Oracle CPQ vs. VisibleThread VT Docs

I think CPQ had worked so well for our company because of the widespread nature of our associates and tracking orders that were being placed in multiple time zones. My team specifically needed a way of analyzing these orders to track our progress in real time and sort out any supply orders before they became an issue. If you are in a centralized location with a smaller team then this may not yield much use to you.

Incentivized

VT is fabulous to proposal writing as it created for that. It can also be used for ANY type of persuasive or technical writing. If you can write it, VT can help to make the writing better. BUT!!! if you are writing news articles or descriptive writing, this is NOT the software for you. VT works to eliminate fluff, ambiguous words, exaggerations, run-on sentences, improper grammar, misspelled words, sentence fragments, etc. VT also works to eliminate passive writing. As with any software, use it for what it was created - and find something else for the rest.

• Leveraged automation to minimize headcount costs despite 10% year-over-year business growth, and enabled staff to focus on more strategic tasks.
• Established a flexible CPQ system that scales on demand to easily accommodate the company’s multiple global locations.
• Improved customer relations by reducing configuration time and allowing sales more time to meet with customers and close orders.

Incentivized

• Acronym finder - the best acronym finder I have used! This creates an Excel spreadsheet with the acronyms and their definitions in an alphabetically sorted worksheet ... AND this worksheet includes actual sentences from the document showing how and where the acronym was used.
• Compare documents - WOW! what a wonderful update! You get an Excel worksheet with the 2 compared documents side-by-side showing differences in red and statements with no changes in blue.
• Starter compliance matrix (SCM) - again, one of the best SCM-creators I have used. This choice is quick, concise, and the resulting Excel worksheet is easy to manipulate and change.

• Advanced coding for some areas in config and pricing engine are written in BML. This Java-like code may be a bit tricky for someone trying to write very advanced configuration rules or advanced pricing.
• The flagship system needs to have an easier way to enter in pricing. In the BMX version, pricing is handled through multiple matricies, but in the flagship it is compiled into one ugly rule.
• Customization. Other software comes with tools to help customize the "look and feel" quickly. To get a re-vamped look on the flagship product, you'll need a CSS expert.

• Dictionaries - I would like to see more "canned" dictionaries. We create our own, but I know that VT has more that they can supply, giving us more quick turnaround changes (versus always having to start from scratch).

So far it is all good with BigMachines, looking for new features since Oracle acquisition has created a lot of expectations. We have outlined our limitations (out of box functionality) in our periodic customer successor advice meetings for a while, hope we get a resolution soon. Also, the BigMachines user license fee has increased a lot in the last three years.

Incentivized

While they have a decent administrator interface (relative to other apps), the part that is unintuitive is the printer friendly output. I view this is as the meat and potatoes. They are very constrained on these abilities. To make a font change is really cumbersome. There is no content management protocol to protocol. This kills us.

Other than one day two years ago and an hour or two a few times since then due to data center outages, it has been very reliable

It depends upon the day however there are so many failure points with online services, including our internet service, that this is probably closer to 9 with the latest version

Some specific support personal was good and fixed some problems fast using proper solutions. But when one of them went to sleep when we had critical issues and they do unreported commits to our production environment which caused issues and they were hiding it?? you can not give more than a two (maybe even that is too much). They also failed to add a feature for us which also bring the grade down.

They have pretty good training. Our business analysts have been able to go to entry and advanced level training. They have a train the trainer model. Our business analyst attended training, then trained the rest of our staff.

Like with any implementation go into it with a clear and realistic plan for getting the implementation completed and it will go much smoother. BigMachines has a clear process and an excellent staff fort getting an implementation completed we just needed to follow more of it instead of creating our own roadblocks

We debated a few different options, including a home-grown custom program, uCommerce, and just using only Oracle Commerce Cloud. Since we had already decided to use Oracle Commerce Cloud over uCommerce, the integrations available between OCC, Oracle's ERP system, and Oracle CPQ definitely seemed like the easiest option with the greatest benefits. However, the cost/benefit of Oracle CPQ was more apparent when we were ready to launch more complex configurations across all of our product groups.

Incentivized

We reviewed many other products but found all of them did not have the extent of tasks that VT had. These searches were over 5 years ago and many of the products reviewed are no longer available. In addition, some software still in existence have merit, just not to the extent we need. I do not want to give anyone a bad rating just because we did not choose them. Again, choose the right software for the right job!

• Sales Operations or IT would have a better understanding of the license user costs and ROI. I do know that Sales has experienced frustrations in the the lead gen-to-close process and have experienced delays with some deals. In other instances, the software has worked fine. I would love to see an analysis on how our lead-conversion rate, sales cycles, and proposal volume stacks up.

Incentivized

• We reduced proposal writing time and output. By reducing time, we gained time for work in other areas of proposal handling. I used to need 3-5 DAYS to create an acronym list. Now, with VT, I do the same work in 1-2 hours!
• VT is for proposal WRITING and not for proposal HANDLING. Our proposal managers and coordinators do the handling part.