Wednesday, October 1, 2008

SAP xCQM

Today's blogs will still be about SAP xApps. Yesterday, I had been blogging about on the xApps, Resouce and Portfolio Management (xRPM), an application used to manage company portfolios.

For a lot of companies operating in many different industries, quotations make up a large chunk in the many factors affecting a business' success.

SAP xApp Cost and Quotation Management (SAP xCQM) is a software that makes possible the aligning of disparate functions of design, sourcing and costing so that a profitable decision making endeavor can be achieved.

Just like the xApp in general, the SAP xApp Cost and Quotation Management (SAP xCQM) is also a composite application to help business organizations turn quotes into profits.

Many people in the manufacturing industry know how still the competition is between winning and losing a customer in the quotation process. Having a very high quote could affect the company's ability to secure new business partners while having a very low quote affects the company's bottom line. SAP xCQM can help avoid these problems by helping estimate internal and external costs and coming up with accurate quotes.
The SAP xCQM facilitates the streamlining of the quoting process for Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) providers and contract manufacturers. SAP acknowledges that one of the cores of a business process is the acquisition of revenues through responding to Requests for Quotations (RFQ) from customers.
Most of today's companies not using automated ERP software are experiencing grat challenges in RFQ processes. Some of the problems they experience are extreme labor demand, more prone to error and not having very updated and relevant information.
SAP xCQM automates the many processes involved in RFQ like effectively screening incomeing RFQs, creating a quote through the upload of Bill of Materials (BOMs), automating pricing of components and streamlining e-RFQ of new components.
Because xCQM is by very nature an xAPP, it can easily do integration with disparate systems such as those of production, sales and outsourcing. A user friendly and graphical interface dashboard in the xCQM application allows Account Managers, Quote Team Leads, Quote Team Members, and Reviewers easy access to information and analytical reports.
SAP xCQM is a role based application. As such, the software is tailored according to the roles of the users within the business organization. A standard SAP xCQM allows for five roles namely Administrator, Account Manager, Document Controller, Quote Team Lead and Quote Team Member (generic). To ensure security within the system, these roles must access the application with corresponding authorizations and usernames and passwords.
In summary, SAP xCQM allow a company to do the following important quotation related tasks: Opportunity screening, Data cleansing, Flexible cost assignment, Retrieval of prices from multiple sources, Sourcing with suppliers, Team management and Attachments handling and storage.
SAP xCQM can help companies in having more visibility into cost information resulting in streamline quotation managements. With this streamlined visibility, company's can achieve improvement in internal and external cost estimates.
SAP has several more xApps and there will always be one that suits your business. More xApps blogs tomorrow!

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