Best Practices In Quote-To-Order: Measuring Quoting Strategies' Financial Impact By Louis Columbus, Cincom Manufacturing Business Systems

Manufacturing companies are capable of much greater financial gains than they are getting today from their quote-to-order, order-to-cash, sales and product-configuration strategies. These process areas center on how manufacturers create, set and keep expectations in their quotes for custom-configured products.

Globally companies are adopting quote-to-order to streamline how they sell customized products. Reasons for pursuing these strategies include increasing factory use, developing related products to extend a product series' life, and often to up-sell and cross-sell their existing customer bases with products tailored to their specific needs. Examples of how quote-to-order, order-to-cash, sales and product configuration impact manufacturing, sourcing and product-management strategies abound throughout the spectrum of complex manufacturing companies globally pursuing these strategies.

Getting results from these strategies has to start with defining financial measures of performance before changing these processes ever begins. Too often companies aren't measuring the financial impact of these strategies – and leaving much of the cost savings and incremental revenue unattained – because extra steps on these strategies are not taken. These strategies have to start with a series of financial metrics if they are ever going to accurately reflect the cost savings and revenue contributions they contribute.