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Like most sectors of the manufacturing industry, material handling equipment makers are under growing constraints from the global labor shortage, supply chain disruption, and inflation on the price of parts and raw commodities. But manufacturers in this space have an additional challenge that all but defines their industry: complex customization and configuration for each of their products is becoming a necessity.
Cranes, forklifts, conveyor systems, and other material handling equipment are large capital purchases that need to last customers for many years, so their product specifications are stringent and precise. With the right product design and production planning, manufacturers can easily meet the most exacting customer standards. The real question is, how do you sell these products in an efficient and profitable manner?
Material handling equipment sales innovation is the most important arena for manufacturers to compete in and improve profitability. What does it take to truly streamline the sales process, and how do you achieve better KPIs? Here’s what you need to know.
The highly complex nature of material handling equipment impacts every aspect of the sales process, creating delays or increasing the number of mundane tasks for the sales team. Some of the biggest challenges include:
Manufacturers need to identify and remove vulnerabilities from their supply chains wherever possible. Here’s how:
Major purchases like conveyor systems must fit perfectly into customers’ facilities, requiring in-depth customization, but even more standard equipment like forklifts can have multiple layers of configurability.
When manufacturers rely on manual configuration processes, the level of complexity can require a lot of back and forth communication with customers to gather and confirm all of their specification data. Engineers also need to review each order before production begins to confirm it’s even viable. All of the touchpoints in this process create a lot of extra work for sales teams, engineers, and other stakeholders, cutting into overall productivity for the company.
In B2B sales, customers are often more motivated by speed and convenience than they are by price. Since many material handling equipment manufacturers offer comparable price points for their equipment, the competitive advantage comes from how quickly a sales team is able to offer a quote.
Unfortunately, customers are more likely to go with one of the first few quotes they receive while searching for a supplier. Failure to produce a quote in time not only results in lost revenue from one sale, but from all of the followup business that could come down the line.
In today’s fast-paced market, customers may not have time to pay attention to differences in product quality. The best way for material handling equipment manufacturers to stand out is by offering a cutting-edge sales process. CPQ provides all the benefits needed to make a positive impression on customers, but not all solutions are the same.
Configure One Cloud offers the most advanced technology features available, including multiple levels of configurability for even the most complex products, leading-edge 3D visualization for configured products, robust pricing rules, and more.
