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Don’t try to retrofit your engineering configurator for consumers When it comes to guided selling, a new approach is needed By Jesper Blak Møller, director of system engineering, Configit More and more products today are what’s known as configurable – that is, there are multiple varieties and options as to what the final product will look like. An example we can all relate to is buying a new laptop. The manufacturer’s engineering team will start by defining the key technical components of the product – for example, the clock frequency of the CPU, the number of cells in the battery, the type of memory modules, the display, the keyboard and so on. There will be restrictions on how these components can be combined, such as the size of the laptop case, which limits how many components can be fitted in the case. To keep up with the market demand for more and more individualized and specialized products, engineers are asked to create many different products. To simplify the design, they group similar products in groups that share common components. These are typically called product lines or models. For notebooks, there might be an “X” line, a “T” line, and so on. Now, when a customer wants to buy a laptop, how does she find one that matches her needs and budget? First, how does she know which main product
Configurable products require a different approach to selling. line to select? Should she choose the X lines or the T line? And when she has selected a product line, how does she know which values to select for the technical parameters of the product, such as the type of RAM modules and the clock frequency of the CPU, when the main requirements she has for the laptop is that it should be good for light business applications and easy to travel with?
Guiding the sale Engineering configurators are built with the purpose of making it easy for engineers to configure the technical, often very low-level parameters of a product (such as a laptop), but they’re not made to be customer-facing. They’d fall short if customers tried to use this same kind of configurator to select the right product specs to fit their needs. Configurable products require a different approach to selling. You need to guide the prospective buyers through the process as they evaluate the different options and
determine what will work for them. This is a process known as guided selling – which is really about putting yourself in the buyer’s seat, understanding things from their perspective and taking that “insideout view.” Putting this approach into place takes a concerted effort. A configurator plays a key role, but don’t make the mistake of thinking you can just take the configurators used on the engineering side and retrofit them for sales – because it’s probably not going to work. You need a far more nuanced approach.
The problem with engineering configurators Engineering configurators aren’t sufficient for producing sales orders. In fact, they too often fail when you try to use them for this purpose. The complexity needed for engineering isn’t efficient and is often detrimental for the purposes of configuring a sellable product. Too often, these engineering configurators essentially require salespeople to also be engineers (which most aren’t). It can result in orders that can’t be manufactured or that are extensively engineered to order. This can result in products that don’t fit the customers’ needs.
Creating a more customercentric process In contrast, a sales configurator can speak in the language of the customers. A good sales configurator should guide users toward the best choices. It makes it easy to select the right product and the right combination of features. A sales configurator works from the perspective of the customer. It helps decouple the very technical parameters and parts of your product from the more commercial features of your product, which is what you want your customers to select. And it promotes selections that have better margins. For manufacturers looking to stay competitive and on top, they have to ensure they are making the selection process as customer friendly as possible.
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Manufacturing & Production Engineering Magazine