1.       Take the guesswork out of customization

Purchasing a CRM system can be a big decision for any business. There are multiple options to choose from, but when you are “window shopping” for a CRM system, take a “best of breeds” approach.  For example, a complex manufacturer is never going to purchase an “out of the box” CRM system.  Of course, every business has a specific set of information that they’re looking to collect from all of their customers, but past that generic set of fields can be a very industry- or product-specific field that you need answered from all of your prospects.  When you are able to use a CRM system firsthand, you can then understand how you can modify it to your needs to fit your specific industry or product.

2.        Why spend, when you don’t have to

CRM systems can start racking up the cost, depending on the size of your organization.  If it were possible to purchase a CRM system today, would you know how many licenses you would need to purchase? Are 25 seats too many or too little for your company?  With the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 30-day free trial, you can use up to 25 licenses for free, then you can judge if that is the correct number for your business or if you need more or less.  When you go to purchase, knowledge is power and in this case, it’ also money.  Knowing how many people will need access to the CRM system will help you manage the cost of what can be a large investment.

3.       Expert help at your fingertips

You’ve purchased a CRM system, but now there is a problem and you need help.  Are there people there to support you and your business?  Establishing a relationship with those who are helping you implement your CRM system can add to your advantage, but what if you knew who you were dealing with before the purchase even began?  Having a CRM expert advising you during your free trial, answering all of you questions, can relieve the burden that lingers regarding support.   It’s an incredible feeling to know before you start the process that there is a professional and knowledgeable person to back you in your time of need.

Having someone hold your hand for an inside look (for free) on how you can use a CRM system can be invaluable before purchasing.  To learn how you can experience Microsoft Dynamics CRM for 30 days free along with expert guidance, please visit acquire.cincom.com.

Why Manufacturers Are Looking To Cloud Computing 

Manufacturers are under constant pressure to increase accuracy, make process speed a competitive force and capitalize on their internal intelligence and knowledge to make every supplier, distributor and service interaction count.  The majority of manufacturers from which the following insights are gained are in the high-tech, industrial and aerospace and defense industries, where rapid product lifecycles and short time-to-market schedules are commonplace.

Cloud-based strategies give these companies the chance to bring their own innate intelligence and knowledge into every sales situation.  While on-premise systems could also do this, cloud-based systems were quicker to roll out, easier to customize and showed potential to increase adoption rates across resellers.

One manufacturing manager explained how during a new product launch, the speed and volume of collaboration was so rapid between suppliers and distributors that an allocation situation was averted.  That, he said, made senior management believers.  These epiphanies are happening daily in manufacturing.

Based on my visits with manufacturers, here are the 10 ways they are using cloud computing to revolutionize manufacturing:

• Capturing and applying company-wide intelligence and knowledge through the use of analytics, business intelligence (BI) and rules engines.  For the many manufacturers that rely on build-to-order, configure-to-order and engineer-to-order strategies as a core part of their business models, using cloud-based platforms to capture knowledge and manage rules is accelerating. A key part of this area is mobility support for analytics, BI and rules-engine reporting and analysis.

• Piloting and then moving quickly to full launch of supplier portals and collaboration platforms, complete with quality-management dashboards and workflows.  Among the manufacturers visited, those in high-tech are the most advanced in this area, often implementing Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and demand management applications that deliver real-time order status and forecasts.

• Designing in services is now becoming commonplace, making cloud integration expertise critical for manufacturers.  From simplistic services integration on iPhones to the full implementation of voice-activated controls including emergency assistance in the latest luxury cars, adding in services that are integrated to the cloud is redefining the competitive landscape of industries today.  Revising a product or launching a new product generation with embedded services can mitigate price wars, which is why many manufacturers are pursing this strategy today.

• Accelerating new product development and introduction (NPDI) strategies to attain time-to-market objectives. Using cloud-based platforms in high-tech manufacturing is growing today as time-to-market constraints are requiring greater collaboration earlier in design cycles.

• Managing indirect and direct channel sales from a single cloud platform, tracking sales results against quota at the individual, group and divisional levels is now commonplace across all manufacturers visited.  Dashboards report back the status by each rep and for sales managers, the profitability of each deal.

• Using cloud-based, marketing-automation applications to plan, execute and most importantly, track results of every campaign.  For many manufacturers today, Marketing is under a microscope as marketing-automation applications have promised to deliver exceptional results, and many manufacturers are still struggling to align their internal content, strategies and ability to execute with the potential these systems promise.

