OEMs are navigating a changing dealership model that requires a balance between direct digital channels and strengthened dealer partnerships. While buyers increasingly demand seamless, personalized experiences, dealers need the tools to remain central to the sales process without constant dependency on OEM support. 

In order for manufacturers and their sales partners to profitably sell, personalize, and differentiate in the market, they need a connected sales system to collaborate across. This modernization creates an opportunity to strengthen the OEM-dealer relationship, positioning dealers as valued partners with the independence and capabilities to be your go-to-market partner. 

Addressing Challenges in the Dealer Experience: What Modern Enablement Looks Like Today

The disconnect between traditional dealer models and modern buyer expectations creates significant challenges for both OEMs and their dealer networks: 

Feature	Traditional Dealer Model	Modern Dealer Experience
Sales Channel	Fragmented omnichannel experience for OEMs	Omnichannel with direct sales and partner sales integrated into one CPQ platform
OEM-Dealer Collaboration	Limited data sharing	Unified platform with customized dealer environment
Configuration Process	Manual, OEM-dependent	Automated, dealer self-service
Dealer Sales Tools	Fragmented	Integrated with sales dashboard
Customization	Limited dealer autonomy	Dealer-managed with OEM product rules
After-Sales Support	Localized, with fragmented support	Enhanced by OEM tools, dealer-managed

This friction ultimately leads to inefficient sales processes, missed opportunities, and strained OEM-dealer relationships. In some markets, OEMs are also experimenting with more direct-to-customer models. However, for complex, highly customized products, the value of trusted dealer partners remains high. Strengthening, rather than replacing, these relationships through digital enablement allows OEMs to meet customer expectations while preserving local expertise. The most successful manufacturers understand that empowering their dealer sales teams with digital tools and essential data is key to creating an exceptional experience that benefits both dealers and OEMs. 

A unified configuration platform like Tacton’s CPQ-based buyer engagement platform powers both OEM direct sales and dealer-assisted sales. Dealers can focus on providing expertise, local support, and valuable services. 

Building Blocks for Modern Dealer Sales Enablement

OEMs can enable their sales partners in several key ways: by providing them with independent configuration capabilities, custom dealer dashboards, branded materials, visualization tools, and streamlined approvals. 

1. Establishing a Unified Platform  

Dealers often work with fragmented visibility on the latest product data, pricing, and availability. Configuration errors may lead to order issues and delivery delays, and back-and-forth communication between dealers and OEMs creates bottlenecks in the sales process. 

A unified platform allows OEMs to empower their dealers with independent access while maintaining control of the product data. With their own licenses and permissions within the OEM’s CPQ architecture, dealers become autonomous sales partners capable of handling complex specifications without constant OEM support. 

Tacton’s approach: one connected source of truth with dealer independence 

It’s critical that OEMs and dealers work from the same system, but with appropriate permissions and environments. Within the Tacton CPQ architecture, dealers work within their own environment that allow them to: 

• Configure complex products using the OEM’s constraint-based rules 
• Access OEM product data and pricing (as their cost basis) 
• Create their own pricing lists, branded materials, and quotes 
• Track their sales pipeline and opportunities 
• Request approvals when needed through automated workflows 

Meanwhile, OEMs maintain control over product representation while reducing the support burden of managing dealer requests. Both OEMs and their sales partners access the system with configurations adjusted for their specific roles, with the product and sales data they need to make faster decisions. 

2. Bringing Complex Products to Life 

Heavy and specialty vehicles present unique visualization challenges. Physical showrooms can only display a fraction of possible configurations, and traditional product images fail to convey the scale and functionality of highly customized equipment. 

Equip your dealers with advanced visualization tools that showcase any possible configuration without expanding physical inventory. These tools become powerful sales assets that dealers can use during customer presentations to demonstrate value and differentiate their offerings. 

Tacton’s approach: dealer-controlled visualization tools 

Enable dealership salespeople to generate powerful visual assets directly from their configurations. Dynamic 3D models and AR applications create those critical “aha” moments when customers truly grasp the value proposition. 

Dealers can use these visualizations during in-person meetings, virtual presentations, or at customer locations to bring complex specifications to life. By controlling these visualization capabilities themselves, dealers become more effective product experts. 

3. Capturing Aftermarket Value 

Aftermarket services represent a significant revenue opportunity, yet many dealers struggle with limited visibility into installed equipment, difficult parts identification, and inefficient service scheduling.  

Integrating capital equipment and service sales creates a continuous value stream throughout the product lifecycle. Dealers who can offer personalized service packages, simplify parts ordering, and proactively manage maintenance schedules strengthen customer relationships and capture additional revenue. For OEMs, improved aftermarket support increases customer satisfaction and lifetime value. 

Tacton’s approach: a unified product and service platform 

The ability to streamline and proactively seize aftermarket revenue is only possible with a platform that integrates capital market and service sales in one place. Dealers require visibility into installed base data and customer assets to tailor service or spare part offerings to specific equipment configurations.  

Service teams can prepare for maintenance with the right parts and expertise, anticipate upgrade opportunities, and create personalized service packages based on actual usage patterns within Tacton’s platform. For dealers who provide both sales and service, this connected approach creates new touchpoints throughout the ownership experience, strengthening customer relationships and creating recurring revenue streams earlier in the buying journey. 

Starting the Conversation with Your Dealers

Successful OEM-dealer transformation happens when conversations move beyond capabilities to focus on strategic partnership evolution. Position digital enablement as a true partner. Start by: 

• Exploring configuration pain points: How much time does your team spend on configuration and quoting? 
• Discussing aftermarket opportunities: What percentage of your customers return for service and parts? How could this be improved? 
• Addressing competitive pressures: How are you competing with dealers or manufacturers who have strong digital sales tools or online configuration? 

A successful dealer digital transformation follows these principles: 

1. Start with motivated partners: Begin with the most appropriate dealers who can pilot this transformation. Some dealers may be more digitally mature and eager to adopt new tools, while others may need a phased approach. OEMs should evaluate partner readiness and consider piloting digital tools with high-performing or innovation-minded dealers first, then expand based on lessons learned.
2. Phase implementation: Focus on solving one critical pain point before expanding. 
3. Provide comprehensive support: OEMs should plan for technical onboarding, data alignment, and continuous dealer support to ensure long-term adoption and impact.

How HMF Cranes Made It Easy to Be a Sales Partner 

HMF Group, a leading manufacturer of truck-mounted cranes, faced significant challenges with their manual quoting process. Complex product configurations led to errors where some solutions were not longer in the HMF portfolio. Communication internally and across their network was inefficient, and training new staff was time-consuming. 

After implementing Tacton CPQ, HMF was able to create a single source of truth that benefited both the company and its relationship with its global distributor network: 

• Every quote became correct and valid, eliminating errors and back-and-forth between OEMs and distributors. 
• Communication between HMF and distributors became streamlined and efficient. 
• New end-users could be onboarded faster with reduced training time. 
• Pricing remained accurate and up to date despite economic fluctuations. 

Product Manager Alicia Vivier Brockhoff states, “It’s easier to be a customer and an HMF distributor. It’s easier for us to implement new products and train new salespeople. There are a lot of great benefits.” 

Strengthening OEM-Dealer Partnerships with Tacton 

A modern, digital experience elevates your distributors’ roles in an increasingly complex market. Strengthen these vital relationships while creating the seamless experience customers demand.  

Tacton’s CPQ and buyer engagement solution provides the digital foundation OEMs need to empower their dealer networks in today’s changing market: 

• A connected sales platform
• Dealer-branded self-service
• Immersive visualization tools
• Integrated service sales

Industry leaders are already transforming their dealer relationships with Tacton, achieving error-free configurations, streamlined communications, and accelerated sales cycles. Contact us for a personalized demo to learn how your business can strengthen its sales channels. 

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Customization is now a baseline for customers buying complex industrial equipment, but how it’s delivered makes a difference. Engineer-to-order (ETO) gives manufacturers full flexibility to meet unique customer requirements, and for certain highly complex or regulated products, it remains the right fit. But as demand for tailored solutions increases, relying solely on ETO creates bottlenecks. It slows down sales cycles, strains engineering resources, and makes it harder to scale and build predictability into the sales process.

That’s why many manufacturers are re-evaluating their mix. Configure-to-order (CTO) offers a more efficient way to deliver customization that doesn’t require reinventing the wheel with every order. By introducing CTO where repeatable configurations are possible, manufacturers can shorten lead times and reduce engineering effort, while still meeting customer expectations.

What is configure-to-order (CTO)?

Instead of building from scratch or relying on cookie-cutter stock, CTO models use a set of predefined modular components that customers can mix and match at the time of sale. That means tailored products without the engineering headache. Think of it like LEGO for manufacturers: the parts are already designed, tested, and ready to go. Customers get exactly what they need more quickly.

Behind the scenes, engineering teams define the rules or constraints that govern how these components can be configured. This work happens upfront—often in a configure, price, quote (CPQ) software—so it doesn’t need to be repeated for each order. Once in place, the seller can use this system to automatically check for compatibility, generate pricing or 3D drawings, create a bill of materials (BOM), and send the configuration to production. This reduces reliance on engineering during the sales process and streamlines handoff to manufacturing.

