Check out this post from Graham McInnes on Oracle's SMB Blog. His point about the extended roadmap is critical. No disrespect to any of the CPQ vendors, but the best laid plans for future product development don't always survive contact with the real world, or can be delayed and amended before they see the light of day.
When you're working in sales it's important to have access to the latest tools. Video can be a great sales tool and is a hot topic - whether it's a quick iPhone clip that you upload to social media or something more impressive that is professionally produced.We've had the pleasure of working with the geniuses at NRG Digital in the past and we had the opportunity to ask their MD, Robert Edmonds, what he thinks, and clearly the only way to communicate that is through video. We hope you enjoy the clip - please give Rob and us some feedback and click here if you want to check out one of the excellent videos his team has put together for us.
Members of the Walpole Partnership team have very much enjoyed working in France over the last week or so. They went to start project delivery with one of our new customers - look out for further updates on this coming soon! It was great to meet up with the CPQ expert team based in Le Mans. Thanks to the project team specialists who took the time to see us, we now have collaboratively defined the Walpole Partnership CPQ Audit Implementation approach, allowing us to validate core design principles and ensure the CPQ build will meet their business needs.
Another great post from Graham McInnes at Oracle. We agree with all the main points that he makes, and it's great to see Oracle focusing on the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market. Many of our customers are SMBs and they are an absolute joy to work with as it's usually easier to make contact with decision makers than in larger organisations. It's amazing how quick and easy it can be to get an Oracle CPQ platform off the ground when it's coupled with the energy of a fast moving company.
We are very pleased to announce that we recently started to work with interior360 in Dubai (UAE), a contract furniture company providing bespoke interiors predominantly to the hotel and restaurant industry. Some of our Walpole team members visited Dubai last week to deliver requirement gathering workshops ahead of the technical CPQ implementation this summer. Implementing CPQ will allow interior360 to provide their customers - who can also work alongside a designated architect or design bureau - with a fully configured quote and solution. Samuel Herre, the Managing Director of Interior360 said, “The Walpole Partnership team was very well prepared when they arrived and hosted an extremely efficient and complete workshop. This made us feel confident that we made the right decision in choosing to implement CPQ with Walpole Partnership. We are sure that the outcome will be very positive."
Our Walpole Partnership team members very much enjoyed working in the United Arab Emirates last week. They went to start project delivery with a new customer (look out for a post on this coming soon!) and also visited the Oracle GCC Hub at the Edge in Dubai. It was great to meet up with some of the Oracle sales team based over there. Thanks to Heba Zaki, Mohamed Okasha and Cristina Postolache who took the time to see us and discuss collaborative project progress and how to optimise support for new joint business opportunities in the region.
One of the things I love about music, is the way it can teach you about topics you never thought you’d ever need to know anything about. I’m a fan of the band ‘Death Cab for Cutie’ and their 2015 album is curiously titled ‘Kintsugi’. It’s a cool sounding word, but what does it mean?
Kintsugi, also known as Kintsukuroi, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise (and yes, I did take this almost directly from Wikipedia, although I’d like to claim I knew about it beforehand).
So why, I’m sure you’re wondering, does Kintsugi have relevance on a blog that is mostly about the somewhat less artistic practice of CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) systems and sales automation?
A great new post from the Oracle SMB Blog entitled '4 Lessons from CPQ Failures' which is really worth checking out. We couldn't agree more with what Graham McInnes says, and are reminded of the old military adage of the 7 Ps...
Our relationship-based Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) project work took us into France again during Oracle's fiscal year end, and we’re pleased to announce that we are currently implementing CPQ in a major facilitation services company, streamlining the way they interact with their client member organisations. We will also be working in conjunction with other consulting lead partners integrating CPQ with eCommerce next to Oracle Engagement Cloud, and we’re looking forward to sharing the results soon!
We’re very pleased to announce that Mahejabeen Budebhai has joined the Walpole Partnership team in the role of CPQ Lead Developer reporting to Pradeep Agrawal.
Jabeen joins us to further strengthen our offshore development resource and has already added significant value to some of our key accounts. She is an esteemed and assured developer with good communication skills, able to converse both technically and operationally with our customers.