• Automating customer service, support and common order status inquiries online, integrating these systems to distributed order management, pricing and content-management platforms.  Manufacturing industries are at varying levels of adoption when it comes to automating self-service.  However, the cost and time advantages in high tech are the highest levels of adoption I’ve seen in visiting manufacturers.

• Increasing reliance on two-tier ERP strategies  to gain greater efficiencies in material planning and supplier management and to reduce logistics costs.  Manufacturers are also using this strategy to gain greater independence from a single ERP vendor dominating their entire operations.  Several manufacturers remarked that their large, monolithic ERP systems could not, without intensive programming and customization, scale down to the smaller operational needs in distributed geographic regions.  Cloud-based ERP systems are getting the attention of manufacturers pursuing two-tier ERP strategies.  Acumatica, Cincom, Microsoft, NetSuite and Plex Systems are leaders in this area of ERP systems.

• Reliance on cloud-based Human Resource Management (HRM) systems to unify all manufacturing locations globally.  This often includes combining multisite talent management, recruiting, payroll and time tracking.  Contract manufacturer, Flextronics, uses Workday to optimize workforce allocations across its global manufacturing centers for example.

• Increasing reliance on cloud-based financials to gain greater predictive insight into manufacturing operations.  This often includes revenue management, asset management, expense management including accounts payable and accounts perceivable and project-based costing.

Bottom Line:  Using cloud-based systems to streamline key areas of their business, manufacturers are freeing up more time to invest in new products and to sell more.

For more information, check out this webinar: Break Through! To Greater Cash Flow and Lower Risk: The top 7 reasons to host your cloud applications in Microsoft Windows Azure

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing, which is sometimes termed “in the cloud,” simply means that the computers, software and networking to run some software does not reside at your premise. Instead, it resides in another company’s location that you can access using a browser and an Internet connection. Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of cloud computing.

Pros:

Reduces cost

When you have your application running in the cloud, your IT staff doesn’t have to worry about servers, networking and operating-system software support any more. Those things are being taken care of by the hosting provider. That means your IT staff can focus more attention on the existing applications and infrastructure. In addition, for a new application, the company doesn’t have to purchase those same servers and software to run the application.

Mobile computing

As more companies look to use more mobile computing, meaning tablets and phones, it becomes much more difficult for an on-premise application to be available to remote users using mobile devices. Most companies have complicated security hardware and software to keep people from getting into their network. But that is just what the mobile users need to do. So the environment becomes even more complex where the security system must allow authorized users into the network, while keeping the unauthorized users out.

Cash flow

When deploying a large software system on-premise that requires multiple servers and software, a large upfront cash outlay is required. When using a cloud model, normal charges are done on a monthly basis, which can save companies cash. The monthly fee means this can be an operating expense rather than a capital expense.

More robust environment

Cloud providers build their infrastructure to support the high-speed, load-balanced environments required for some customers. Even if a company doesn’t need that specific environment, they get the benefits of running in an environment that is built from the ground up to support that environment. This means that running in the cloud allows a company to scale up their application without a large additional investment.

Brings data closer to the user

Most large cloud providers have multiple data centers in different parts of the world. This allows a company to deploy its application and data in a data center that is closer to the end-user than what can be done when servers and software must be hosted in the company’s data center. The value of having data deployed and access closer to the user is that response times are better and the risks of an Internet segment outage cutting off access to the user is less.

Faster start-up

Vendors that have cloud offerings can typically get a customer started much faster than one that requires hardware and software be acquired before the actual application software is installed. For example, if you want an email account from Google, you’ll navigate to a page and enter your user details, then you’ll be able to access the Google email in less than five minutes.

Nothing to install

If you wanted to use Microsoft Word to author your documents, you could go to the local store and purchase the Word package, come home and install it on your PC. Assuming you have a PC that can run Word and don’t have a problem with the setup, you can start using Word. Or, you can sign up online for Office 365 and start using Word on the web without installing anything.

Cons:

TCO

Paying a low monthly subscription for software certainly helps a company’s cash flow, but over the long term of three to five years, the software does become more expensive because the user must continually pay to continue using the software. For example, suppose a company is looking to purchase some software for $3,600 or they can pay $100 per month. After three years, the amount paid for the subscription is identical to the purchase price, but after those three years, the subscription will actually cost MORE than the purchase.

