The lifeblood of every business is sales; without it, a business does not last very long. While some sales are repeatable, many sales are unique per the customer, items, pricing, and circumstances involved. A majority of businesses need to generate quotes for those prospective customers before a sale is ever booked. One hurdle they share is getting those deals from the sales team into the Order Management system. This hand off is more complicated than it appears, as it introduces operational and fulfillment risk that can lead to delays, mistakes, reworks, and disappointed customers.

In this article we discuss 5 options businesses can use to bridge that gap and get deals won by the sales team into Oracle Cloud Order Management as sales orders.

---

#1 Sales team manually enters the Order

Once a quote is won and a purchase order is written, the most direct route is to have your sales team enter the order into Oracle Cloud. This requires that the sales team have access to Oracle Cloud, are sufficiently trained on the software and company process, and are able to log in and enter the details of the quote into the ERP system. After all, the salesperson who won the deal is certainly most familiar with the quote that contains the order, and they have a vested interest in getting the order fulfilled and satisfying their customer.

Operationally, this prevents challenges. For one, the sales team may oppose this work as it distracts from actually doing their core job. It requires knowledge of using Oracle which is no small feat, especially Oracle Cloud Order Management. The sales person must also be aligned with company operating procedures on how to process quotes in the order system. Finally, it involves an additional licensing cost for the sales person.

This approach may work for smaller organizations with a sales culture willing to "get things done" to complete the sale.

Benefits

• Most knowledge about that particular quote
• Vested interest in moving quickly

Drawbacks

• Not automated
• Non core sales function
• Software and procedural knowledge required
• Increased licensing cost

---

#2 Sales team communicates to Order Entry

A slightly more indirect route involves the sales team winning a quote and communicating the contents of that quote to Order Entry. That can be anything from forwarding the signed quote document via email to calling customer service and walking through the specifics with them. Either way, this process should decrease the work of the sales team and place it into order entry / customer service who is trained and well versed in the order process. It allows for specialization where the sales team spends more time selling and the order entry team knows how to deal with the software / operational nuance of getting orders entered into Oracle Cloud Order Management.

While there are benefits here, a communication step is introduced that must be managed. This communication requires time and multiple substeps to complete: an initial contact, document transmission, quote entry, troubleshooting, and confirmation. Each of these takes time and can mushroom into a back-and-forth that wastes time for both the sales team and order entry. This is especially true in the case of errors; for example, "That pricing is no longer valid", or "That item has been discontinued". Upon hearing this, the sales person must rectify the error. They may even need to return to the customer, hat in hand, to redo the quote, who expected their order to be processed.

Benefits

• Reduces burden on sales team
• Allows for specialization

Drawbacks

• Not automated
• Additional time and troubleshooting to communicate
• Risk of late feedback on quote terms
• Requires licensing for customer service

---

#3 Oracle Sales Cloud + CPQ

Many companies will opt to purchase Oracle's Configure Price Quote (CPQ) solution for their quoting needs, often alongside Oracle Sales Cloud CRM. This combination can work very well for certain companies, particularly large companies with configurable product structures using models and classes, and a correspondingly large budget to support the software.

However, Oracle CPQ and CRM are not for the faint of heart. These are large software modules that require extensive setup, training, and maintenance. The licensing cost alone can be quite a shock. Be prepared to hire a battalion of consultants to help you setup, train, and test this software. Those consultants are not cheap. Integration to Oracle Cloud must be built and can be difficult and archaic (hint: it is not "out of the box"). You will then require in house expertise to support this system for your sales team. Oracle is traditionally weak in user interface / simplicity and your sales team may not like the user experience Oracle has designed for them. These may be considered inferior to other CRM products on the market.

Benefits

• Oracle product - the good and the bad
• Most functionality
• Full support of configurable items

Drawbacks

• Expensive - licensing, configuration, training, support
• Time consuming to configure
• Challenging to integrate
• Complicated user interface

---

#4 Other Quoting Software (non-Oracle)

Besides Oracle's CPQ offering, there are multitudes of other software vendors competing for your attention. SalesForce, Infor, and Sage CRM are some of the biggest players. These companies produce a solid product that works well in their domain. Some of your sales team may have used these tools in the past.

The challenge of using these systems is that they exist completely separate from your Oracle Cloud environment. Besides being another vendor and contract to manage, they require custom integration to communicate to Oracle Cloud. But the devil is in the details. Data must by synchronized between systems to provide for accurate customer, item, and pricing. Fields must be mapped during this integration and the format may not align between your non-Oracle CRM and Oracle Cloud. This can involve fragile and expensive workarounds, not to mention the cost of building the integration.

Benefits

• CRM focus
• Generally a modern user experience
• Sales team familiarity

Drawbacks

• Not designed for Oracle
• Often requires syncing (duplicating) data from Oracle
• Difficult to integrate non-Oracle product, lack of support
• Expensive - licensing, configuration, training, support

---

#5 Dedicated Oracle Cloud Quoting Software

Perhaps the best of all options is software designed for getting Quotes into Oracle Cloud. QuoteSend is the first of its kind to have creating quotes into orders in Oracle as its sole focus. This clarity offers a number of benefits over other options. For one, the process to generate orders is incredibly smooth and refined since it is the core focus. In addition, these quotes are created using master data from your Oracle system - avoiding issues with customers, items or prices. Software pricing is much more competitive than Oracle or other giant CRM providers. With dead simple integration and almost no maintenance, your total cost of ownership is considerably lower. And your user experience is top notch, designed with a mobile first approach to simply the life of your sales team.

Of course every system has drawbacks, and QuoteSend is no exception. A main drawback against Oracle CPQ is the lack of configured item functionality. While this requirement does not apply to all customers, the ability to configure items based on rules and price the resulting item is complex. As such, it is currently excluded from QuoteSend but remains on the roadmap. In addition, as a new entrant, QuoteSend has fewer features and customizations than other large CRM players. Our bet is that the features we have are what you need as an Oracle Cloud shop. Finally, your sales team is likely unfamiliar with QuoteSend, but our modern UI and clear processes will make it easy and enjoyable for them.

Benefits

• Designed specifically for quotes and Oracle Cloud Order Management
• Use master data from Oracle Cloud to create quotes
• Automated quote to order functionality for Oracle Cloud
• Truly out of the box - < 10 lines of code to integrate
• Low cost, high ROI
• Modern user experience

Drawbacks

• Does not support configured items (i.e. models + classes)
• Fewer features than large CRM players
• Sales team likely unfamiliar with the software