Beyond CRM: Cincom releases new quotation and proposal management solution

By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff July 28, 2008

Worldwide software provider Cincom Systems announcesCincom Acquire is designed for companies that sell complex products and services, and seeks to fill the gaps in traditional CRM- and ERP-based systems such as guided selling, channel and distributor collaboration, sales and product configuration, quotation and proposal management, project and bid management, and contract and order management.

TheSpecifically the Cincom Acquire Quotation and Proposal Management solution provides:• A centralized quotation database• Customer and contact information• Knowledge-based document configuration• Automated generation of complex proposals based on document templates• Integration of product and configuration data• Proposal revision control• Knowledge-based workflow automation• Complex costing and pricing• Multi-language/multi-currency support• Automated sales-order generation

Cincom Acquire has helped manufacturers selling industrial engineer-to-order or configure-to-order products successfully streamline their sales, design, and proposal processes by delivering critical product and sales knowledge to the point of sale, while significantly reducing “quote to cash” time. Cincom has helped manufacturers reduce proposal generation time from five days to 15 minutes, decrease time to close a sale by 80 percent, and cut lead times from 14 weeks to six weeks.Built on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server architecture, Cincom Acquire makes use of the Microsoft tools that employees use every day such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Project.Cincom Acquire includes “out-of-the-box” integration with SAP, salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and other systems.