CPQ SOLUTION GENERATES EXACT PRICING INFORMATION IN SAP
ENVIRONMENT

With the introduction of an integrated configurator, ZEISS Medical Technology is optimising its sales processing across the board.

ZEISS MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY

For over 170 years, ZEISS has stood for technological excellence, precision, quality and reliability. The activities in medical technology are bundled in the Medical Technology division. This division develops, manufactures and distributes medical products with a wide range of variants and that require intensive consultation. These include complete solutions for the diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases and innovative visualisation solutions for microsurgery. ZEISS maintains numerous research and development sties, including in Germany, France, USA, India and China, as well as 42 sales offices and over 100 agencies worldwide. The core activities of the Medical Technology division are concentrated in the publicly listed company Carl Zeiss Meditec AG.

THE CHALLENGE

ZEISS Medical Technology develops and manufactures stateof-the-art technologies and application-oriented solutions for medical practices, hospitals and clinics. The presentation and distribution of the highly specialised, multi-variant products is handled in particular by the 42 ZEISS Group sales companies
located around the world. There was no uniform approach to this. The sales staff used various country-specific price lists, most of which were developed locally. Especially configurable products could only be represented in these lists to a limited extent. Against this background, the goal of using a uniform web-based CPQ solution became concrete.

THE PROCESS

ORISA Software GmbH has been developing programmes for the ZEISS Group for many years, among others in the Knowledge Integrated Manufacturing sector. A ‘price list designer’ for the flexible creation and maintenance of price catalogues has also been successfully in use since 2001. In January 2018, the initial workshop was held in Oberkochen, Germany, in order to jointly coordinate the specifications and in particular, to define the interfaces between the systems involved. The requirement was to leave the existing data sovereignty
within the respective systems. The systems involved are the SAP systems CRM, ERP and IPC as well as the CRM system Salesforce. The SAP configurator IPC was extended by a function module, which communicates with the CPQ system.
After completion of the entire specification in April, the targeted technical Go Live was accomplished at the beginning of October 2018. Now, the CPQ solution was to be introduced worldwide step by step. At the end of March 2019, all sales
companies that used the CRM systems that were in line with the group policies were able to use the CPQ system with the exception of two sales companies.

THE RESULT

The use of the CPQ solution provides sales staff with efficient digital support that simplifies the sale of products with a wide variety of variants and products requiring intensive consultation. The introduction of integrated IT processes for
the complete handling of the comprehensive sales processes aims, on the one hand, to provide the market with exact, binding product offers in the shortest possible time. On the other hand, it helps to ensure that products are always up-to-date and to avoid duplicate processing as well as redundant and inconsistent
data management. Based on an already existing product modelling and conflict-free product configuration, CREALIS® CPQ determines the exact price in the correct currency. Defined price lists, discounts and access authorisations are taken into account. In addition, master data imports from the ERP system
and configuration-specific task exports back into the CRM system are carried out. The web-based CPQ solution offers a whole range of advantages, such as the retrieval of real-time information from the back-end systems (ERP, CRM), backup of local data and effective user administration when accessing data. In
addition, mobile use of the sales tool on any device with modern browsers is supported.

THE OUTLOOK

With the help of efficient digital sales support, a comprehensive, error-free offer can be generated in the shortest possible time. For this purpose, the developed solution was rolled out to the sales companies gradually. With the experience gained, this procedure can be refined and transferred to other product areas
in analogue form. The ZEISS Industrial Quality & Research division with its two business units Industrial Quality Solutions and Research Microscopy Solutions is also in the process of rolling out the CREALIS® CPQ solution. This solution has been extended by several functionalities to cover the specific requirements
of the business units. “High-resolution images are used to display the configured
products. The visualisation of individual configuration steps or a change of view of the products is not necessary. We are aware of the possibilities of 3D representations with CREALIS® and are therefore pleased to have made the right decision with ORISA for this requirement in the future as well”, comments
Christian Prater, Head of Medical Affairs and Professional Education ZEISS Microsurgery.

„CREALIS® CPQ optimises the preparation of offers and reduces the reaction times for the presentation of offers. This gives the sales department a tool that they have been waiting for.“

Christian Prater, Head of Medical Affairs and Professional Education ZEISS Microsurgery

Facts of the project

100%

processing of quotations for configurable products via the configurator

42

sales locations

17

languages

> 200

role characteristics

~700

products mapped in the configurator

The customer benefits at a glance

  • Standardisation of the entire sales processes without affecting the pre-existing IT processes

  • Abolition of local price lists

  • Online access for users with a customer-oriented view on products and prices

  • Provision of optimum interfaces between CPQ and the SAP systems (CRM, ERP, IPC and EBS) as well as the CRM system Salesforce