Merkato Key features

CPQ

Broadly speaking, in sales configuration we distinguish the following three functions:

• Configure: Customer and supplier identify and agree the customer’s requirements, the system immediately provides the right solution that is available and can even give further advice.
• Price: Based on the answers received from the customer, all technical and financial results are calculated automatically.
• Quote: After enough information is available, further steps such as generating and printing custom quotation templates can be actioned

Merkato shows what is possible (and what is not) based on your customer’s needs and your business’s rules. It can even provide advice and recommendations throughout the configuration process. When the perfect product is configured for a specific customer, Merkato will provide the relevant technical and financial calculations. To sell your customised product, a multitude of documents is often generated. Merkato will provide you with a quote and optional supplementary specification sheets. If required, Merkato can generate additional, customer specific documents such as order confirmations, payment terms, parts lists, delivery instructions or spare parts lists.

Visualisation

To provide your sales teams or buyers with additional information during configuration you can integrate photos and graphics, both static or dynamically generated and in 2D or 3D! This can even be achieved during the configuration process in realtime.

These visual elements are interactive too. This means that you can influence the configuration process by clicking and dragging on visualisations on screen.

Merkato offers infinite possibilities.

Management Information

Business leaders require management information so that there is a thorough understanding of everything that is happening within the organisation. Who made the offers, what was the average value, which option is selected most often in a certain region, etc. Merkato provides management with valuable information and insight into the quotation activities within the organisation.

In addition, a quotation may consist of several products, which together form a system. General information only needs to be entered once, of course, and all subsystems will adapt to this (and to each other). Setting up a project structure, or machine line can be done automatically, based on knowledge rules and thus ideally managed in Merkato.

Maintenance

Versions and statuses are available for templates as well as for configurations, so you can always go back to your former quotations exactly as you have released them in the past. Furthermore, it is easy to build, test and maintain templates while your sales people continue working.

What has been offered when? Merkato makes searching, finding and editing configurations simple .

For the management of configurations and also contracts, Merkato offers a system based on roles, versions and statuses.

Merkato is modular. Additional functionality can be added when required.

Online/offline

Merkato is nearly always deployed web-based. Working web-based means you don’t need to install any software on users’ or agents’/suppliers’ devices. Synchronising data is avoided with web-based applications. Online usage allows anyone access to the latest information, anywhere and anytime. The world never sleeps and borders are a thing of the past. Especially for complex projects, where several parties cooperate on one offer, or when the workflow requires input from several people/departments you simply cannot afford to wait for e-mails or information to synchronise.

For online usage, we work with ‘floating licenses’, which drastically reduces your investments. No wifi? No problem! Ask about our unique capabilities to continue working even in the most remote areas.

If necessary, Merkato can simply be installed on your laptop or computer. However, additional license may be required so get in touch with your requirements.

Multilingual

Merkato can be used in as many languages as you need. The majority of information will be translated automatically, so that it only takes a few minutes to make a foreign language available to a new co-worker.

Some data such as commercial text blocks and option descriptions can not be translated automatically. For this, we offer “translator access”. You simply give your translation agency access to the management environment of the texts so that they can update them on your behalf.

Pricing

The formation of a product’s selling price is quite a process. Once a product has been invented and assembled, its raw materials need to be decided upon, the course of action (labour) necessary to create the actual product needs to be elaborated, and last but not least, the mechanical costs and hours need to be incorporated as well. All of these factors contribute to the final selling price.

In the case of Merkato, complex pricing-processes are no problem whatsoever. Discounts can be allocated according to category: on labour, on acquisition, on options, etc. For instance, in the case of a price increase of the raw materials only, then this does not need to be charged to the costs of the production capacity. In this way, the prices can be managed appropriately, and you will maintain your competitiveness. It is namely the case that in the configurator, one can always select one’s preferred range. Furthermore, the discount percentages during quoting can be limited, AND pre-settings can be built in, for example for discount amounts on the part of the client.

Finally, these ranges need only to be fixed once, since Merkato collects data from linked software. Adjusting something in your ERP-system? In this case, the configurator will always proceed from these updated/adjusted data.