Automating Quote Management: The Key to Accelerating Sales and Optimizing Production Costs

Discover how automating quote management helps manufacturing companies achieve rapid processing, flexible customization, cost optimization, and enhanced competitiveness.

The Challenge Managing Quotes in Manufacturing Companies

In the manufacturing industry, quote management is an ongoing activity that plays a pivotal role in both inbound procurement and outbound sales processes. The nature of manufacturing often demands high customization, leading to complex quote management needs and a significant workload.

Frequent Nature, Customization Needs, and Quote Management:

• Inbound Quotes (from Suppliers): Manufacturing companies constantly need to request quotes from various suppliers for raw materials, components, tools, machinery, transportation services, maintenance, and other indirect production costs. This need arises periodically based on production plans, for new procurement needs, or when price comparison among suppliers is required for cost optimization. Each quote request can include multiple items, different quantities, and varying payment and delivery terms.
• Outbound Quotes (to Customers): The sales process in manufacturing often begins with providing detailed quotes to customers. Especially for highly customized products, quotes must accurately reflect technical requirements, quantities, materials, production processes, delivery times, and associated services. Each customer may have unique requirements, demanding close coordination between sales and technical departments to create suitable quotes.

Frequent Volume of Quotes:

The number of quotes a manufacturing company must process daily, weekly, or monthly can be substantial, depending on production scale, the number of suppliers, and the number of customers. A small to medium-sized manufacturing company might handle tens to hundreds of quotes per month, while for large enterprises, this number can reach thousands.

Challenges of Manual Operations:

Manual quote management, especially with high volume and customization, poses numerous challenges for manufacturing companies:

• Time and Resource Intensive: Employees spend significant time collecting information, calculating costs, drafting quotes, sending emails, and tracking responses.
• High Risk of Errors: Manual operations are prone to errors in data entry, cost calculation, applying discounts, or other terms.
• Lack of Consistency and Professionalism: Manually created quotes may lack consistency in format, information, and presentation, affecting the company’s professional image.
• Difficulty in Tracking and Version Management: Managing different versions of quotes, especially with multiple revisions, becomes complex and prone to confusion.
• Slow Response Times: The manual quote generation process often takes considerable time, leading to slow customer response times, reducing competitive advantage.
• Difficulty in Analyzing and Evaluating Quote Effectiveness: Tracking the conversion rate of quotes to orders and analyzing factors influencing quote success becomes challenging.
• Pressure on Sales and Purchasing Staff: The large volume of quote management work can put pressure on employees, affecting work performance and morale.

The Urgent Need for Automated Quote Management in Manufacturing

Automation in manufacturing shows huge value for enterprises. To address these challenges and enhance operational efficiency, automating quote management becomes an urgent necessity for manufacturing companies. Automation helps to:

• Accelerate Quote Processing: Reduce the time needed to create and send quotes.
• Improve Accuracy: Minimize errors in calculations and data entry.
• Ensure Consistency and Professionalism: Generate standardized and professional quotes.
• Facilitate Tracking and Version Management: Effectively manage revisions and different versions of quotes.
• Improve Customer Response Times: Faster responses, increasing the chance of winning orders.
• Support Analysis and Effectiveness Evaluation: Provide data to analyze conversion rates and influencing factors.
• Reduce Employee Pressure: Free employees from repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on more strategic activities.

What is an Automation Solution?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA): 

Uses software robots to mimic and perform human interactions with existing software applications. In quote management, RPA can automate tasks such as collecting information from emails and systems, entering data into quote forms, extracting data from spreadsheets, and sending completed quotes. RPA is suitable for repetitive, rule-based tasks.

Intelligent Automation (IA):

Combines RPA with Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Computer Vision to automate more complex tasks requiring decision-making capabilities and unstructured data processing. In quote management, IA can be used to analyze complex quote requests, automatically calculate costs based on historical data and market factors, suggest suitable product options, and even automatically adjust prices based on business rules and competitor information.

Agentic Automation: 

A further advancement of IA, where intelligent software “agents” are capable of autonomous action, decision-making, and coordination with other agents to accomplish complex goals. In quote management, intelligent agents can be tasked with managing the entire quoting process, from receiving requests to sending final quotes and tracking responses, with minimal human intervention. These agents can learn and optimize processes over time.

Automated Quote Management Process in Manufacturing

After implementing automation, the quote management process in manufacturing can proceed as follows:

Inbound Quote Process (from Suppliers):

• Automated Quote Request (Triggered by System or User): The ERP system or procurement management software automatically generates a Request for Quote (RFQ) based on production needs or procurement requirements. Users can also manually create RFQs through the system interface.
• Automated RFQ Sending to Suppliers: The system automatically sends RFQs to a list of approved suppliers via email or a supplier portal.
• Automated Quote Reception and Processing: The system automatically collects quotes from suppliers (via email, attachments, or a portal). RPA or IA can extract critical information from the quotes (price, quantity, delivery time, payment terms) and enter it into the system.
• Automated Quote Comparison and Evaluation: The system automatically compares quotes based on established criteria (price, quality, delivery time, supplier reputation). IA can provide optimal supplier selection recommendations.
• Automated Approval and Purchase Order Creation: After approval, the system automatically creates a Purchase Order (PO) and sends it to the supplier.

Outbound Quote Process (to Customers):

• Receiving Quote Request (RFQ) from Customer: Requests can come via email, phone, website, or CRM system.
• Automated RFQ Analysis (IA/NLP): IA or NLP can analyze the content of the quote request, identifying products, quantities, technical requirements, and other terms.
• Automated Cost Calculation (IA/Machine Learning): Based on historical data, material consumption rates, current production costs, and other factors, IA can automatically calculate product costs.
• Automated Quote Generation: The system automatically generates professional quotes with complete information, terms, and a standardized format. Quotes can be customized based on specific customer requirements (RPA can support this customization).
• Quote Approval (Optional): Quotes can be submitted for approval before being sent to the customer.
• Automated Quote Sending to Customer: The system automatically sends quotes via email or a customer portal.
• Automated Response Tracking and Management (RPA/IA): RPA can monitor customer email responses. IA can analyze responses (positive, negative, need for adjustment).
• Automated Revised Quote Creation and Sending (RPA/IA): Based on feedback, the system can automatically create and send revised quotes.
• Automated Quote-to-Order Conversion: When the customer accepts the quote, the system can automatically create a sales order and transition it to the production process.

Value Proposition of Automated Quote Management

Automating quote management brings significant value to manufacturing companies:

• Reduced Quote Processing Time: Reduces by 50% to 90% the time needed to create and send quotes.
• Improved Accuracy: Reduces up to 95% of errors related to data entry and price calculation.
• Increased Quote-to-Order Conversion Rate: Increases by 10% to 30% due to faster response times and more professional quotes.
• Manpower Cost Savings: Reduces by 30% to 60% the employee time spent on manual quote management.
• Improved Customer Satisfaction: Faster response times and more accurate quotes lead to higher satisfaction.
• Optimized Procurement Costs: Easier price comparison and selection of the best suppliers, saving 5% to 15% in purchasing costs.
• Improved Version Management: Efficiently manages quote versions, minimizing confusion and errors.
• Effective Analytical Data Provision: Easily track and analyze quote effectiveness, helping to make more informed business decisions.

Automating quote management is a critical strategic solution for manufacturing companies looking to accelerate sales, optimize production costs, and enhance competitiveness in an increasingly fierce business environment. By implementing appropriate automation technologies, manufacturing businesses can free employees from manual tasks, minimize errors, improve response times, and focus on delivering higher value to customers.