CTO sits in the sweet spot between two other methods: ETO and made-to-stock (MTS). With ETO, every project kicks off with a custom design and engineering process, making it slow, expensive, and hard to scale. And MTS is fast but rigid: products are built in advance with no room for customization.

Why CTO solutions are gaining traction

For manufacturers balancing complexity with efficiency, CTO solutions deliver compelling benefits:

• Faster quoting and delivery: Manufacturers can quickly generate accurate quotes and fulfill orders faster with predefined components than with ETO.
• Improved operational efficiency and scalability: Repeatable modules and standardized logic make it easier to scale operations and support global growth.
• Lower engineering overhead: CTO minimizes the need for engineering resources on each order, freeing teams to focus on innovation and high-value custom work. Standardized components and logic also reduce the risk of design or configuration errors and costly rework.
• Better cost and margin control: With fewer unknowns and less variability, manufacturers gain clearer insight into costs and pricing.
• Meaningful customization: Customers get tailored solutions that meet their needs without delays or compromises in quality.

Engineer-to-order vs. configure-to-order: What’s the difference?

While ETO and CTO both aim to deliver results aligned with customer requirements, their execution differs markedly:

Feature	Engineer-to-order (ETO)	Configure-to-order (CTO)
Customization level	Fully custom, engineered from scratch	Modular customization using predefined parts
Engineering involvement	Required for every order	Minimal on a per-order basis
Quote complexity	Each quote requires input from engineering and manual estimation	Pricing is rules-based and can often be automated
Lead time	Long due to design and validation cycles	Short based on available modules
Cost variability	High given the risk of scope creep and inefficiencies	Lower and more predictable
Scalability	Difficult to scale	Highly scalable with the right systems

CTO doesn’t eliminate the need for ETO entirely; some projects will always require deep customization. But for many manufacturers, CTO opens the door to repeatable success and sustainable growth.

The challenges of shifting from ETO to CTO and steps for transitioning

While CTO has advantages, making the transition from ETO to CTO isn’t always simple. For many manufacturers, the transition requires technical updates plus a complete rethinking of workflows, product architecture, and company culture.

• Modularize the product architecture.
  One major hurdle lies in modularizing the product architecture. CTO depends on a set of predefined components that can be configured based on customer selections. For manufacturers whose offerings were designed from the ground up as custom-built systems, restructuring those products into configurable modules can be a massive effort.
• Prepare for process shifts across teams.
  Beyond technical challenges, the transition to CTO also demands process shifts. Engineering teams must shift from bespoke designs to scalable logic, sales must adopt new tools for guided selling, and production may need to overhaul its processes for greater standardization. Begin categorizing orders by configurability, distinguishing between fully configurable, partially configurable, and nonconfigurable products to determine when CTO is feasible and when ETO is still necessary.
• Prioritize change management and buy-in.
  Change management is often the most difficult aspect. Success depends on getting buy-in across the organization, from leadership to engineering to the shop floor. Staff must embrace the new way of working as an opportunity for growth and innovation. Illustrating the benefits of implementing CTO, such as freeing up time for R&D, can be helpful in building a business case.
• Balance standardization with flexibility.
  Manufacturers must also strike the right balance between standardization and customization. While CTO is sometimes seen as limiting flexibility, thoughtful modular design can still deliver tailored experiences. The key is setting clear boundaries and education on what’s configurable and what requires a custom solution.
• Use ETO and CTO where each makes sense.
  In practice, many companies benefit from both an ETO and CTO model. Highly complex or one-off projects may remain in the ETO domain, while more repeatable or core offerings transition to CTO. This dual-track approach allows manufacturers to preserve flexibility while reaping the operational efficiencies of standardization.

How CPQ supercharges CTO at scale

CTO doesn’t work without the right tech. That’s where CPQ software makes a difference. CPQ software powers scalable, error-free customization. With the right CPQ solution, manufacturers can deliver complex, customized products without bottlenecking sales, burning out engineering, or jamming up operations.

Here’s how:

• Product logic enforcement: CPQ ensures that only valid configurations are quoted, eliminating errors and rework.
• Automated outputs: CPQ generates accurate bills of materials, pricing, and production data instantly from the configuration.
• Sales empowerment: Reps can handle even complex customization independently without looping in engineering for every quote.
• Speed and accuracy: Sellers deliver faster quotes, make fewer mistakes, and earn higher win rates thanks to aligned data and logic.
• Cross-functional alignment: Everyone from product to sales to manufacturing works from the same rules and product data.

When choosing a CPQ solution to support CTO, look for tools that support both configuration complexity and ETO needs. For example, Tacton’s advanced configurator is built specifically for manufacturers dealing with intricate product structures and global operations.

Together, CTO and CPQ drive modern manufacturing

CTO is reshaping how manufacturers deliver customized products, striking the right balance between flexibility, speed, and efficiency. Leading manufacturers are embracing a different approach, using ETO for truly unique builds while shifting their repeatable offerings to CTO for faster, more efficient delivery.

To make that shift stick, you need the right technology to bring it all together: CPQ. Tacton CPQ is purpose-built for complex manufacturing, supporting both CTO and ETO models, so you don’t have to choose between flexibility and scalability.

Contact us to explore how Tacton CPQ powers CTO at scale.

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A substantial amount of margin erosion in manufacturing happens before production even starts. While optimizing production to eliminate material waste, reduce equipment downtime, or mitigating excessive rework are all important ways to protect profit margins, they can’t fix the profit leaks that come from a poor quoting process. For many manufacturers, sales teams lack the enablement to quote configurable products in a way that’s profitable for the business. Solutions are priced too low, configured incorrectly, or discounts lack guardrails.

To increase your profit margin and protect profitability at every stage of the product journey, the sales process is an important place to start. These nine strategies, backed by proven configure, price, and quote (CPQ) capabilities, will help manufacturers defend margins while enabling faster, smarter sales.

Where margin Erosion Happens in the Quoting Process

Protecting profit margins has been an uphill battle in the sector. The , but pressures from rising customization demands, inflation, supply chain volatility, and sustainability goals steadily squeeze that figure.

Add to that increasing customer expectations, the rising costs of wages and raw materials, and escalating talent shortages, and it’s clear: manufacturers are fighting on multiple fronts just to maintain baseline profitability.

However, significant areas of margin erosion happen in the quoting process—in how products are configured, how prices are calculated, and how discounts are approved.

Sales reps working under pressure may quote the wrong configurations, rely on outdated cost data, or default to steep discounts to close a deal quickly. These challenges are even more pronounced in engineer-to-order, where complexity is high, and pricing models are nuanced. Without accurate visibility into real-time costs, inventory constraints, and margin targets, reps can easily sell products that are unprofitable from day one.

Preventing this upstream erosion requires a connected strategy that aligns sales, engineering, and operations to quote solutions that are buildable and profitable.

9 Ways to Protect Profit Margins Through Enhanced Sales Enablement

Your sales team isn’t deliberately trying to erode margins, but without the right tools and data, it can happen anyway. Many sales reps feel pressure to deliver quotes faster or provide more incentives to close the deal, forcing them to offer deals despite pricing uncertainty and limited visibility into what drives profit.

The key is to give sales teams access to technology that offers real-time cost and availability data, rules-based pricing, and valid configurations. With this information in hand, sellers can protect margin.

These nine steps will help you embed margin discipline into the quoting process and increase profit margins.

1. Use sales data and quote conversion analytics to optimize pricing and product mix.

If you’re not tracking which quotes convert and which don’t, you’re flying blind. Identify the sweet spots where deals are both winnable and profitable by analyzing win/loss data tied to configurations, discounting behavior, and pricing strategies. This helps you identify which offerings strike the best balance between customer appeal and profitability. These insights can guide adjustments like eliminating low-performing options, refining price thresholds, or bundling high-margin components more effectively.

Real-world results: how Bromma uses CPQ analytics to protect margins

Once Bromma, a global leader in container handling equipment, integrated their Tacton CPQ platform data with Google Cloud Analytics, they were able to easily track configuration trends, monitor pricing data, and forecast component demand. This data gave product and sales teams real-time visibility into how quotes impact profitability. Today, their CPQ processes and data analysis help them fine-tune pricing strategies, reduce costly manual work with streamlined quoting, and proactively manage supplier planning and lead times to protect profit margins.

2. Identify margin erosion patterns by sales rep behavior.

Some sales reps consistently sell high-margin solutions. Others don’t. By tracking behaviors like discounting frequency, quote quality, and deal profitability, manufacturers can surface patterns and outliers. These insights become fuel for coaching, training, and compensation models that incentivize margin-conscious selling.

Additionally, by analyzing patterns across product lines, customer segments, and deal sizes, manufacturers can identify where discounting is strategic and where it’s eating into profit unnecessarily.

