enjoy a More Flexible CPQ Configurator with KBMax’s New “Layouts” Feature

So, what’s the problem that KBMax Layouts solves? Layouts can help you not only sell better, but also influence other parts of your quote-to-cash process.

With most CPQ vendors, you can design your own custom logic, but you’re constrained with how you show that logic on-screen.  Sure, you might be able to adjust the order of fields, or break those fields into different groups or pages, but the rest of the interface is fixed and cannot be adjusted.  There’s only that one layout, and you must use it.

With KBMax, you can break out of that mold.  To this point KBMax has allowed for a single way to show your CPQ configurator (called our “Classic” layout).  With our latest release, you now have the ability to create your own Layouts, resulting in the best user interface for your own specific needs.

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What Are Some Use Cases?

This new layout flexibility gives you more ways to communicate your complex products to more audiences.  Here are some examples:

Create Compelling and Memorable Marketing

Your potential customers already learn more about your products through your standard marketing methods like your website, email nurturing, and marketing automation. Take those techniques to the next level with a KBMax CPQ configurator – designed specifically to, immerse, captivate, and even entertain!

Our customer Caterpillar, a world-famous heavy equipment manufacturer, was preparing to release a radically new product to market.  Based on a new electric motor, instead of the old diesel one, the new product offers more torque, greater operator control, and cost savings.  But there’s a catch: the product is so different that potential customers are unfamiliar with electric-drive benefits and may avoid the product entirely, preferring to remain with the “tried and true” diesel products they’re familiar with.

The problem: How can you educate potential customers about the benefits of a radically new product, without seeming pedantic?

The solution: Create an immersive, web-based and smartphone-optimized game – built with a KBMax visual CPQ configurator!

With the new flexibility of our Layouts engine, many of the elements typically needed to purchase a product (the dynamic pricing widget, page tabs, etc.) can be removed.  Only the 3D scene, marketing text, and a simple navigator are shown. In this simple interface designed especially for smartphone users, the 3D scene is shown over the configurator instead of staying to just one side.  We are left with an ideal marketing tool with no distractions from the message of ‘why this new electric-drive technology is better’.

Improve Throughput and Accuracy in Manufacturing

It’s obvious that a configurator should be used by sales or the end user to make selections and see what the product will be like on-screen. But don’t stop there! The quote-to-cash process has other steps that a KBMax configurator can help to improve.

Consider CPQ for manufacturing.  After the customer has designed and submitted their custom configured product, the manufacturing process must start.  Our advanced CPQ rules engine and powerful document automation can help you create assembly instructions, routings, and parts lists for your manufacturing teams in many formats, like Excel, Word, or PDF.  But why resort to paper?

With the additional flexibility of KBMax Layouts, that same configurator can help with manufacturing automation by assisting in the assembly process – through the use of on-screen documentation. How about an example of how that might work? Let’s say that an automotive parts manufacturer is responsible for creating wiring harnesses; complex combinations of wires and connectors that must be cut, soldered, stabilized, tested, and packed.  Rather than having a printed version of the assembly instructions in a bin, workers use KBMax on touchscreen displays that are located over each assembly station.

The new layout engine would allow for the same configuration that a customer sees to be displayed completely differently for the assembler; where pricing and other unnecessary elements are hidden.  The assembly instructions (invisible to the customer) are prominently displayed next to the 3D scene of the wiring, with a simple “previous step” and “next step” navigation buttons. Assemblers can read the instructions, and spin the 3D model of the harness on-screen to see their assembly goal from any angle.  Furthermore, the time taken for each manufacturing step can be tracked, helping with continuous process improvement initiatives.

These are just two examples of how KBMax’s new release can unleash your CPQ configurator investment.  Go farther, and with greater accuracy and brand alignment using our new Layouts feature.

For specifics on this release and others, visit our Release Notes.

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