- General Questions
- What do you expect to get from a SaaS/Cloud Configurator/Price/Quoting Tool? Note: Like for every other project you need to have a clear project charter!!
- Do you consider this a long-term investment? Note: It should be considered a long-term investment because a change is probably not as easy as SaaS companies want to make you believe.
- Technical Questions
- Basic
- Who will setup the Data (e.g. Product Model, Pricing, Quote Forms) in the new CPQ Tool?
- Who will keep maintaining this data going forward (onshore/offshore)? Keep in mind that you should expect to pay ongoing expenses here either for in-house resources or for consulting resources.
- How quickly do you need to make changes to your Data (e.g. change the product model, change the price components) ?
- How tightly is the SaaS/Cloud tool data into the rest of your IT infrastructure?
- What happens to your business if the SaaS/Cloud tool is not available?
- How much time and budget do you expect to spend on training?
- What Browsers does the intended tool support?
- Do any of your intended users need to change their Browsers?
- How many employees/users do you expect to train on the new tool? (e.g. get certifications)
- Do you have a sufficient Broadband connection to ensure a good performance?
- What usage models (e.g. billing based on consumption) does the CPQ Tool support?
- Security Questions
- Are you comfortable to upload all the data into the SaaS/Cloud tool (e.g. your price data, channel partner pricing data)?
- What is the SaaS/Cloud tool provider doing to ensure your data is secure?
- What is the impact of the SaaS/Cloud tool security to your other (e.g. on premise) IT infrastructure?
- Data Migration Questions
- How do you plan to setup all the existing business data (e.g. product models, prices, quotes) in the SaaS/Cloud tool ? (e.g. open quotes from your current tool will move or will not move to the SaaS/Cloud tool?)
- What will you have to do if you should decide (at a later point) to move to another SaaS/Cloud tool? Note: There should be a clear path how this can happen even though it is understood that this will not be a trivial exercise.
- Integration Questions
- How will your CPQ tool integrate with your ERP system? Example: You create an opportunity in SFDC and SFDC is integrated with BigMachines. In this case BigMachines creates the quote (based on the product configurator and pricing in BigMachines). Once that quote is converted into an order (e.g. in the ERP system ... SAP or Oracle) the data needs to move from SFDC/BigMachines to the ERP system. While there are tools available to help you do this transition it is interesting to learn how much effort it is to get this setup and function flawlessly).
- How much effort will it be to adjust the CPQ Tool/ERP interface (middleware) if you have any changes?
- How much are you willing to buy into a platform (e.g. BigMachines and Oracle, Apttus and SFDC) with your CPQ tool?
- How much customizing do you need from the SaaS tool?
- Do you need to have installed based information in the SaaS tool (installed base info shows what products the customer already has) and how can that be integrated into the SaaS tool?
- Are the CPQ / CRM and ERP tools aligned? e.g. If you want to use SAP's Variant Configuration on the ERP side what does that mean to your CPQ/CRM tool?
There are obviously many more questions but I think that gives you a good starting point.