3. Implement strategic discount controls with margin thresholds

Manual or reactive discounting leads to inconsistency and unprofitable deals. To combat this, manufacturers need robust margin controls built into their quote process or quotation software. Tiered approval workflows and rules-based checks within advanced CPQ systems, for example, automatically flag quotes that fall below margin targets. Smart discount controls like these ensure that flexibility doesn’t come at the cost of profitability. Better still, automated triggers keep the process moving quickly without sacrificing rigor.

4. Implement standardization into configurable products

Engineer-to-order (ETO) enables you to meet highly specific customer requirements and differentiate your product. But ETO processes also come with risks due to unpredictable pricing, longer lead times, and increased engineering effort. These factors make margin control harder and quoting less predictable.

By identifying repeatable patterns across orders, manufacturers can shift some solutions to a modular, configure-to-order (CTO) approach. This doesn’t eliminate customization. It simply standardizes where possible to reduce reliance on custom builds. And as a result, you get more simplified quoting that also provides more predictable pricing, so you can more effectively protect profit margins.

5. Integrate real-time cost and availability data into quoting

You can’t protect margin with outdated information. Real-time visibility into material costs, supplier pricing, and inventory levels is essential to avoid quoting unbuildable or unprofitable configurations. Integrating CPQ and ERP and supply chain systems enables sales teams to quote with confidence and within current constraints.

6. Automate the quote-to-cash process to prevent delays and errors

Manual processes introduce risk: missed handoffs, rework, and delays that ripple across departments. Automating key steps in the quote-to-cash process from approvals to order validation minimizes costly errors and ensures that what’s sold can actually be built. Moreover, a seamless digital workflow between sales, engineering, pricing, and operations ensures accuracy and speed at every step to avoid rework.

Yaskawa streamlines quoting to eliminate risk

Robotics manufacturer, Yaskawa, replaced its slow, error-prone quoting process, reliant on Excel and manual approvals, with a centralized CPQ system.

“We need to be sure that everything that we sell is 100% technically correct. Our goal was to reduce the quotation lead times and to eliminate the risk resulting from our quotation process,” says Dr. Michael Klos, GM of Yaskawa Europe Robotics division.

With this shift, they can now produce high-quality, accurate quotes faster, with fewer delays and less risk of configuration or pricing errors that erode margins. Their sales team now delivers consistent, professional proposals and streamlines the quote-to-order cycle overall to protect profit margins in the process​.

“Some of our sales teams are impressing customers by doing configurations together with the customer and leaving a complete proposal at the end of their visit,” says Klos. With improved quote quality and increased customer confidence, Yaskawa reduced back-and-forth cycles that delay closing or introduce costly customer concessions and revisions.

7. Control scope creep with change order governance

Late-stage changes to product specs, pricing, and delivery terms can eat into margins that were carefully planned at the quote stage. Manufacturers need structured change management workflows that trigger re-approvals and re-pricing when key deal components shift to avoid unexpected engineering work and manual updates. Governance during the sales process prevents well-intentioned changes from draining margins.

CPQ systems help enforce margin protection by automating change order governance. When specs or pricing are modified, automated workflows can trigger re-approvals and margin checks to ensure profitability is maintained. This keeps last-minute changes from quietly eroding margins.

8. Steer sales towards high-value, high-margin solutions

Sales teams often focus on the most straightforward or familiar configurations, which may not always align with profitability goals. Guided selling within CPQ helps shift that behavior by integrating business logic into the configuration process and steering reps toward solutions that meet customer needs while maximizing margin. By making high-margin configurations easier to find and justify, CPQ empowers reps to sell strategically, not just reactively.

9. Align configuration and pricing with supply chain reality

A product might look great on paper, but if it relies on volatile materials, limited suppliers, or parts with long lead times, it’s a risk to both margin and delivery. Manufacturers that incorporate supply chain data directly into the quoting process can avoid recommending options that will cost more or arrive late. Quoting with operational reality in mind protects margins and customer satisfaction.

Protect Profit Margins with a Leader in CPQ

Manufacturers who want to protect profit margins start upstream, in the processes and tools that power their quoting engine. The manufacturers that rethink how they approach sales enablement, pricing strategy, and quote configuration are the ones best positioned to compete in today’s high-stakes market.

Want to embed margin protection in every quote?

Tacton CPQ empowers manufacturers to protect profit margins by embedding margin intelligence and operational data into every quote. With real-time pricing, built-in margin controls, guided selling, and automation, Tacton helps you:

• Prevent margin erosion at the quote stage
• Increase profit margins through smarter configuration
• Align sales, engineering, and operations around profitable solutions
• Move from fully engineer-to-order to modular, scalable quoting
• Integrate with supply chain and pricing systems for real-time pricing knowledge

Tacton’s CPQ solution connects your sales, engineering, and operations teams around one goal: selling profitable, buildable solutions every time.

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Modern B2B buyers are used to intuitive, self-directed buying journeys in their personal lives, and they carry those expectations into their purchases. While other sectors have adapted quickly, complex manufacturers, however, have found it difficult to keep up.

But the tide is turning. With guided selling embedded in configure, price, quote (CPQ) systems, manufacturers now have a powerful opportunity to reimagine the sales experience for their teams and their customers. Guided selling in CPQ transofrms overwhelming complexity into actionable simplicity, making it easier for sales teams to guide buyers towards the right solutions and close deals with confidence.

Traditional Sales Approaches Don’t Meet Buyer Expectations

In legacy manufacturing sales models, sales reps often rely on static product catalogs and institutional knowledge to guide customer conversations. But in complex manufacturing, sellers may struggle to keep up with constantly changing product configurations, technical rules, and pricing models.

Recent research also shows that 86% of B2B purchases stall during the buying process and 81% of buyers report dissatisfaction with their chosen providers. While self-service and digital research have become the norm, buyers still expect sales teams to understand their specific needs, respond to their challenges, and act as collaborative partners throughout the decision-making process. However, sales teams struggle to meet those expectations due to manual configurations, engineering dependencies, and overall quoting complexity.

Guided selling helps sellers navigate the intricacies of complex product variants while co-creating solutions with their buyers that are tailored and relevant. Instead of just presenting offerings, sellers can co-create solutions that are tailored, relevant, and aligned with buyer priorities.

What Is Guided Selling in Manufacturing?

Guided selling is a method that helps buyers and sellers navigate complex decisions through an interactive, personalized experience. For sales reps, it’s like having a knowledgeable assistant walk you through a series of simple questions to understand what you’re trying to accomplish, and then recommend viable, configurable options that fit.

Unlike traditional selling, which relies on institutional knowledge and static scripts, the guided sales process ensures consistency and personalization at scale and in real time. It bridges what buyers want to understand and what sales teams have historically been able to deliver.

The Benefits of Guided Selling for Sales Teams

Guided selling methodology becomes even more effective when it’s added to CPQ systems:

• It accelerates deal velocity by helping sellers quickly identify viable, tailored solutions.
• It increases win rates by aligning configurations with customer needs and use cases.
• It reduces errors and rework by guiding sales reps and buyers away from invalid or nonviable configurations.
• It elevates the customer experience by turning the sales process into a collaborative, solution-focused conversation.

Guided selling ensures that every rep, regardless of their experience level, can deliver a high-value, consultative buying experience.

The Technology Behind Guided Selling Software

For complex manufacturers, guided selling software can’t be an add-on. It needs to be built on a robust CPQ platform that understands the intricacies of engineering, pricing, and manufacturing constraints. That’s where traditional tools fall short.

CPQ platforms go beyond technical logic, unlike basic configurators. They power intuitive “choose your own adventure” experiences that enable buyers to make decisions without needing to understand part numbers or engineering logic. CPQ platforms deliver streamlined, user-friendly buying journeys that surface relevant solutions and guide customers step-by-step. And for manufacturers, CPQ platforms ensure that every configuration is technically sound and operationally feasible.

Even better, CPQ platforms can serve as an omnichannel sales hub, supporting consistent, guided engagement whether a customer connects through a distributor, a direct sales rep, or a self-service portal.

How the Process Works

Guided selling tools use a structured question-and-answer flow to uncover a buyer’s requirements—like what the product is for, what constraints exist, and which outcomes matter most. The system then uses this input to filter product options, recommend the best-fit configurations, and flag any technical or commercial constraints. It can look like:

• Simplifying complex product configuration: Instead of manually sorting through dozens of product options, guided selling walks a sales rep through key customer needs, like application, environment, or budget, and recommends a set of valid configurations instantly.
• Enabling customer self-service: With guided selling in CPQ, customers engage directly in a digital portal, answering a series of intuitive questions and generating an accurate quote without involving engineering or sales.
• Visualizing outcomes: Modern guided selling platforms integrate 3D and augmented reality experiences, enabling customers to see what they’re configuring in real time and understand how it will function in their environment.
• Improving consistency across channels: Distributors and field reps use the same guided flows, ensuring all customers get the same high-quality experience regardless of who they talk to.

