Personal Insights
Turning Data to Dollars with SAP solutions for quote-to-cash management
Digital customer relationship management has drastically altered the way businesses price and monetize their products and services in the last decade. Subscription models, usage-based pricing, and the monetization of digital services, enabled by data from smart products, are disrupting the market. Companies must quickly find ways to generate cash from their assets or services, andthere is increasing demand for sustainable, circular business that require new monetization schemes. Or, to put it simply: Turning Data to Dollars.
In the digital world, enterprises strive to stand out by offering advanced, recurring monetization models that meter usage, manage high transaction volumes, and support complex pricing rules. These models must be sold efficiently via e-commerce or sales representatives, while also ensuring efficient and compliant revenue recognition. To achieve this, many companies have established the Chief Revenue Officer Role overseeing the entire quote-to-cash process.
As part of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Portfolio, SAP offers fully interoperable solutions along the quote-to-cash process that are well received by customers. The analysts Gartner and International Data Corporation (IDC) have both recognized SAP solutions for quote-to-cash for displaying market leadership (See IDC on Billing and Revenue Management and Gartner on Configure, Price & Quote).
With the newly branded name of the portfolio, SAP Solutions for Quote-to-Cash Management, we now write a new chapter, better communicating with our customers, partners and prospects how our solutions address monetization management.
Our solutions provide:
- Freedom to monetize any type of business or combination of businesses
- Automation and Integration throughout the quote-to-cash process
- Efficient sales of monetization schemes across all parts of a company
- Scalability from small to large business
- Low Total Cost of Ownership for all existing and new SAP ERP Customers
Stay tuned for more updates on how customers are using our solutions to gain a competitive edge, leading to more predictable revenue streams and long-term profitability.
Having been in the industry since the early 80's (I know I am dating myself here), I can really see that this area is a new stage of evolution for IT. In the early days, ERP was mostly about finance and supply chain management, and only added all the other elements like CRM, HR, Procurement, etc. over time. More and more, ERP has evolved into a platform, from Enterprise Resource Planning to Extensible Realtime Platform, so to speak. Then analytics were revolutionized, first with data warehousing and then databases like SAP HANA, that allowed analysis on any data dimension in real time. And now, as a next stage of evolution, devices are becoming data smart and deliver real-time information about consumption and usage back to the finance system. To some extent, this is coming full circle, as the point-of-consumption is becoming the point-of-sale, and customers can choose they way to pay for their solutions in the most flexible way ever, from pay-per-use to subscription to classic rental, lease and credit arrangements, all managed by the same core ERP finance application. Quite a great opportunity for SAP customers and partners to streamline their operations, bring a lot of departments together at the same table to discuss the innovative monetization options that are now available.