Outside risk

When software is hosted on-premise, everything resides within the walls of the company. When it is hosted in the cloud, the cloud provider has access to and control of the hardware and software. If the cloud provider’s security controls aren’t as robust as those of the company, the risk of failure can be much greater. For example, if the company’s data is hosted at the cloud provider’s location, and the provider has a fire or flood that wipes out the data, the customer can be out of business. It is very important for customers to check out their cloud providers very thoroughly. In fact, there are compliant standards like ISO27001 (formerly SAS70) that let users ask cloud vendors how compliant they are to help assess this outside risk.

Data control

The US Patriot Act requires some companies to keep their data within the boundaries of the United States. This limits some of the flexibility that cloud provides in terms of deploying applications close to the user.

Summary

Using cloud computing, companies can focus on getting the value from applications much quicker without the headaches of the infrastructure maintenance involved in maintaining server, networking and application software. It can improve a company’s cash flow by making the software acquisition an operational cost rather than a capital cost.  For more information, check out this webinar:  Break Through! to Greater Cash Flow and Lower Risk: The top 7 reasons to host your cloud applications in Microsoft Windows Azure.

Cincom Acquire is designed to help companies that sell complex products and services sell more through their dealers and extended channels. Its knowledge-based guided selling, configuration, pricing, quoting and proposal capabilities—backed by the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform—gives dealers and field sales reps instant access to knowledge-based sales tools.

“Acquire is helping us transform how we operate our sales division today,” says Jeff Wegner, Regional Sales Director for Smeal Fire Apparatus Co. “The impact on our pricing and sales strategy is tremendous. It definitely positively impacts the bottom line.”

[View Jeff Wegner discuss the impact Cincom Acquire and Microsoft Dynamics CRM has had on Smeal's sales process below.]

Smeal is seeing an increase in its top-line revenue because more dealers are choosing to get a fast and accurate quote from them rather than a slow, inaccurate one from its competitors. “We are capturing the knowledge within our company and handing it over to the Smeal Distributor Network via a simple, easy-to-use web portal. This makes them smarter individuals overnight without the need for hundreds of hours of training,” says Wegner.  “So much has improved with the use of this system. We’re not only saving a tremendous amount of time, but our costs have been drastically reduced, as well.”

[IT and Sales employees from Smeal Fire Apparatus discuss how the combination of Cincom Acquire and Microsoft Dynamics CRM on the cloud has improved their sales efficiency below.]

Cincom Acquire has helped the world’s leading manufacturers selling complex products and services successfully streamline their sales, design and proposal processes by delivering critical product and sales knowledge to the point of sale, while significantly reducing “quote-to-cash” time. Cincom has helped manufacturers reduce proposal generation time from five days to 15 minutes, decrease time to close a sale by 80 percent and cut lead times from 14 weeks to six weeks.

Specifically, Cincom Acquire provides:

• Guided selling and specification
• Product and service configuration
• Quotation and proposal management
• Proposal and document generation
• Rule-based pricing
• Full portal integration for dealers and customers
• Customizable user interface using standard Microsoft tools

Cincom is a Global Independent Software Vendor of the Microsoft Corporation.

Prior to purchasing Cincom Acquire® + Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, Smeal’s quotes took too long to complete, their orders had many errors because of manual processes and their dealers did not have a centralized location to store all of their sales documents.  Cincom Acquire + Microsoft Dynamics CRM has allowed Smeal to improve its order-processing speed from six hours to 30 minutes, tighten its pricing with improved cost control and allow their dealer channel to have insight into their sales pipeline.

According to Joel Konecky, Regional Sales Director for Smeal Fire Apparatus, “Prior to Cincom, Smeal was using an out-of-the-box quoting system.  Since implementing the Cincom solution, we have completely changed the way we work internally at Smeal.”

Konecky and Cory Larson, Business Application Specialist for Smeal, share their experience with Smeal’s prior sales process and how it has improved with the help of Cincom technology.  According to Larson, “Cincom brought a huge improvement over the previous quoting software.”

To learn more about how Cincom Acquire can help the quoting process for your business, visit acquire.cincom.com.

To find a solution, we first must recognize a problem. According to a recent Cincom Survey of Australian manufacturers, three challenges that hinder growth the most are:

• Business Planning Process (46 percent)
• Sales Process (18 percent)
• Product Design and Development (18 percent)

According to the same survey, 52 percent of the respondents are looking to grow their businesses at rates of 10 percent or larger, yet the market expects to see growth of around 2 percent to 3 percent. Here are some tips on how to overcome these challenges for growth.