Consider a manufacturer selling industrial compressors. A rep might be prompted with questions about the operating environment, required pressure range, and available space. The system then narrows down viable models, filters out those that won’t meet safety or performance standards, and suggests optional add-ons, like noise dampening or energy recovery systems. The sales representative can then have a needs-based conversation with the buyer that feels personalized and outcome-driven, while their CPQ software automatically flags any configurations that may need further engineering approval.

Real-World Example: The Guided Sales Process in Action

What does the guided selling process look like in action?

A real-world example of guided selling in action is Conf Industries, a global provider of customized furniture and logistics systems for the healthcare sector. Their challenge was one many manufacturers face: every quote had to go through the technical department for validation, creating delays and risking costly errors. With Tacton Chttps://tacton-prod.commpreview.com/our-customers/conf-industries/PQ and its guided selling capabilities, Conf Industries was able to digitize their configuration constraints, so only valid, manufacturable solutions were shown to customers. Sales reps could now guide buyers through intuitive questions, visualize the configured solution in 3D, and generate accurate quotes without engineering support. As a result, the company reduced technical department workload by 80–90%, accelerated quoting, and improved win rates by aligning offers more closely to customer needs.

The Next Evolution: AI Guided Selling

Artificial intelligence (AI) is pushing guided selling even further. AI guided selling platforms analyze historical sales data, customer behavior, and contextual inputs to anticipate what buyers are likely to want.

For instance, conversational AI allows for natural, chat-based interactions that feel more like a conversation than a form. Predictive analytics helps sales teams prioritize opportunities and offer timely, relevant recommendations. And generative AI can suggest configurations and create dynamic proposals.

But this is just the beginning. In the near future, AI will drive even more intelligent and proactive engagement. Imagine guided selling tools that accomplish tasks like these:

• Learn continuously from buyer interactions to refine recommendations in real time.
• Simulate tradeoffs and outcomes based on different configurations, helping buyers understand what performs best.
• Integrate voice interfaces that allow buyers or sellers to navigate configurations hands-free in the field or on the shop floor.
• Adapt dynamically to shifts in inventory, supply chain conditions, and sustainability targets.
• Create hyper-personalized microsites and digital sales rooms populated with relevant content, pricing, and visual configurations tailored to each buyer’s profile and journey stage.

Trends to Watch in

As buying expectations continue to evolve, guided selling will become even more personalized, collaborative, and deeply embedded in digital sales environments. We anticipate the expanded usage of digital sales rooms—centralized, collaborative spaces where buyers and sellers interact, review options, share documents, and make decisions asynchronously.

Additionally, ecommerce-style interfaces will grow more prevalent, enabling B2B buyers to navigate complex purchases with the same ease they expect from B2C platforms. With AI-driven personalization at every stage of the journey, guided selling will become increasingly intuitive and adaptive.

Emerging trends to watch include these:

• Growth in self-service tools and guided buying—52% of B2B sales professionals report buyers using self-service tools now more than ever
• Real-time pricing optimization based on customer profiles, market data, and demand forecasting
• Cross-functional collaboration tools within guided selling platforms that bring together sales, engineering, and customer success teams
• Sustainability-aware configuration that allows buyers to compare the environmental impacts of different product options
• Post-sale guided engagement, where guided selling continues into onboarding, maintenance, or service sales

All of these potential developments require manufacturers to do more than implement new tools. They must reimagine the entire sales journey as a unified, customer-centric experience that flows across channels, is personalized at scale, and is continuously optimized by data.

Implementing Smarter Selling Requires a New Sales Philosophy

Guided selling is a collaboration between buyers and sellers. Going forward, the most effective sales teams won’t dictate options but rather co-create solutions with their customers. This requires teams to fundamentally rethink how they approach customer conversations and how they work together with other departments.

From initial needs assessment to pricing and delivery timelines, the guided sales process fosters alignment, transparency, and trust. To make the transition to guided selling most effective, there are several considerations and steps to take:

• Know your buyers: Tailor guided selling flows to specific industries, use cases, and decision-maker roles.
• Focus on outcomes: Center questions around buyer goals, not just product specs.
• Keep it simple: Limit steps and inputs to what’s essential for valid recommendations.
• Build cross-functional logic: Involve key teams to ensure flows reflect both technical and commercial realities.
• Plan for flexibility: Make it easy to update flows based on shifting market or buyer needs.
• Leverage your CPQ foundation: Ensure your CPQ platform supports real-time logic, scalability, and omnichannel delivery.
• Pilot before scaling: Start with a targeted use case, gather feedback, and iterate before full rollout.
• Train and enable reps: Equip sales teams to use guided selling tools as part of a consultative process.
• Track and improve: Monitor buyer behavior and conversion rates to refine flows over time.

Achieving an Intelligent Sales Process with Tacton

Tacton has redefined what guided selling looks like for complex manufacturers. Our CPQ platform connects customer needs directly to your product architecture, ensuring that every configuration is not only personalized, but also 100% valid and buildable. Behind a simple, questionnaire-like interface, Tacton’s engine handles the heavy lifting: validating constraints in real time, selecting compatible modules, and preventing errors before they happen.

Whether you’re looking to reduce engineering involvement in quoting, enable non-technical reps and resellers, or guide customers through self-service with confidence, Tacton delivers a smarter, more scalable sales process. And with embedded optimization, you recommend the best one for each buyer’s goals.

Ready to see how guided selling with Tacton can transform your business?

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The quote-to-cash (QTC) process spans every stage of the sales cycle, from opportunity creation to final billing and post-sale analysis. How well this machine is oiled dictates how effectively your company generates revenue and delivers customer excellence.  

While misalignment between functions, disconnected systems, and manual handoffs often stymie this process, the solution isn’t necessarily a single end-to-end platform. Strategic integration of specialized systems, each optimized for its part of the journey, creates a smooth, automated workflow that keeps sales, product, legal, and finance teams working in perfect sync. And at the very beginning of this optimization is Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ).  

Understanding the Quote-to-Cash Process 

The QTC process is comprehensive, involving many steps and many systems across your tech stack. It can be broken down into seven core steps: 

1. Opportunity capture: Sales teams identify potential deals in a CRM, recording initial customer requirements and contextual information. 

2. Configuration, pricing, quoting: For manufacturers, this crucial step involves configuring viable product solutions and determining accurate pricing based on complex specifications, customizations, and volume. 

3. Proposal generation: Creating professional, accurate customer-facing documents that communicate offerings, pricing, and terms. 

4. Contract management: Converting approved quotes into legally binding agreements through CLM systems, often requiring multiple reviews and approvals. 

5. Order processing & fulfillment: Translating sold configurations into actionable manufacturing and delivery instructions in ERP systems. 

6. Invoicing & payment: Billing customers accurately according to contract terms and tracking payment completion. 

7. Post-sales & renewals: Managing ongoing customer relationships, maintenance contracts, and identifying expansion opportunities. 

Where the Quote-to-Cash Process Often Misses the Mark 

Across CRM, ERP, CPQ, CLM, and other systems—along with manual processes—inefficiencies often occur at critical points in the QTC process, leading to a number of potential bottlenecks: 

• Manual data entry and disconnected systems delay quoting and approvals and slow down sales cycles. 

• Revenue leakage occurs due to inconsistent pricing and discounting. 

• Complex product configurations increase the risk of quoting mistakes when managed manually. 

• Pricing, contract, and discount approvals stall deal progression. 

• A lack of integrated data leads to a lack of transparency for decision-making. 

For companies selling highly configurable or engineer-to-order products, the configuration step presents unique challenges due to product complexity. Rather than seeking a one-size-fits-all QTC solution, these organizations benefit most from implementing a specialized CPQ solution designed for complex configurations that can integrate effectively with their existing CRM, ERP, and CLM systems. 

5 Ways CPQ Optimizes the Quote-to-Cash Process 

CPQ excels at addressing the core configuration, pricing, and quoting challenges that impact the broader QTC journey. By focusing on getting this critical middle portion right and ensuring smooth integration with surrounding systems, companies selling complex products can achieve both specialized functionality and seamless process flow.

1. Streamlining the Configuration Process

At the heart of CPQ’s value is its ability to handle complex product configurations with ease. For companies selling highly configurable products, CPQ eliminates the error-prone spreadsheets and manual processes that slow down sales. By embedding engineering rules and constraints directly into the configuration engine, CPQ ensures every configuration is valid by embedding engineering rules and constraints directly into the configuration engine, thus optimizing for the customer’s needs without requiring constant engineering involvement. It also helps reduce errors that affect downstream processes like contract accuracy, order fulfillment, and invoicing.

When integrated with your CRM, this configuration data flows seamlessly from opportunity to quote, with customer information pre-populated and product specifications accurately captured.

2. Ensuring Pricing Accuracy and Consistency

Complex products demand sophisticated pricing models. CPQ brings discipline to pricing by centralizing all pricing rules, discount structures, and approval workflows in one system. This eliminates the revenue leakage that occurs when sales teams rely on outdated price lists or inconsistent discounting practices. 

With proper integration, pricing insights from your ERP can flow into CPQ, ensuring that quotes reflect current costs, inventory availability, and production capacity—all factors that impact profitability in complex selling environments.

