Hardware and software products, installations, service contracts, and consumables: Quotes at Bizerba SE & Co. KG can be quite complex. How practical would it be to have a tool that combines all items in a single interface? That’s exactly what Bizerba thought. The idea of Solution Quotes – a solution implemented with SAP CPQ that creates a single, clear, and individual quote document at the touch of a button – arose in cooperation with valantic.
About the company
Bizerba was founded in 1866 and is still family-owned in the fifth generation. The global group of companies with headquarters in Balingen (Baden-Württemberg) employs a total of approximately 4,300 people in more than 120 countries.
With its unique portfolio of solutions relating to “weighing,” Bizerba meets the diverse needs of customers in industry, retail, logistics, and handicrafts and sets international standards for weighing, cutting, and marking. In addition to individual products in the POS segment, hardware, software, and service solutions, as well as leasing and financing models, are also offered via the main sales retail and industry sales channels. And this along the entire food chain, from production to end consumers.
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People tend to think of Bizerba in connection with classic scales, for example at the butcher or in the produce department at the supermarket. However, the label that is printed after weighing and data entry and the software on the display are also Bizerba products.
The challenge
Bizerba is a solution provider in a wide range of fields – always with the aim of offering customers the best possible solution. So that the customer can benefit from its unique solution as soon as possible after the purchase, the quote tool must be integrated seamlessly into the market-to-contract end-to-end process.
Maren Kreutle
Business Analyst, Bizerba SE & Co.
“Our company strategy determines our processes: That’s why we use a 'Solution - Sales - Process.' In other words: The systems we develop must adapt to the relevant processes, not the other way around."
The solution: Solution Quotes
MyBizerba – as unique as your fingerprint! According to this motto, the idea of Solution Quotes at Bizerba was brought to life. Company size, budgets, resources, processes, or infrastructure: The solution takes into account each customer’s individual needs. From S to XXL and from stand-alone solutions to fully integrated models, MyBizerba’s portfolio covers all eventualities.
After full integration of CRM, CPQ, and ERP, the quote creation process is as follows:
Technical topics
Integration into the end-to-end process
On the technical side, the solution brought the following challenges in particular:
Connection to Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365)
Customer and quote data are exchanged bi-directionally between the systems. In addition, there is additional information, such as price lists, which are imported into the CPQ from D365. When a quote is created, we transfer all of this data from D365 to the SAP CPQ system.
A quote is accompanied by three different pricing documents in SAP ERP. It takes a lot of header data to find the right conditions and to calculate the correct prices. That’s why we have mapped three different technical price documents in the background, one apiece for the areas of sales, service, and labels & consumables. The individual items are allocated to the three areas accordingly and the prices are therefore calculated correctly.
In principle, this is not provided for in SAP CPQ, as in the standard case exactly one pricing document in the ERP belongs to a quote. This greatly increases the complexity since the individual user must be able to create a solution quote completely independently of the technical implementation.
Provide sales staff with an integrated tool that can be used to offer customers optimal solutions that are perfectly suited to their needs.
Integrated tool: Customers receive quotes tailored to their individual needs. In addition, all internal steps go hand-in-hand.
Time gain: Thanks to an efficient and fully integrated quotation process.
Increased customer satisfaction: On the one hand, the time gain in sales enables more intensive support. In addition, customers can quickly and easily find tailored solutions for creating quotes
The focus is on users and the individual challenges of their areas of use. User groups were defined and then proto-personas were developed. The user story creation was followed by the user story mapping.
This – new for many users – approach has been very well-received by all project participants, for it leads away from the requirement specification to the definition of the requirements. Even if you cannot (yet) completely dispense with the specifications: The user-centered approach documents the area-related claims of the various user groups. This creates the certainty that you have not forgotten anything. The project was implemented using an agile methodology together with the developers at Bizerba.
Gerald Schimanski
Software Engineer, Bizerba SE & Co.
"We don't do a project for ourselves or ‘IT’; instead, we do it for our users, who ultimately sit in front of the tool and work with it. If that's the case, you've actually won."
Planning security in the project
Users receive an optimal tool, which often leads to time savings
Common understanding of processes and solutions: Shared perception of the “big picture"
The personas developed can also be used in other projects and project phases
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