Focus on What the Customer Wants

It’s not just about delivering a product; it’s about delivering a whole product and service ecosystem to the customer. When an issue arises with a customer, the same end result is not always going to work for multiple customers. Manufacturers need to find what works for what customer, and keep practicing and refining their processes to support each customer.

Recognize Customer Perception

The time it takes to design, quote, prepare for and manufacture a product can vary significantly. But your perception of how long it takes, and your customer’s perception of how long it should take can be totally different. So who is right? If you want the business, it’s the customer. Being able to produce to the customer’s perception of time is important. How can we speed that up? The manufacturer who can manage not only the supply-chain lead time but also the demand-chain lead time (the time taken from initial inquiry, pricing, quoting, designing or customizing) is more likely to win the business than those who follow the traditional selling and production processes.

Focus on Service

How do I add value to the external customer? By providing out-of-this-world service. This attitude needs to be ingrained in the business from the shop floor to the top floor; not just a mantra. The service that is provided, along with the manufactured end product, should be a quality service, repeatable and better than the competitor’s.

Enable Customer Collaboration

As we know, the internet, web sales and email are both a blessing and a curse as consumer expectations of response times to queries and requests continue to shrink—not only in consumer transactions but also in business to business. Customers expect to be able to work online with you at all times and receive a response in an immediate time frame. There is a perception that you are going to be able to read an email within an hour of receiving it and reply within that same time frame.

These are just a few of the steps that manufacturers can focus on to decrease the strain of internal challenges that hinder their sales growth. If you would like to view the rest of the presentation, please click here, or view it in the player below.

CINCINNATI, Ohio — 

“Companies are looking for technology that makes them the easiest to buy from,” says Jerry Miller, Cincom Acquire managing director. “This is especially true for advanced manufacturers selling through large reseller networks. Cincom Acquire integrates a reseller’s products and options, making it quicker to generate complete proposals for their customers from one system.” Cincom Acquire helps companies:

• Close deals up to 80 percent faster
• Configure products and services
• Produce perfect quotes and proposals for customers and prospects
• Extend product, pricing and discounting knowledge to field reps, channel sales and dealers
• Access, view and analyze all sales activity and pipelines across all channels

Cincom Acquire enables true collaborative selling processes and provides guided selling, channel and distributor collaboration, sales and product configuration as well as quotation and proposal management and integrates with existing systems including Microsoft Dynamics® and other enterprise systems.

Cincom Acquire has helped companies selling complex products and services successfully streamline their sales, design and proposal processes by delivering critical product and sales knowledge to the point of sale, while significantly reducing “quote-to-cash” time. Cincom has helped manufacturers reduce proposal generation time from five days to 15 minutes, decrease time to close a sale by 80 percent and cut lead times from 14 weeks to six weeks. 

As a starting point, it is important to clearly establish the nature of the configurator tool being evaluated:

• Module of ERP suite (and can it be used with other ERP packages?)
• Module of CRM suite
• Stand-alone configurator
• Interactive Selling System
• Prebuilt vertical industry application

Important core features required for configuration are:

• Needs analysis – Are you able to specify the requirements of the customer in your own terminology?
• Product/service recommendation – Are you able to guide the customers to products or product lines based on the needs analysis?
• Constraints – Are you only able to select one feature or option excluding others?
• Dependencies – Are specific features automatically selected when they are dependent on another feature?
• Calculations – Does the configurator have mathematical functions?
• Pricing configuration – Does the configurator allow you define the pricing and discounting rules backed on customers, geographic locations and product lines?
• Module selection – Can the configurator automatically match the customer requirements to specific modular parts, products and services?
• Structured output – Is the configurator capable of generating structured outputs, such as configured bills of materials, based on the modules selected, while avoiding combinatorial explosion?
• Document output – Is the configurator capable of generating configured reports and documents in varying formats such as Word, PDF or HTML?
• System configuration – Does the configurator allow you to share common requirements, calculations, etc. across multiple configurations to supply a complete system?

Other useful features to explore are:

Process selection – Are you able to configure process components, such as production routings and project elements?

GUI screen builder – Does the configurator allow you to deploy and customize the end-user screens?

Visualization – Does the configurator link to drawings, schematics or interactive visuals representation?