3. Accelerating Quote Generation and Approval

The ability to quickly generate professional, accurate quotes directly impacts sales velocity. CPQ automates the creation of customer-facing documents, incorporating not just pricing but product visualizations, technical specifications, and commercial terms. 

By connecting your CPQ system with approval workflows in surrounding systems, even quotes requiring multiple levels of review can move quickly through the process, with all stakeholders having visibility into the exact configuration and pricing details they need to make decisions.

4. Creating a Single Source of Truth

CPQ becomes the authoritative record of what was sold, at what price, and with what specifications. When integrated with contract, order, and billing systems, this data flows through the entire QTC process so that what is quoted is exactly what gets contracted, manufactured, and invoiced. By doing so, you eliminate friction and reduce disputes caused by misalignment across the value chain.

5. Enabling Data-Driven Insights

Every quote created in CPQ captures valuable data, such as product choices, configurations, pricing strategies, and customer preferences. When analyzed, this data reveals patterns that improve pricing accuracy, highlight popular configurations, and inform future product decisions. These insights flow back into the sales, pricing, and post-sales processes, closing the loop and continuously optimizing the quote-to-cash journey.

Why One-Size-Fits-All QTC Solutions Fall Short for Complex Products 

Companies that sell highly configurable or engineer-to-order products face unique challenges that generic QTC solutions often fail to address adequately. A single, all-encompassing QTC platform might promise simplicity through unification, but this approach frequently sacrifices depth for breadth. 

The complexity of your products directly impacts your sales cycle in several ways: 

• Technical validation requirements: Each configuration may need to be validated against engineering rules to ensure manufacturability. 

• Custom pricing models: Pricing often depends on complex calculations based on materials, labor, and manufacturing processes. 

• Visual configuration needs: Customers may need to see and interact with visual representations of complex products. 

• Approval complexity: Non-standard configurations typically require multiple levels of specialized review. 

• Integration with production systems: Detailed specifications must flow accurately to manufacturing systems. 

These complexities demand purpose-built systems that understand the nuances of configurable products. Rather than forcing these specialized needs into a generic QTC platform, the more effective approach is to: 

• Implement a purpose-built CPQ system designed specifically for complex product configuration. 
• Focus on integration capabilities that allow specialized systems to communicate seamlessly. 
• Maintain best-of-breed solutions across the QTC process while eliminating manual handoffs.

This approach allows you to get the specialized functionality needed for your complex products while still achieving the process efficiency that comes from integrated systems. 

Accelerate Your Quote-to-Cash Process with Tacton 

Selling highly configurable or engineer-to-order products comes with challenges, like long sales cycles, complex pricing, and slow approvals. Tacton CPQ helps you accelerate your QTC process at multiple touchpoints across the sales cycle, integrating easily with over 600+ different systems across CRM, ERP, CLM, and much more. 

With Tacton, sales teams configure and price complex solutions instantly, avoiding errors and delays. By connecting your most important functions across the sales lifecycle through strategic integration, you can reduce your sales cycle while increasing value to your customers. 

Ready to streamline your quote-to-cash process? 

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The shift to digital-first B2B sales has made speed and accuracy essential for winning and retaining customers. Buyers expect fast, error-free transactions, yet many manufacturers still rely on outdated manual quoting and contract processes that introduce delays and errors, adding friction to the buying process.  

As IT’s role evolves from support to strategic enablement, IT leaders must drive digital transformation initiatives that reduce friction in sales and improve business agility. Contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions can help standardize contract processes, but they aren’t enough on their own to accelerate deal velocity. Transforming deal velocity requires an integrated approach where pricing, product, and contract data flow seamlessly from quote creation to final signature. Businesses can then maintain deal momentum when buyers are most eager to complete their purchase. 

To solve this challenge, IT can create a streamlined, automated quote-to-contract process by integrating Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) with their CLM. 

The Need for CPQ and CLM Integration 

Companies that fail to integrate their quoting and contracting systems hinder their own sales cycles and create obstacles that make it harder for customers to do business with them. When CPQ and CLM systems operate independently, misaligned pricing and contract terms become a common problem, leading to discrepancies that slow down approvals and introduce unnecessary legal risks.  

Beyond efficiency, compliance and risk management have become more complex. Ensuring that contract terms align with approved pricing and company policies is more important than ever. Automating and synchronizing the quote-to-contract process can reduce noncompliance risks while structuring every contract correctly from the start.  

How CPQ and CLM Streamline Deals 

To understand how CPQ and CLM integration works, take the example of a heavy equipment manufacturer that builds custom industrial machinery for large-scale infrastructure projects. The company’s sales team frequently deals with complex product configurations, fluctuating raw material costs, and multimillion-dollar contracts that must align with strict compliance requirements.  

Connecting the company’s CPQ and CLM can eliminate manual processes and other friction points throughout the sales process. Here’s how it works: 

• Quote generation: A sales rep receives an inquiry from a construction firm needing a specialized crane. Using CPQ, the rep configures the crane based on the customer’s project specifications, applying dynamic pricing rules that factor in material costs, production timelines, and bulk discounts. The system confirms that the selected configuration is manufacturable and compliant with industry regulations. 

• Contract creation: After the quote is finalized, the CPQ platform automatically transfers all quote details—product specifications, pricing, delivery schedules, and warranty terms—into the CLM system, which generates a contract draft without requiring manual data entry from legal or sales teams. 

• Compliance check: Before sending the contract to the customer, the CLM system applies predefined business rules to identify terms requiring additional review. If a discount exceeds the configured threshold, for example, the system can automatically route the contract for approval from finance. (In advanced CPQ solutions like Tacton CPQ, margin control and discount approvals are already embedded in the CPQ workflow prior to this stage.) When the system detects non-standard clauses that deviate from approved templates, it triggers legal review according to the company’s governance policies. 

• Execution: Once approved, the contract is sent to the customer via DocuSign for a fast, secure digital signature. The CLM system then stores the executed contract. 

• Ongoing contract storage and management: After execution, the contract is archived in the CLM platform, making it easy to track key milestones such as payment schedules, renewal dates, and compliance obligations. If the company needs additional equipment later, the sales team can pull historical contract data from CLM into CPQ to generate a new quote that aligns with previously negotiated terms. 

An integrated CPQ and CLM system helps manufacturers deliver high-quality products and close deals faster instead of dealing with manual errors, slow approvals, and compliance risks. 

The Key Benefits of CPQ and CLM Integration 

Integrating CPQ and CLM delivers benefits that streamline sales, enhance compliance, and drive revenue growth.  

Faster Sales Cycles 

Integrating CPQ and CLM software eliminates fragmented handoffs between quoting and contracting processes. Quote data automatically flows into the CLM to produce an accurate contract, helping sales teams reclaim valuable selling time they previously lost to manual data entry and document creation. This seamless flow eliminates bottlenecks and accelerates contract execution through integrated e-signature solutions like DocuSign. 

Improved Compliance and Risk Management  

Pulling existing agreements into CPQ ensures every new quote aligns with pre-approved pricing models and contractual obligations, preventing pricing discrepancies and unauthorized terms from entering contracts. This approach to compliance reduces error-prone manual reviews, strengthens audit trails, and provides both sales and legal teams with greater confidence in each agreement’s integrity. 

Increased Revenue and Deal Optimization 

Integrating historical contract data into CPQ gives manufacturers deeper visibility into upsell, cross-sell, and renewal opportunities. Sales teams can reference prior agreements to ensure consistent, compliant pricing and avoid unnecessary discounts, helping protect margins. This data-driven approach enables manufacturers to uncover and act on recurring customer needs, such as maintenance or consumables, and proactively extend contracts, maximizing long-term revenue.

Better Customer Experience 

Buyers value transparency, speed, and consistency in their sales interactions. A well-integrated CPQ-CLM system eliminates delays and misalignment between pricing and contract terms. This seamless experience builds customer confidence, as buyers receive accurate quotes that translate directly into contracts without unexpected changes. Manufacturers build customer relationships on reliability, professionalism, and improved efficiency, leading to stronger relationships and higher deal velocity.  

Best Practices for CPQ and CLM Integration 

CPQ and CLM integration requires a thoughtful approach. Following these best practices can help your company achieve optimal results. 

1. Ensure System Compatibility

CPQ and CLM must seamlessly integrate with existing enterprise systems such as CRM, ERP, and e-signature tools to create a unified workflow. Without proper compatibility, data silos can emerge, causing inefficiencies and manual workarounds that negate the benefits of integration. IT teams should review whether CPQ and CLM solutions support API-driven connectivity or pre-built integrations that enable smooth data exchange across the sales ecosystem. 

2. Review Automation and Approval Workflows

IT teams can help eliminate unnecessary delays and reduce administrative burdens by structuring automated workflows that align sales, finance, and legal approvals. For example, once you generate a quote in CPQ, an automated workflow triggers contract creation in CLM, then sends the contract to the right stakeholders for review and approval.

3. Strengthen User Adoption

Even the most advanced systems will fall short if sales and legal teams struggle to use them effectively. IT leaders can drive greater engagement and simplify the transition by training end users on how automation improves efficiency and reduces workload. 

