The Challenge
Since 1991, Capstone has been a leading content creator of digital solutions, children’s books, and literacy programs for school libraries, classrooms, and at-home reading. When the organization launched a new online search-and-order site, it revealed inherent problems with how quotes and opportunities were managed— problems that were greatly amplified by the company’s vast inventory, the multiplicities of product bundles offered, and an array of variable discounts available.
- A typical purchase quote for a single school required 79 line-item inputs and consumed 30-45 minutes to enter the opportunity. Multiply this unwieldy process by an entire district and securing opportunities quickly became unmanageable.
- Opportunities with more than 200 line items required manual workarounds by both the Salesforce administrator and IT.
- Divergent pricing methods and discount levels were reflected across an assortment of customer demographics, geography, and purchase status.
- The company was attempting to address its issues in late spring, on the threshold of its annual summer busy season when most subscriptions are renewed.
The Solution
Recognizing its unsustainable approach, Capstone partnered with Redpath to implement Salesforce CPQ. Despite an aggressive timeline of only five weeks to delivery, Redpath:
- Performed a thorough discovery to identify and address complex configurations.
- Unlocked and leveraged out-of-the box capabilities to manage complexity without custom programming.
- Created bundles to support existing the pricing strategy and customer profiles already designed by using a custom object to leverage existing CPQ price and product rules.
- Loaded bundles making it easier and faster to create quotes, populate fields, compute discounts and fulfill requests.
- Upgraded existing automation and improved processing speed by consolidating numerous process builders
into two.
“We dramatically streamlined our quoting process and eliminated time-wasters. What took 30 minutes to complete, now takes less than five. With less time spent managing the process, we had more capacity for sales and growth.”
– Renée Saint-Louis
Vice President of IT
The Results
Redpath helped Capstone leverage the full power of Salesforce CPQ on time and without customization despite its complex pricing structures. The company realized significant benefits that included:
- Maintaining and optimizing its successful customer discount strategy to meet busy season demand.
- Closing opportunities substantially faster, reducing the time to complete a single quote from a half hour or more to mere minutes.
- Reducing the “frustration factor” thanks to the speed and efficiency that comes with fewer process builders.
- Continuing to recognize and grow their status-level customers.
Nationally Recognized, Trusted Salesforce Partner