• Default configurations – Do you have the ability to predefine configurations as starting points for specific customers, geographic locations, industries, etc?

• Multi-language – Are you able to easily deploy prompts and screens in multiple languages?

• Process flow definition – Does the configurator allow you to have different users with different process paths?

• Security – Does the configurator allow different end-users to be limited to certain functions within the same configuration process?

Before searching the software market for configurator tools, it is important to carefully consider some key questions and features that your business is looking for in a configurator.  At the strategic level, it is also important to identify the primary objectives and vision of the overall project, before being bombarded by supplier information.

To learn more about how product configurators can increase your advantage in your industry, download the white paper, “Interactive Selling Solutions for Complex Manufacturers,” which includes an in-depth analysis and review of what you need to know before purchasing a product configurator. Download the white paper here: http://ow.ly/kecqc

• Are you planning on taking existing web applications and putting them in the cloud, or do you plan on creating new web applications for your cloud deployment?
• Are all the people that will be using your cloud applications in the US or Europe?
• How critical is it to have your applications available to your users all of the time?
• How much technology expertise do you have available?

If you intend to put up a site to handle a one-time event promotion, just about any hosting provider will do. But if you need an enterprise-level cloud provider with a global reach that provides very high availability, you need to consider Microsoft Windows Azure. Here’s why.

Data Centers

Microsoft has six major data centers spread throughout the industrial world. They’re in Chicago, San Antonio, Amsterdam, Dublin, Hong Kong and Singapore. When you host on Azure, you can choose to have your site(s) hosted in any or all of these data centers so that there is a site close to your customer no matter where they are. By having your site hosted close to your customer, you eliminate many issues that result in the site being unavailable to your customer, and you will improve the performance of the site to your user.

Operational Excellence

Microsoft is confident in the quality of its data centers. It provides a service level agreement (SLA) of 99.9 percent availability or t will provide some level of refund of the price you paid during that period. The locations themselves are very secure against unauthorized access and are SAS 70 and ISO27001 compliant. Lastly, many of the newer data centers are built in cooler climates that allow them to operate without artificial cooling and air conditioning, which is both better for the environment and allows them to operate at a lower cost.

Portal

In my opinion, one of the best reasons to use Microsoft Windows Azure is the portal Microsoft provides. This web application allows you maximum control of your Azure environment with a minimal amount of technical knowledge. Some other hosting providers require you to request services by entering tickets into the provider’s portal. For example, if I want to start up a new server, I would have to ask the provider to give me a quote that will take at least a few hours. With Azure, I can go into the portal and start up that new server, which is correctly configured, in a matter of minutes. Then, when I don’t need it anymore, I can shut it down so that I don’t pay for it anymore. In short, Azure allows me to pay for only the service that I consume. The Azure portal provides control and flexibility beyond other hosting providers.

Automatic Load Balancing

While physical servers are becoming more and more powerful, many more websites must support large numbers of users and provide good user experience and response. Load balancing spreads the user load across multiple servers and does it transparently to the web user. Most hosting providers offer the ability to create a load-balanced environment, but it requires that special hardware and software be configured to do so at a cost. Microsoft Windows Azure provides load balancing automatically to every web server, and there is no special hardware, software or fee required to take advantage of it. In fact, Azure load balances by default! This means you can start up your website with two small servers and Azure will automatically balance the load for you. If you need to add more users, just tell Azure to change the number of servers from two to three and it will start up all three servers and load balance across all of them. It couldn’t be simpler or more flexible.

Cost

One of the items that sets Microsoft Windows Azure apart from many hosting providers is that Azure is a “consumption-based” system meaning that you only pay for the services you actually use. This is in contrast to other providers that require a time commitment of one month to one year to have the service available. Say for example that my company wants to put up a website for only one month to promote an event we’re doing. After the event is held, the site is no longer needed and should be shut down. It would be difficult, even if possible, to purchase only 30 days of hosting service from many traditional hosting providers. It is simple to do in Azure. Microsoft Windows Azure gives customers much more control and flexibility over their web hosting.

In Summary

As you move more and more toward the cloud, hosting providers and the capabilities they provide will continue to be an important resource to help you grow your web presence and reach your customers and/or employees. Choosing a hosting provider is a big decision because of the investment in time and resources. You need to consider a hosting provider that provides a global reach while offering you the flexibility to adapt your cloud strategy so that it best fits your business needs. When you decide it is time to move to the cloud and choose a hosting provider, Microsoft Windows Azure needs to be on your list.  For more information, check out this webinar:  Break Through! to Greater Cash Flow and Lower Risk: The top 7 reasons to host your cloud applications in Microsoft Windows Azure.