4. Prioritize Compliance and Security

Sensitive pricing and contract data require robust security measures to protect against unauthorized access and regulatory violations. CPQ-CLM integration should include built-in controls to ensure that contracts align with approved pricing models, discount policies, and legal requirements. IT teams must also implement access controls and encryption protocols to safeguard confidential information.  

Easier CPQ Integration for Manufacturers 

Briding your systems can be easy with the right partner. Tacton’s CPQ is built for complex manufacturing sales, offering seamless integration with leading CLM solutions, such as: 

• Sirion

• Icertis

• DocuSign

Tacton’s Connect to Anything, powered by Workato, provides a flexible, no-code integration framework with 600+ enterprise applications that allows manufacturers to bridge data silos and create a unified sales ecosystem. 

For IT leaders at manufacturing companies, CPQ-CLM integration is a strategic move to accelerate deal cycles, improve the customer experience, and drive revenue growth. 

Want to simplify your quote-to-contract process? 

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The opportunity to capture value exists across the entire customer lifecycle, and manufacturers are cleverly differentiating themselves in the market by taking full ownership of their entire solution ecosystem to capture total value. The ability to execute efficiently and at scale, however, is what keeps most enterprises from maximizing their revenue. These four strategies will help you more effectively monetize the entire lifecycle, from initial engagement to post-sale and expansion.  

1. Engaging Buyers Before the Discovery Call

Most manufacturers still wait for customers to initiate the buying process, but modern B2B buyers expect self-service tools that let them explore solutions independently before engaging with sales. While lead forms and brochures provide information, the modern buyers seek interactive, personalized experiences that empower them to make informed decisions on their own. 

A self-service experience lets potential buyers explore their options easily on your website with deeper product information. A strong self-service configurator will do the following:

• Ensures all product variants are configurable so customers can explore solutions without the risk of incompatibility. 

• Uses visualization tools like AR and VR to help customers see how products fit into their specific working environments. 

• Enables customers to share potential solutions internally before requesting a quote, helping them gain buy-in from key decision-makers. 

Manufacturers that offer these experiences early in the sales cycle will accelerate decision-making and drive higher-value deals before a sales conversation even begins.

2. Eliminating Revenue-Leakage During the Purchasing Stage

Manual and inefficient sales processes are some of your biggest sources of revenue leakage. Sales teams without proper product expertise or real-time pricing data often introduce costly errors into the quoting process that slow down deals and revenue growth. 

To drive more value during the purchase stage, manufacturers need a faster, more disciplined approach to quoting that improves accuracy, protects margins, and eliminates inefficiencies that hold deals back. A manufacturing specific Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) tool enforces product and pricing rules, so that your sales team can simplify complex configurations and approvals and ensure consistent pricing.  

Manufacturers like Metso, a sustainable technologies manufacturer, increased their quote volume by 20% by automating sales processes through CPQ integration. In addition to more quotes, manufacturers that invest in purpose-built CPQ systems are reducing the resources needed for technical approvals and proposal management. Now, those technical resources can be used for value-add activities and innovation.   

3. Integrating Product and Aftermarket Sales into One Solution

In addition to streamlining their quoting process like Metso, commercial printer manufacturer Durst has been able to integrate their printer, software, and service contract configurations into one unified configuration. In such a competitive market, they’re differentiating themselves with a holistic solution and embedding capital equipment sales and aftermarket sales into the initial quoting process.  

Rather than waiting for customers to manually reorder spare parts, for example, make services and aftermarket sales part of the initial value package. That means:  

• Configuring service plans as part of the original equipment sale rather than selling them separately. 

• Using equipment usage data to forecast maintenance needs and translating those insights into a configurable service offering alongside your capital equipment. 

• Integrating additional services into your revenue model, like consumables, break-down support, training, or software upgrades. 

The goal post-sale is to keep your customers in your ecosystem. You can start to plant these seeds at the buying stage by offering value at every level of the solution. When customers see continued value in your solution, they’re likely to become a recurring revenue stream for your business.  

4. Optimizing for Future Revenue Opportunities

Your last sale can tell you as much about your next revenue opportunity as it can about your new customer. Use it to understand how you can maximize revenue more efficiently across the customer journey. 

• Turn lost deals into future wins. Use lost vs. won data to refine pricing, adjust configurations, and target similar prospects more effectively. 

• Focus on high-value customer segments. Identify where you win the most profitable deals and optimize sales strategies for similar buyers. 

• Proactively drive renewals. Track contract status and engage your current customers before service agreements or subscriptions expire to prevent churn. 

• Create expansion sales through product updates. Use past purchase and service data to offer relevant upgrades, add-ons, or efficiency improvements at the right time. 

Monetize More of the Customer Lifecycle with CPQ 

Maximizing revenue doesn’t have to mean that you’re simply selling more. It means that you’re selling smarter and more efficiently to capture value across the customer lifecycle.   

CPQ enables manufacturers to engage buyers earlier, accelerate the sales cycle, and more effectively monetize the full solution ecosystem. Tacton’s CPQ, built for manufacturers that sell highly configurable products, ensures that businesses capture every revenue opportunity while simplifying complexity.  

Tacton offers many ways to capture value:  

• Self-service integration with your website or distributor’s website  

• Configuration and pricing automation to streamline quoting and eliminate errors 

• Service sales in the same place that you configure capital equipment  

• Real-time sales performance data to help you optimize future sales for even greater revenue  

Learn how you can drive greater revenue growth with smarter deal structuring, seamless integration, and a frictionless buying experience.  

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Many manufacturers are caught in a catch-22: they must invest in digital transformation to stay competitive and drive efficiencies across business functions, yet they need those same cross-functional connections to ensure transformation success. Too often, digital transformation initiatives fail to deliver the expected value. In fact, across industries, companies capture less than a third of the expected value from transformation initiatives.  

For manufacturers facing pinched margins and rapidly shifting market demands, new technological investments need to be more closely tied to broader business strategies. But digital transformation strategies today are happening in silos. The most successful transformations will see IT executives leading conversations across business functions—most notably with go-to-market teams—early in the journey to connect new technologies to revenue growth, buyer engagement, and long-term competitive differentiation.  

Early Collaboration Changes the Trajectory of Your Transformation 

IT has typically led the evaluation and implementation of new technology, often focusing on backend optimization, cost reduction, and infrastructure management. But today, technology leaders have a unique opportunity to step into a broader role: acting as cross-functional connectors and ensuring that digital transformation becomes a catalyst for long-term growth and go-to-market success. And the broader business wants this too—32% of IT executives report being asked to advise on their company’s go-to-market strategy more often than in previous years.  

Yet this is not how businesses are currently approaching their transformation journey.

Gaining Buy-In from the Start 

Lack of early stakeholder buy-in is putting digital transformation initiatives at risk before they begin. In one scenario, IT may select a new tool and introduce it to sales and marketing with a proof-of-concept demo at an annual kickoff. The response is generally positive—teams see how the tool makes their jobs easier and it feels exciting. But does the team fully understand how to maximize its value? Have they defined how success will be measured beyond surface-level improvements? Without clear alignment on expectations and business objectives, adoption is limited, and the technology never reaches its full potential.  

Addressing resistance to change is equally critical. In another scenario, teams are hesitant to adopt new technologies that may disrupt their usual workflow. However, these stakeholders often have valuable insights about potential implementation challenges. By acknowledging concerns early and creating space for constructive feedback, leaders can turn skepticism into engagement and address real-world needs rather than theoretical benefits.  

When IT and go-to-market teams evaluate technology together, then sales, marketing, and product teams become equal owners in the adoption and roll-out of the new technology. It drives accountability, but it also gives less technical business functions a more realistic understanding of how they can use the tool and what the roadmap looks like for time to value.  

Overcoming Misalignment and Objections 

In many cases, IT and go-to-market teams are working from fundamentally different assumptions about what they need. IT believes that the business needs to increase sales before investing in a more advanced tool, while go-to-market leaders argue that they need the right tools in place to generate those sales. If these teams are not engaged in early, structured conversations, they remain entrenched in their perspectives, never addressing the root issue.  

Among the same IT leaders surveyed about their role in strategic go-to-market conversations, 54% report experiencing stress from cross-functional work.  It’s enough to stop early conversations in their tracks.  

Consider refocusing the conversation. Technology should be a means to an end—not the starting point. When teams align first on the business outcomes they need to achieve, whether it’s increasing deal velocity, improving customer experience, or enhancing margin control, they create a common foundation for decision-making. From there, the conversation naturally shifts to how technology can support those goals, rather than forcing teams to justify technology choices in isolation. By framing discussions around shared success metrics and strategic priorities, IT can better handle objections and bridge gaps in understanding how the technology provides value.  

Creating Market Agility and Real-Time Responsiveness 

McKinsey research has found that top-performing companies in digital transformation focus on customer engagement and innovation rather than pure operational efficiency. As market instability and supply chain disruptions continue to challenge manufacturers, agility has never been more critical. Businesses can no longer afford to wait for the “perfect” moment or tool to invest in technology. The market moves too fast, and you must be able to adapt in real time. 

