PROS Smart CPQ vs. Sofon Proposal Organizer

Is my IT team ready to handle the challenges with data integration ? Are all the features offered by my current quoting tool being offered by Cameleon? Do I need a SaaS based quoting tool? Would it be easy and intuitive for my sales team (who,quite frankly, worship MS Excel) to use Cameleon ? Do I need a real-time/near-real-time quoting tool or would delays in data refreshes be acceptable

In my opinion, the most valuable characteristic of SPO is that by answering simple questions a very complex product can be configured; therefore the scope of delivery is defined very well. In addition, SPO has great flexibility to manage prices and costs. However, SPO is configurator of parts that allows incorporating basic design rules for their selection. SPO is not a optimised for developing complicated engineering design rules.

• Salesforce.com integration via a plugin that lets end users access Cameleon CPQ systems.
• Quoting made easier with complex business rules.
• Good support from the Cameleon team with fixes and enhancements.

• Top Down approach
• Drive sales representatives to their goal
• Clear final calculation

• Integration with other onsite systems such as Oracle databases require the expertise of knowledgeable developers. Manual upload of flat files are always an option , but not necessarily the cleanest.
• Better Cameleon CPQ Designer UI would go a long way. Currently UI is a stark contrast to the intuitive UI of SalesForce.com or similar SaaS based tools. Not too much to ask for , considering the fact that we work in the era of Facebook and Twitter.
• Real time data availability is a long way to go for Cameleon CPQ. Updates to data pushed over as batches to Cameleon are reflected at Salesforce.com only after a 'versioning' process is launched. Current recommended frequency for this process is once a day (an upgrade to make it twice a day is in the works).

• SQL servers may lead to unexpect failures
• Tables created in SPO could have better interface with the user
• Management of user licences could be easier

There are a few features that we expected from the tool but Cameleon's CPQ has fallen short on these. Possible enhancements and product fixes should be made as soon as possible to change the perspective. Unexpected bugs in the tool have come up during the roll-out that has caught the implementation team off-guard

Unfortunately I have no possibility to renew or not renew SPO so it is difficult to answer to this question

SaaS based tool. Better quoting rules.

The previous product we used was developed by ourselves so my experience is very limited. I can say that having a software like SPO we can configure the product without any programming experience and this makes things faster and better. Moreover, I can say that MS Office compatibility is a strong point.

• A salesforce.com -esque approach to CRM has a whole gamut of advantages. Cameleon CPQ complements this approach.
• Expect down times , feature problems or general disagreement about Cameleon's capabilities initially. This is true for adopting any new tool or technology. Hold on and it will tide over.
• As a person who has used Cameleon purely as a developer standpoint , I do not have anything more to add-on.

• Reduce quotation time at the proposal office,
• better definition and more organise project scope at project management level
• centralisation of knoweldeg: one problem, one solution