Quote-to-Cash - What's in a Name? What's in it for you?

[choirshark]

When you ask people what they understand when they hear the term "Quote-to-Cash", you will get a very broad range of reactions and responses. The reaction will typically depend on your experience, perspective, your role, as well as your experience with the topic. This is not surprising.

What is surprising how wide and deep the topic of "Quote-to-Cash" is, and how many deep and significant connections it has to the objective of Business Transformation and Business Innovation across all industries.

You will hear a variety of definitions for Quote-to-Cash (which I will might shorten to Q2C for this blog), which all have a justification and connection to the topic, including, but not limited to:

• "It is a subset of the much larger End-to-End Process Lead to Cash."


• "It is a portfolio of solutions that delivers customers tools and engines to manage their quote to cash processes."


• "Integrated set of activities to convert sales opportunities into paying, profitable, repeat customers."


• "An Information Technology Term for the integration and automation management of end-to-end business processes on the sell side."


• "Software Capabilities that encompass many sales, account management, order fulfillment billing and accounts receivables functions."

The list is by no means complete and could go on for a bit longer, since Q2C covers so many aspects and roles, from Sales, to Marketing, to Product Management, Finance, Service, Fulfillment and more. And, because it sounds so generic, after all, every business has a quote to cash process, it is often underestimated how important the process steps of Quote to Cash are for businesses to respond to the rapidly changing ways customers prefer to buy and consume a product or service. The move to a more outcome- or usage-based approach to pricing, packaging and charging for assets, products and services is an industry-wide trend that continues to accelerate and spread across companies of all types, sizes and locations.

An excellent introduction to the topic can be found in this blog by Jan Gilg.

Equipping Businesses to Stay Ahead of Change



Why am I posting this blog?

I have several reasons for posting this blog and I would really enjoy to receive your feedback and your questions

• Introducing myself as a new member of the Solution Management team for SAP Quote to Cash, which covers a broad set of solutions including SAP CPQ (Configure, Price Quote) as well as the solution components in the SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management portfolio (Often referred to as BRIM)


• Getting feedback. As a new member I am tasked to help with the standard taxonomy regarding this topic (names, concepts, terms, icons, graphics) as well as with making sure our key assets that explain the topic are easy to find and easy to understand. Of the key goals of this role is to make the topic more broadly understood and accessible, and to achieve better integration into the overall information landscape of SAP including SAP.COM, the SAP Community, SAP News and other information sources that will be accessible via the newly introduced SAP Universal ID, that will allow the community to register and subscribe to specific topics based on their interest domain.


• Inviting your contribution or questions. If you are an expert in this area, I would welcome your input (or questions) in terms of interesting pointers to information sources, tips and tricks, key innovations or any other interesting pieces of knowledge that might help out team communicate the significance of the Quote to  Cash topic to a wider audience. I am interested in your specific areas of interest, including, but not limited to:
  
  
  
  • Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ)
  
  
  • Subscription Billing and Lifecycle Management
  
  
  • Entitlement Management
  
  
  • Usage Data Collection (Digital Mediation)
  
  
  • Rating, Charging and Pre-Billing
  
  
  • Billing,  Invoicing and Payment Management
  
  
  • Cash Automation
  
  
  • etc.
  
  
  
  

So, to keep it short as my introductory blog to this topic, look forward to any and all feedback and questions.

CHHO, Munich, 16.11.2022