Evaluation of Configurators – The Extended Checklist 

Having established a core business foundation for mass customization and the configurator selection project, some basic internal questions should be asked to drive the software evaluation process:

1.     Is the enterprise ready to select and implement a configurator?

Configurators should be seen as technical enablers for mass customization.

There’s a two-way synergy between state-of-the-art product structures and state-of-the-art configurators. If the enterprise has not done the basic groundwork of product/service component definition and modular design, then it may be too early to look at configurator tools, and it may be better for the enterprise to invest its time, money and energy in a modularization exercise.

On the other hand, if the enterprise only has one or two product lines, or perhaps the “product” is a policy document of configured paragraphs, implementing a well-structured configurator may actually help in the definition of the modular components.

2.     What is the desired sales and service process for the enterprise?

This is a massively significant question that requires vision that goes beyond the limitations of existing processes.

The modern enterprise is faced with a multitude of sales and service channel possibilities driven by technology developments relating to global social, economic and political changes.

Is global customer self-service or development through the internet an enterprise objective? And if so, to what extent is this practical given the complexity of the product, its associated pricing and discounting calculations and the need to partition and transmit data securely?

Perhaps the major objective is to provide better internet-based sales support for agents, resellers or distributor channels.  Or maybe the enterprise is seeking to improve internal efficiency by cutting manpower costs and lead times within their existing sales, fulfillment and support processes, and if so, how can this be achieved practically?

Often the objective is to implement a multichannel/multi-phase strategy where customers or agents can use the internet for self-service product specification.  However, this then needs to be fed through to salespeople, technical support personnel or third-party channels for follow-up activities such as pricing and commercial negotiation.

3.     What knowledge needs to be captured in the configurator and deployed to support the desired sales, service and fulfillment process? 

• Are the products and services highly technical with many features, options and calculations?

• Is there complexity in the commercial areas of pricing and discounting?

• Are there regulatory compliance issues or industry standards driving the need for standardization and quality management of documents such as specifications and proposals?

• Is there a mixture of products and services, and if so, which should be included or excluded from the mass-customization project?

For most enterprises, the required configuration knowledge is likely to be combinations of technical product rules, calculations, marketing rules, pricing and discounting policies, customer history and industry compliance standards.

This is an edited excerpt of the white paper “Interactive Selling Solutions for Complex Manufacturers,” which includes an in-depth analysis and review of what you need to know before purchasing a product configurator. To learn more about what questions to ask and considerations to take into account when purchasing a product configurator, download the white paper here: http://ow.ly/kecqc

CINCINNATI, Ohio —

“What we see with our customers who implement knowledge-enabled configure, price, quote solutions is that they are not just selling  products and services,”  says Jim Wilson, Cincom Acquire Program Director, “they are also selling more value because they are putting knowledge around recommendations and guidance.”

Cincom Acquire helps companies:

• Close deals up to 80 percent faster
• Configure products and services
• Produce perfect quotes and proposals for customers and prospects
• Extend product, pricing and discounting knowledge to field reps, channel sales and dealers
• Access, view and analyze all sales activity and pipelines across all channels

Cincom Acquire enables true collaborative selling processes and provides guided selling, channel and distributor collaboration, sales and product configuration as well as quotation and proposal management and integrates with existing systems including Microsoft Dynamics® and other enterprise systems.

Cincom Acquire has helped companies selling complex products and services successfully streamline their sales, design and proposal processes by delivering critical product and sales knowledge to the point of sale, while significantly reducing “quote-to-cash” time. Cincom has helped manufacturers reduce proposal generation time from five days to 15 minutes, decrease time to close a sale by 80 percent and cut lead times from 14 weeks to six weeks.

The Manufacturing Pricing Excellence event is organized to help manufacturing companies gain understanding on up-to-date industry developments and best practices in pricing through hearing the latest industry case studies and participating in keynote sessions and interactive master classes that can support your strategy in developing growth for your business.

According to market analysts, a one percent improvement in price can generate up to an 11 percent increase in profitability. Pricing is a very complex and cross-functional process. In order to be successful, all departments (Marketing, Sales, Finance, R&D, Manufacturing and Supply) need to be involved to achieve that one percent improvement in price and associated profitability.

