Unlocking Agility with a Modern Approach to Quote to Cash (Q2C)
Key Drivers and Challenges
Tech and media companies are facing rapid changes driven by new products, channels, M&A activities, and evolving buyer preferences among Millennials and Gen Z. Finance, IT, and sales operations teams are under significant pressure to maintain business agility and efficiency amid these changes. Growth at all costs is no longer a viable business option, forcing enterprises to re-invent their operating models, business processes, and systems to meet customer needs.
According to Gartner, 78% of C-suite executives consider Quote to Cash (Q2C) a top priority in 2023. Companies are refocusing on cost reduction, speed, and efficiency, with SaaS growth rates tapering from 40-30% to 25-15% due to economic conditions, changing customer preferences, and overall company maturity.
Modernizing Q2C for Business Agility
Modernizing Q2C can transform the Quote to Cash process, which is crucial for generating sales, committing resources, delivering customer orders, and recognizing revenue. Companies are increasingly prioritizing Q2C programs to support their transition to recurring revenue and new SaaS models such as consumption pricing and product-led growth (self-serve).
Three Key Steps for Eliminating Value Debt
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Establishing New Ways of Working
- Successful organizations must adopt new organizational models to reinvent stakeholder workflows throughout the Q2C process.
- Applying a business design focus to organizational change, leaders can map out where customer acquisition meets configure-price-quote, deal desk, finance, and FP&A for analytics and forecasting.
- ML-powered automation can help prevent slowdowns and enable fast, self-service experiences.
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Implementing a Composable Q2C Strategy
- Develop a composable approach to the Q2C process, allowing maximum flexibility and agility.
- Software environments can adapt to fit the needs of a company's Q2C organizational model.
- Advanced composable Q2C solutions feature ML-augmented analytics and extensive what-if modeling to help stakeholders see around corners and forecast future scenarios.
- Best-of-breed cloud solutions offer specialization, flexibility, scalability, seamless integration, innovation, and cost-effectiveness.
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Building a Strong Data Foundation Enhanced by Generative AI and ML Capabilities
- Engage ecosystem partners to develop cloud-to-cloud integration strategies and implement top composable solutions.
- Ensure seamless integration with existing cloud applications and leverage data from various sources for real-time insights.
Benefits of Digital RevOps
- Aligning revenue engine pre- and post-sale leads to higher stock performance and faster revenue growth.
- Automating sales and revenue processes, providing real-time insights, and recording transactions automatically.
- Creating a unified customer data model across marketing, sales, finance, and customer success operations.
- Driving operational efficiency and customer-centricity.
By implementing these strategies, companies can unlock agility and improve customer experiences, thereby reducing "value debt" and enhancing overall business performance.