Why SalesDoc Architect is a Great Complement to CRM
Quite often, folks who are not very familiar with SalesDoc Architect tell us that their CRM (customer relationship management) software solution can generate proposals. If by “proposals” you mean the ability to generate a pricing schedule (perhaps with a fancy header) based on a list of products and services that you manually select then yes, many CRM solutions can “generate” proposals.
But if you are looking to auto-configure solutions (rather than picking products and services manually, one-by-one), or auto-generate descriptive, illustrative proposals that win more deals, or even create statements of work that set customer expectations and prevent “scope creep”, then CRM alone is not the answer.
As our clients can attest, SalesDoc Architect is a great complement to CRM. Both solutions are required for companies seeking best-in-class performance. That’s why we’ve created integrations between SalesDoc Architect and CRM solutions (especially Tigerpaw’s CRM+ solution, the leading end-to-end CRM solution for the telephony and IT reseller markets) to make it easier for both solutions to work together.
- The ability to automatically configure products and services using Microsoft Excel formulas.
- The ability to include Excel elements like tables, calculated variables and charts in Word output documents.
- The ability to select or auto-select document sections (based on Excel formulas or user-configured part numbers) for Word-based output documents like proposals and statements of work.
These three features provide companies with all kinds of capabilities that enable them to put together world-class proposals and statements of work quickly and accurately. These capabilities include:
- Automated configuration of core solutions.
- Automated configuration of peripheral products, labor, support plans and other elements associated with a core solution, even when the core solution is imported from a vendor configuration tool.
- Auto-generation of document sections associated with configured products and services. You can also generate different types of documents (proposal vs. SOW vs. internal) based on a configured solution with just a few more mouse clicks.
- Auto-generation of document sections based on user selections or data imported from CRM (see our article on CRM integration for an example).
- Performance of complex calculations (and related outputs) for things like leasing, managed services and ROI analyses.
- Inclusion of Excel elements – like leasing tables and ROI charts – in Word outputs.
CRM software is essential for tracking all kinds of things. But it is not built as a solution configurator or document generator that can “assemble” the required document sections into Word-based outputs. Together, however, CRM and SalesDoc Architect enable companies to not only run more efficiently, but to generate more sales through differentiated, customized proposals and statements of work.