Cincom, as an expert in solving complex business problems, will be present to discuss its Cincom Acquire® solution. This multi-channel, multi-currency selling solution automates the pricing and quoting of complex products and services. It helps companies streamline sales processes by delivering critical pricing and product and sales knowledge to the point of sale, while significantly reducing quote generation time from days to minutes and closing deals up to 80 percent faster.
The Advanced Pricing Engine of Cincom Acquire rapidly deploys any pricing and discounting rules and can be integrated with other applications such as SAP, Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics® and others.

For more info about the event, visit: http://www.pricingeurope.com/.

The presentation discusses five key business concepts that are often overlooked in challenging economic environments. It will also demonstrate how culture and the commitment to a constant-improvement mindset can bolster teams in difficult times.

The Importance of Planning

Cincom recently commissioned a survey of Australian industrial manufacturers to find out how these businesses plan to grow under the certain climate. According to the survey, most companies noted that Planning (46 percent) was the process that required the most improvement in their businesses with Sales (18 percent) and Product Design and Development following (18 percent each).

“The more complex your business, the more difficult it is to plan for it”, says Greg Mills, Cincom ANZ Country Manager. “Whether you produce a complex good, operate a complex process with intricate regulations or supply chains, have complicated selling and quoting systems or even function on a project-based business model, manufacturing isn’t a straightforward service. At Cincom, we want to help these types of manufacturers better plan and execute for success”.

To celebrate the launch of new Cincom software solutions and the partnership with Microsoft Dynamics®, Cincom will be holding a competition at stand 2800. Attendees that solve the puzzle in the shortest time can win a two-night family accommodation voucher and more.

In addition, Cincom will display its Cincom Acquire® configure, price, quote software and its Cincom Total™ ERP software, natively developed within the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform. Cincom Total is the only knowledge-driven ERP solution that enables manufacturers to manage and optimise their total business from complex selling through manufacturing to aftermarket services.

About National Manufacturing Week

National Manufacturing Week, held 7 May to 10 May in Melbourne, is in its 43^rd year and consists of more than 300 local and international manufacturing industry suppliers and presenters. The theme for this year’s event focuses on presenting solutions that help manufacturers target new, higher-value sectors as well as boosting productivity in their day-to-day operations.

About Cincom Systems

For 44 years, Cincom has helped thousands of clients worldwide by solving complex business problems with its software and services. For more information about Cincom’s products and services, contact Cincom at 1-800-022-871, send an e-mail to info@cincom.com.au or visit the company’s website at www.cincom.com.au.  Cincom is a Microsoft Global Strategic Partner in Manufacturing.

Last February 2013, Cincom Australia organised a survey asking Australian manufacturers to share the most important challenges they face today and what critical value they need in order to meet them. Participants got a chance to enter a drawing for a $100 gift voucher to spend at the JB Hi-Fi store.  We’re happy to announce that our lucky winner is Tony Zadravec of Bradnams Windows and Doors Pty Ltd.

Congratulations Tony!  We’d also like to thank everyone who participated in the survey.

Cincom’s relationship with Microsoft has grown significantly over the past year.

In March 2012, Cincom announced that it had signed a strategic, global independent software vendor (ISV) agreement with Microsoft to deliver enhanced enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution capabilities. Cincom agreed to create a new ERP solution combining the breadth of Microsoft Dynamics AX with Cincom’s deep domain expertise in complex manufacturing.

In July 2012, Cincom furthered the relationship by adding its Cincom Acquire^® configure, price, quote (CPQ) software to the global ISV agreement. The agreement integrated Cincom Acquire with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. It also integrated the Cincom Guru™ business rule engine to knowledge-enable the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform by automating decision-making using business rules.

In August 2012, Cincom announced a new Microsoft Dynamics practice that would resell Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Office 365 in the United States.

In March 2013, Cincom announced its new Cincom Total™ ERP software, natively developed within the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform. Cincom Total is the only knowledge-driven ERP solution that enables manufacturers to manage and optimize their total business from complex selling through manufacturing to aftermarket services.

“Cincom is an example of an organization that is driving innovation in complex manufacturing.  They are delivering solutions that help our customers save money and discover new ways to sell and achieve more,” said Doug Kennedy, Vice President, Microsoft Dynamics Enterprise Sales and Customer Lifecycle Management.