Explore Revenue Lifecycle Management
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- List the components of Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM) and their functionalities.
- Describe how the components work together in the revenue lifecycle.
Components of Revenue Lifecycle Management
In the previous unit, you learned about the functionality that Chief Revenue Officer Jose is looking for in a revenue management solution. Here’s a look at the components of Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM) and how their functionalities align with Jose’s requirements.
RLM components provide functionalities in five broad categories: Product Catalog and Pricing, Transaction Management and Configuration, Price, Quote (CPQ), Contract Lifecycle Management, Order-to-cash, and Revenue Lifecycle Intelligence.
The table lists the components of RLM and the functionalities they provide.
Components |
Functionality |
|---|---|
|
Product Catalog and Pricing: Manage a centralized product model with headless composable APIs. |
|
Transaction Management and CPQ: Configure product templates, capturing quotes and orders, and asset lifecycle management. |
Salesforce Contracts |
Contract Lifecycle Management: Generate and manage contract documents. |
Einstein AI |
Revenue Lifecycle Intelligence: Use AI-based capabilities to generate actionable insights into all aspects of the revenue lifecycle. |
Next, you learn more about the capabilities of each of the components.
Product Catalog Management
Product Catalog Management provides a centralized product model that’s the single source of truth for product data. It provides an intuitive user interface that catalog admins and product designers can use to define reusable product metadata, easily add products, and manage product data with accuracy. This helps the organization to create and launch new products for better selling, provisioning, and billing.
Salesforce Pricing
Salesforce Pricing provides a unified pricing platform that the pricing designers can use to define pricing policies for accurately and consistently priced deals. Using the platform, pricing designers and admins can define and maintain up-to-date pricing that includes additions, such as taxes, and discounts across all channels.
Salesforce Pricing also provides pricing support for any digital process, including quotes, orders, and sales agreements.
Product Configurator
Product Configurator provides an optimized and intuitive interface making it simple and easy to select the most suitable combination of features for a complex product. The component facilitates the configuration of product bundles and the customization of individual product attributes.
Quote and Order Capture
Use Quote and Order Capture to automate quote creation and order capture across channels. The component consists of three subcomponents.
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Product Discovery: This subcomponent provides an intuitive user interface that shows products in a hierarchical catalog along with a list view and a product detail view. Sales reps can use the interface to select appropriate products and add them to a quote or order. Partners can also use it to deliver a true B2B and B2C experience.
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Quote and Order Management: This subcomponent provides a spreadsheet-like user experience that you can use to group products. You can also use it to filter and sort information for easier navigation in larger and more complex deals. It also supports order status tracking and visibility into the fulfillment journey.
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Asset Lifecycle: This subcomponent provides a complete view of the customer install base and recurring revenue. You can manage asset lifecycles by using amendments, renewals, or cancellations to satisfy the customer’s business needs.
Salesforce Contracts
With Salesforce Contracts you can create contracts, track and manage obligations, and digitize legacy contracts and external documents at the click of a button. You can create contracts from both quotes and orders and share them with external parties for redlining. Further, using AI-based capabilities, contract admins can extract key entities and clauses from contract documents, and create contract records using the correct metadata.
Einstein AI
RLM uses the power of Einstein AI for intelligent data analysis. RLM also uses embedded analytics and AI to create dashboards that provide insights based on the available data. Additionally, you’ve already learned how admins can use AI-based capabilities to generate clauses from contract documents.
How It All Works Together
So far, you’ve learned about the requirements for a successful revenue management solution. Now, here’s how all the RLM components work together to fulfill those requirements and provide an enhanced selling experience.
You use Product Catalog Management to define what to sell and organize the product catalog. Next, you use Salesforce Pricing to define the pricing strategy and applicable discounts and promotions for your products. Then, you use Product Configurator to define templates for customizing product selection. And with that, the product catalog is ready with all the information about your products.
You can now create quotes by selecting the required products from the catalog and applying promotions and discounts. Next, convert your quotes to orders and then digitally generate, validate, and sign contracts using Salesforce Contracts. The final step is order fulfillment.
Further, using composable APIs, you can extend RLM functionalities to other cloud services. For example, Manufacturing Cloud can use the product and pricing information from the product catalog to carry out the sales operation providing a true omni-channel experience.
Now that you are familiar with the components of RLM, learn about the various roles and personas that interact with RLM in the next unit.