For IT leaders, this means shifting the conversation from rigid technology roadmaps to dynamic business strategy. Rather than waiting for stability, organizations need systems and processes that enable agility. This requires IT and go-to-market teams to move beyond isolated technology decisions and instead align on a strategy that connects digital investments to broader business responsiveness. 

When IT facilitates cross-functional conversations focused on adaptability (e.g., how quickly teams can adjust pricing strategies or respond to shifts in buyer demand), they enable market agility. Technology then becomes the mechanism that allows businesses to pivot at the speed of change and differentiate themselves in the market.  

A Framework for Leading Early Cross-Functional Conversations  

Ensure digital transformation delivers real value by engaging in outcome-driven conversations from the start. This will include relevant business functions and even the vendor for the technology you’re evaluating. A strong framework helps teams and technology partners move beyond technology discussions and instead focus on strategic impact. 

1. Start with business objectives, not technology. IT, sales, product, and executive teams must first define the key outcomes they want to achieve, whether it’s increasing quote-to-order efficiency, improving customer engagement, or enhancing product data management. These objectives shape all technology decisions. For example, IT and sales should begin their discussions with revenue growth strategies and sales process pain points, not software capabilities. 

2. Work with the vendor as a collaborative partner. Bring in your potential vendor to help facilitate discussion and answer key strategic questions. Move beyond feature lists and lead the focus on how different solutions contribute to broader business goals. For example, how well does the potential technology support complex product sales and accelerate sales cycles? How does it align with the buyer journey, sales process, and channel partner needs? How effectively does it support engineering and product teams in managing customization, compliance, and product lifecycle considerations? When conducted alongside your vendor, go-to-market teams will get the most realistic understanding of how the solution can help drive value, while dispelling potential objectives.  

3. Define best practices and deployment strategies. IT must work cross-functionally to ensure the technology is effectively adopted. This includes co-developing usage guidelines tailored to different teams. The C-suite will prioritize long-term scalability and ROI, while sales and product teams need clarity on how the tool enhances day-to-day execution.  

4. Map out deployment milestones and KPIs. A structured project plan ensures every team understands its responsibilities at each stage of deployment. By clarifying roles early, IT minimizes misalignment, accelerates adoption, and transforms digital investments into business-driving initiatives. Teams should clearly identify KPIs around both adoption and performance post-launch.  

Lead Your Digital Transformation Success  

The role of IT is no longer confined to cost efficiency. It’s a driver of business growth. By breaking down silos, embedding technology into go-to-market strategies, and fostering cross-functional collaboration, IT can ensure that digital transformation investments deliver real, lasting value. Organizations that embrace this shift will not only see greater ROI from their technology investments but also build a more agile, aligned, and future-ready business. 

At Tacton, we help manufacturers accelerate their digital transformation with our industry-leading CPQ solution. Our consultative approach ensures that IT and business leaders align on strategic objectives before making technology decisions, reducing misalignment and accelerating adoption. With our proven evaluation framework and industry expertise, we empower companies to turn digital transformation and investment in CPQ into a competitive advantage. Let’s start the conversation. 

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Reducing the cost of sale is one of the most important ways for businesses selling complex products to combat increasing competition, long sales cycles, and margin pressures. A strong upsell and cross-sell strategy cannot be overlooked, but sales teams with complex product portfolios may lack the bandwidth and even the technical or institutional knowledge to understand how to best configure solutions that maximize profitability.  

A data-driven sales strategy gives your sales teams an edge in identifying the right opportunities and personalizing them for better success. Uncovering these opportunities, however, requires more strategic use of sales tools and their data, and companies often overlook the power of Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) systems and their data in enabling smarter selling strategies. When this data is used effectively, you can identify opportunities faster and with confidence.  

Why Cross-Selling and Upselling Should Be a Major Focus for Industrial Enterprises 

Most sales teams are familiar with upselling and cross-selling. Upselling encourages customers to choose a more advanced or higher-value product, while cross-selling involves recommending complementary products or services. While these strategies are well understood, many enterprises are not fully capitalizing on them as growth levers. 

But manufacturers of complex products are now seeing major shifts in their industry that are driving the need for streamlined cross-sell and upsell strategies. For example:  

• The shift from transactional to value-based and solution-oriented selling allows sales to guide customers towards a more holistic solution. Teams are more often selling advanced features, bundled services and accessories, and even training services to better align with customer business objectives.  

• Increasing adoption of servitization and product-as-a-service (PaaS) models makes it easier to introduce add-ons or complementary products, as well as encourage customers to upgrade to higher-tier service packages.  

• Digital transformation is driving smarter sales insights and decisions, whether companies are using predictive analytics to suggest relevant products, or they’re investing in better analytics from their sales tools.  

The Benefits of Upselling and Cross-selling: What’s the Impact?   

When you rely less on increasing your customer acquisition to drive revenue and profitability, you create better relationships with the prospects and customers you already have. This in turn creates additional revenue opportunities down the line. Just a five percent increase in customer retention can potentially lead to 25% more in profits, according to Bain & Company.  And when your customers are provided with solutions that continuously deliver more value to their business, they become fiercely loyal, potentially championing your solutions to their peers.  

Ultimately, your cross-sell and upsell strategy is about creating efficiency to protect your bottom line.   

• Increased revenue: Selling higher-value solutions and complementary products drives more profitable growth. 

• Cost efficiency: Expanding sales within your existing customer base reduces acquisition costs and maximizes profit. 

• Sales efficiency: Providing relevant, well-timed recommendations shortens sales cycles and improves win rates. 

• Customer experience: Making buying easier with personalized offers increases satisfaction and repeat business. 

• Pipeline resilience: Strengthening customer relationships through upselling and cross-selling creates more predictable revenue. 

Effective Upsell and Cross-sell Strategies (and How CPQ Can Help You Achieve Them) 

For sales to be effective in selling upgrades or added products, they need the data to find the right recommendations at the right time. Personalization is key to offering value-based solutions, but doing this at scale requires two things:  

1. Strong historical sales, configuration, and pricing data 
2. Strong technical understanding of the possible product configurations and services 

When these elements come together, manufacturers can optimize upselling and cross-selling in a way that maximizes revenue while improving customer experience.  CPQ software, integrated with CRM and other tools, plays a crucial role here. 

How CPQ Empowers Data-Driven Sales 

CPQ empowers sales teams to recommend more value through upgrades, add-ons, and service plans quickly and accurately, without requiring deep technical knowledge. Beyond ensuring accuracy in configurations and quotes, it’s a valuable data source that can refine and optimize your sales strategy. Every transaction, configuration, and price point captured in CPQ creates insights that help identify the right opportunities. 

By extracting CPQ transactional data, like historical configurations, sales BOMs, frequently selected options, and won/lost deal trends, companies can analyze real purchase behavior and move beyond assumptions or gut-instinct. Integrating CPQ data with BI tools like Microsoft BI or Tableau make it even easier for sales teams to visualize this data and make recommendations based on what has actually converted. 

Applying CPQ for Effective Upsell and Cross-Sell Strategies 

When applied strategically, CPQ can help you streamline common upsell and cross-sell strategies that your competitors may—or may not—be achieving in the market already. It’s a differentiator for businesses looking to build more lifetime customer value.  

Consider how CPQ enables smarter selling: 

• Creating smarter bundles: CPQ offers data on historical configurations, frequently bought-together features, and sales BOMs that helps businesses identify which products and services are most commonly sold together. By analyzing patterns in won deals, sales teams can suggest preconfigured bundles that align with real buyer behavior, rather than guesswork. 

• Knowing and personalizing to your customers: CPQ insights on product-market fit, regional purchase trends, and configuration preferences reveal which product variants, upgrades, and features perform best across industries and customer segments. Sales teams can use this information to tailor recommendations based on real adoption patterns rather than relying on broad assumptions. With data on previous configurations and buyer behavior, sales can also tailor conversations with current customers based on their past purchase drivers.  

• Offering the right incentives, profitably: CPQ’s automatic margin control and pricing intelligence ensure that when discounts or incentives are applied to drive upsells and cross-sells, they remain strategic and financially viable. 

• Selling proactively: A CRM-CPQ integration can notify sales when customers approach an upgrade, renewal, or replacement cycle based on service records and equipment lifespan. Instead of waiting for customer requests, sales can proactively suggest upgrades or additional features to maintain continuity and avoid downtime.  

• Expanding product sales with service offerings: Customers often underestimate the value of service plans, warranties, or preventive maintenance until faced with costly downtime. Companies often use failure rate data, service history, and industry benchmarks to position these as strategic investments. But CPQ streamlines the process by integrating services into the product configuration, while leveraging equipment usage data for service forecasts.  

• Sustainability & compliance-based upselling: For customers with sustainability goals or regulatory requirements, CPQ-integrated sustainability calculators compare environmental impact, efficiency, and compliance benefits of different configurations. Instead of offering just a “greener” product, sales can provide data-backed insights on energy efficiencies, making upgrades easier to justify. 

