Configurators are specialized software tools that guide customers through a managed selling process to ensure that an end product is properly configured and meets rules, laws, or technical standards.

Configurators can be simple question and answer systems that select a list of products to add to a list. Configurators can also be complex models that walk a person through a complicated set of questions that perform calculations, product lookups, or provide pricing.

Some companies offer an “out of the box” configurator solution, suggesting that you can “configure the configurator” to provide a software solution. This is quite possible for simple to moderately complex models. But for larger and more complex situations, a package solution is no match for a custom developed configurator system.

Custom Configurators deliver exactly the configuration solution you need without compromise – the software is developed for you and addresses your requirement not someone else’s. Generic configurators are compromised by their need to address multiple industries and different configuration applications – therefore there is a lower probability that you get the fit you need. Some industry specific configurators exist; these deal with the industry requirements; often these are used by a number of competitors eliminating the opportunity for competitive advantage.

If you are not aware of a configuration solution in your industry or business area, then chances are no one has developed one or found a suitable industry or generic solution.

A custom configurator will automate and improve your sales and marketing processes in exactly the way you need. Typical ROI calculations for custom configuration include the value of reducing costly specification and pricing errors, decreased selling expenses and increased revenue from new channel opportunities and greater organizational selling bandwidth through automation. A custom configurator has numerous advantages:

• No compromise on delivery of the configuration requirement – you get exactly what you need – no gaps in functionality.
• Delivers a solution that reflects how you want to do business – not someone else’s processes or another industry.
• Offers an opportunity to beat the competition with a high quality, exact fit solution – you can stand out from the crowd, not be part of it.
• We integrate with your systems so you don’t need to buy a new ERP, CRM or other legacy solutions to accommodate the configurator.

We bring many years of experience in custom software development and different kinds of configurators to bear on delivering the kind of configurator you need.

Transform your organization with a custom configuration solution – increase the bandwidth your company has to quote and sell in an automated selling process – grow revenue and reduce errors and time to quote.

Learn more about configuration…..

Configurators are used in many different ways; here are some examples; note that sometimes they are used in combination and deployed in different ways:

1. Configurator as a product/feature selector

Customers may not understand all of the features and characteristics of complex products especially in a large product range and they want to select a product based on a number of attributes, which will address their needs. The selling organization uses a configurator with an attribute management table to record all the relevant product features and attributes so that the customer can enter the attributes they require and perhaps answer some questions so the configurator can present the options to them. In this case the configurator is a sophisticated product selector.

2. Drawings from configurations and configurations from drawings

This type of configurator has a drawing tool component which can work in a couple of different ways: first a series of dialogs are used to generate the configuration data, creating a bill of materials and a drawing representation of the configuration and it can also be built in a way that allows user manipulation of the drawing itself which will alter the configuration and the BOM to reflect subtle adjustments. In this example the drawing tool is an integral part of the configurator.

3. Drag and drop configurator

A type of visual configurator, which allows users to select icons for the components they want and drag those into a particular location e.g. a rack space. In this case the configurator generates a composite graphic representation of the user’s selections and performs any background calculations such as power requirements and heat load.

4. Intelligent forms

Configurators are built to support dependencies, exceptions and relationships between answers; this means question and answer dialog can vary dynamically to reflect the user’s answers or selections. One of most straightforward applications of this feature is the “intelligent” form where the display of questions and answers is entirely dependent on the user’s answers so only relevant questions appear e.g. an automated insurance application which hides all questions related to the 2nd floor when the user says they own a ranch home.

These are just a few examples – call us with your requirement.

• Increased revenue

Your custom configurator has no license fees and allows you to scale up and add dealers, resellers at no cost and because you have implemented an industry leading solution you have a game changing solution that helps you maximize your organization’s revenue opportunities exponentially.

• A custom configurator will meet all your needs

Because the custom configurator is tailored to your company’s needs, you won’t waste time trying to make something that doesn’t meet all of your needs work for your business and you won’t be dealing with workarounds where a packaged configurator has functional gaps. Additionally, we build the integrations you need so that your configurator works exactly the way you envisage. We develop and implement exactly the combination of configuration elements that you need – no more and no less – so that all the unique aspects of how you do business are taken care of.

• A custom configurator is cost competitive

Most off-the-shelf configuration companies charge a per-seat license cost. A custom-designed configurator serves as many users as you need for the same initial development cost. The typical configuration company charges as much in services as they do for the software and they use the many months of “services” to make your products “fit” to their software. An average custom configuration implementation takes about 6 months; some are less, depending on the nature of the application making it the same timeline as most packaged configurators.

• Reduce costly specification errors

Well-implemented configurators reduce costly errors in specifications meaning that you only generate quotes and accept orders for viable product configurations. Pricing errors are also reduced as pricing is now automated; this provides opportunities to have structured pricing using pricing and discounting rules you create.

Some configurator companies will sell you the idea that with their application you will be able to manage your own configurations. What they don't tell you is that their applications are so complex to use that it takes a very long time to learn how the application works; so to get results you will pay the configurator company to build your configurations - in many cases this will more than double the cost of the applications. Check this out before you sign on the dotted line!

Custom Configurators builds your application to look, behave and perform exactly the way you want; the application will deal with your unique requirements.
Make sure your company's product and pricing paradigms fit within the capabilities of any standard application otherwise there will be compromises to make your business fit the application. Seen this before with enterprise software? It's doubly so in configuration.

Companies typically believe that capturing their product rules will be easy. In reality this is one of the most difficult areas in configuration. Custom Configurators' approach acknowledges that rule discovery is an ongoing process that is central to how your particular configurator will work.

We encounter countless companies who say they have spent years trying to develop their own configurator and eventually given up. Don't confuse being expert in your own products with the ability to build a configurator. Yes, you need to bring product knowledge but results will likely only come from working with people who build configurators every day. Save years of effort by not going down this path.

Our experience is that no matter how well planned and thoroughly scoped a configuration project is, it's virtually impossible to discover and describe every product rule in advance for complex products even when the best experts from the client are involved. Our approach puts software in front of you fast and accepts that rules will be discovered during the project.

If you are working with one of the leading configuration software providers, ask how long it will take to have their solution fully implemented with all rules discovered and all products in the configurator. If they are honest with you, you will find that standard solutions are no quicker than custom solutions.

The software world is populated with resellers who will promise anything to sell you a solution they don't own; worse, when it comes to configuration applications typically resellers only sell a few per year so they rarely acquire the experience required to deliver configuration solutions.