January 19th, 2012 by Hazel Lychak
Proposing IT managed services solutions can be a complex undertaking. Customers want to know every detail – in a format that breaks it down for them to easily understand exactly what they’re getting. Without automation, it can be a struggle each and every time you have to customize a managed services proposal for a prospective client. Not to mention the coordination of the back end processes to make the sale and implementation go smoothly and avoid cost overruns.
We’ve listened to our clients, many of whom are already selling IT managed services. We’ve loaded new content and functionality into SalesDoc Architect to automate the complexities of managed services proposals, from providing mixed payment types to incorporating multiple levels of service by location or within each location. You can also incorporate data from network assessments into proposals, scopes of work and any type of documents that you use in your sales and service delivery processes.
All of this new functionality, combined with SalesDoc Architect’s existing integration with CRM software (including advanced integration for those of you who use Tigerpaw) – and the ability to import parts and pricing from configuration tools from vendors like TechData, Jenne, Ingram Micro and Catalyst – come together into one integrated process to save your business a substantial amount of time, reduce errors and produce better proposals, scopes of work and other sales documents.
I invite you to read our news release on managed services and our latest case study to find out how SalesDoc Architect can improve your ability to quote and propose IT Managed Services solutions.
March 7th, 2009 by Brian Cors
You’re finally tracking detailed customer information in your CRM or contact management solution that tells you everything you need to know about each of your customers and prospects. Now wouldn’t it be great if you could actually use that data to drive the content in your proposals?
I’m excited to announce that we’ve just created software that pulls data out of virtually any CRM or contact management system and into our automated proposal generation solution, SalesDoc Architect™. Any information that you can get out of your CRM or contact management system and into a merged Word document can be forwarded into SalesDoc Architect.
The most obvious benefit of this new integration is that users don’t have to re-type the contact information that resides in the CRM solution. This not only saves time, but it also reduces typing errors and increases the accuracy and quality of each proposal.
Pumping contact information from your CRM system into your proposals is just the tip of the iceberg, however. You can actually use this information to drive proposal and statement of work (SOW) content automatically, meaning proposal content is auto-selected based on that data.
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July 16th, 2008 by Brian Cors
CorsPro deals with lots of companies who are resellers of technology such as business telephone systems and computer networks. Many times, the “proposal” efforts of these companies are restricted to schedules of equipment that place the focus on pricing, resulting far too often in customer buying decisions that are based on the best price available and – at the end of the day – low-margin sales.
Companies can use proposals to differentiate themselves from the competition and increase margins by focusing on two basic areas within their proposals:
- The benefit(s) to the customer provided by the proposed hardware/software solution.
- The benefit(s) to the customer provided by the company implementing the proposed solution.
If your company competes in a market where many (or most) of the products or services that you offer are also offered by your competitors – which is probably the case with most companies – then it’s the second area that can truly set you apart from your competition.
How can you go about crafting benefits-oriented proposal template documents? We recommend starting the process by mapping the features that your products, services and company provide against the business benefits provided by those features. For example, a “starter” benefits map for a company selling customer relationship management (CRM software solutions might look something like this (click to enlarge)…
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