Despite the many use cases for CPQ in frontline sales, many companies still treat CPQ as a back-end tool rather than a strategic sales asset. Those that do leverage CPQ unlock faster, smarter, and more profitable selling opportunities. 

Sell Smarter with Tacton’s CPQ Solution

Data-driven insights and faster quoting make every recommendation relevant, timely, and valuable. Tacton’s CPQ helps manufacturers identify high-impact upsell opportunities, streamline cross-sell recommendations, integrate service selling, and leverage sustainability to strengthen customer relationships. 

With a constraint-based configuration engine, sales teams can ensure technically valid solutions while automating service and product recommendations. Real-time data enables smarter decision-making, simplifying the selling and buying experience, increasing retention, and driving profitable growth. Learn how you can leverage CPQ in your sales strategy with Tacton.  

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Digital transformation in manufacturing is an ongoing challenge as the sector navigates Industry 4.0, supply chain disruptions, competitor innovation, and a growing market of digital-native buyers. To stay competitive, manufacturers must move beyond fragmented digital initiatives and build a connected ecosystem—one that unifies engineering, production, sales, and service into a seamless, data-driven network. 

What’s Driving Today’s Digital Transformation Strategies? 

Digital transformation in the manufacturing industry involves incorporating digital technologies into all facets of the production lifecycle. Unlike simple automation solutions, digital transformation facilitates transitioning from traditional, siloed processes to interconnected, data-driven operations. This shift encompasses every aspect of manufacturing, including product design, supply chain management, sales, and customer service. 

Several factors are driving manufacturers to modernize their operations and adopt digital-first strategies: 

• Evolving customer expectations & market pressures: Manufacturers are responding to a growing demand for personalized, flexible, and seamless buying experiences. A KPMG survey found that 44% of industrial manufacturing executives identified customer feedback as a top driver of digital transformation. This pressure pushes companies to enhance engagement, responsiveness, and digital sales channels for today’s buyers. 

• Breaking down data silos for unified decision-making: The focus is shifting from isolated operational improvements and data silos to a holistic, interconnected system. By linking production, sales, customer service, and beyond, companies can ensure that every step—from design to delivery—is data-driven, agile, and aligned with modern market demands. 

• Connected ecosystems & service-cased innovation: Manufacturers are leveraging real-time data, AI, and automation to build connected services like predictive maintenance, pay-as-you-go models, and digitally enabled aftermarket offerings. These innovations open new revenue streams and deepen customer loyalty. 

• Optimizing production processes & supply chain resilience: Digital tools are revolutionizing the production life cycle. Advanced analytics, IoT, and automation are being applied to optimize product design, streamline production workflows, and enhance supply chain management. This approach not only improves operational efficiency, but it also increases quality control and helps mitigate disruptions across suppliers and logistics. 

Digital Transformation is Reshaping Manufacturing from Operations to the Buyer Journey: Key Benefits 

Adopting digital strategies and emerging technologies—AI, for example—is yielding impressive results for those who embrace them. McKinsey notes that adapting to Industry 4.0 has led to such benefits as increases in labor productivity by 15 to 30%, improvements in forecasting accuracy by up to 85%, and reductions in machine downtime by 30 to 50%.  

These results not only optimize production and reduce waste, but also pave the way for further benefits downstream: 

• Enhanced customer experiences: Digital software like CRM and CPQ systems, AR/VR visualization, chatbots, and self-service portals enable faster and more personalized customer interactions.  

• Improved decision-making: Leveraging big data analytics and AI promotes informed decision-making by enabling you to analyze trends, predict demand, and identify potential bottlenecks, so you can deliver the right products to customers at the right time—on time. 

• Cost reduction: Predictive maintenance and automated quality control keep operations running smoothly and eventually lower production costs. Meanwhile, smarter sales tools can reduce cost-of-sale and eliminate rework in the quoting process by connecting sales with accurate product and engineering data.  

• Greater agility and flexibility: Cloud-based platforms and smart manufacturing systems are handy when scaling production based on demand. Furthermore, various digital tools shorten product development cycles or reduce administrative tasks to allow teams to focus on product innovation.  

How Manufacturers are Leading with Digital Innovation: Examples and Real-World Applications 

Today’s most competitive manufacturers are leveraging these emerging trends and technologies not just to improve production efficiency, but to create seamless, data-driven experiences that place customers at the center of their business model. 

These examples of digital transformation show how manufacturers are using data and automation to drive smarter decisions and elevate customer experiences. 

Creating a Faster, More Personalized Buyer Experience 

Manufacturers are transforming the buying experience by integrating data from sales and engineering systems that enable real-time customization and visualization. CPQ is helping bridge the data gap between engineering and sales teams by ensuring that sales configurations always align with production capabilities, reducing costly order errors and accelerating fulfillment times. CPQ software captures product rules and constraints so that sales teams can configure complex products accurately without the need for frequent engineering involvement.  

When paired with CAD systems or advanced AR/VR visualization tools, these platforms generate precise technical drawings and 3D models, allowing sales to provide customers with real-time product previews that drive confident purchasing decisions.  

Manufacturers like FLSmidth have reduced lead times and engineering errors by automating CPQ and CAD processes, improving efficiency and customer communication. Similarly, Metso has centralized CPQ to replace manual configurations, speeding up quote generation by 20% while cutting proposal management efforts by 40%. 

Shifting to Predictive Maintenance and Smarter Service Solutions 

To meet customer expectations for reliability, manufacturers are shifting from reactive to predictive maintenance models, ensuring minimal disruptions. Industrial IoT sensors and AI-powered analytics continuously track equipment performance, detecting early signs of failure and scheduling proactive maintenance. This shift not only improves product uptime and order fulfillment reliability but also creates more transparent service agreements that build trust with customers. 

Intelligently Forecasting Demand for Smarter Operations  

AI-powered demand forecasting enables manufacturers to optimize inventory, align production with market demand, and enhance supply chain agility. By analyzing real-time data using machine learning algorithms, companies can anticipate shifts in customer needs, reduce excess inventory, and prevent stockouts. 

This enhances: 

• Supply chain efficiency: Better coordination with suppliers reduces delays and disruptions. 

• Production planning: Adjusting schedules in real-time maximizes resource utilization. 

• Sales strategy: Proactive insights help sales teams sell profitably and ensure product availability to meet customer expectations. 

Navigating Common Challenges in Digital Transformation

Despite the known benefits of digital transformation in the manufacturing industry, the road is stalled for many. One IFS report finds that fewer than 10% of global manufacturers qualify as “digital leaders”, and 65% of manufacturers label themselves as “laggards”, having stalled in the early stages of transformation.  

 The challenges extend beyond cost and technical expertise. Here’s how manufacturers can overcome key roadblocks. 

Securing Stakeholder Buy-In  

A significant challenge in digital transformation is securing executive support and sufficient funding. The aforementioned KPMG survey reports that 39% of manufacturers say projects stall due to a lack of executive buy-in and investment approval. 

To prevent stalled or underutilized investments, involve cross-functional leaders earlier in the evaluation process. IT leaders who drive new software purchases, for example, should work with the appropriate business leaders to identify pain points, uncover relevant use cases, and align investments with real business needs. Stronger stakeholder alignment ensures healthier adoption and builds a clearer business case for long-term funding and scalability. 

Legacy Systems and Technical Debt 

Outdated legacy systems continue to be a barrier. Many manufacturers are burdened with high levels of technology debt, where systems built decades ago fail to communicate effectively and limit data accessibility.  

When evaluating new technology, prioritize scalability, interoperability, and long-term viability. Middleware solutions can bridge current systems and new technology without the need for extensive coding, ensuring data flows across the value chain without disrupting operations. Opting to buy rather than build a homegrown solution can also speed up time to value, reduce the need for full-time maintenance resources, and allow for future scalability. A strategic IT assessment helps pinpoint areas where investment will have the greatest impact. 

Capturing Data and Demonstrating ROI 

Despite having transformation roadmaps, many manufacturers struggle to define actionable KPIs that directly measure the impact of digital initiatives. Broad goals like “improving efficiency” or “enhancing customer experience” aren’t enough. Companies need specific metrics tied to cost, cycle times, or other relevant metrics to accurately assess ROI. But this also requires that teams can understand, access, and interpret their data effectively.  

Enhance Your Digital Strategy with Tacton’s CPQ Solution

Tacton goes beyond traditional CPQ, enabling manufacturers to seamlessly connect sales, engineering, and production for a frictionless buying experience. By streamlining processes and ensuring real-time data flow, our platform helps you deliver faster, more personalized customer interactions while reducing complexity. 

Purpose-built for manufacturing, our CPQ solutions unify every touchpoint of the buying journey—from interactive visualization and CAD integration to self-service experiences—to help you deliver a truly customer-centric buying process. With multiple integration options, from no-code to open APIs, you can connect data across ERP, CRM, PLM and other systems to boost efficiency across the value chain. Ready to experience a more agile, connected, and efficient manufacturing future?  

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