Using
®
Autodesk
®
Inventor
for Sales
Mark Keenan
Business Development, Technicon Systems, Inc.
© 2012 Autodesk
Class Summary
This class provides an overview of how discrete manufacturers can use
Autodesk Inventor to automate sales. We will discuss different types of
systems for marketing, sales and engineering automation. The standard
components used for different types of systems such as guided sales
systems, configurators and quoting.
© 2012 Autodesk
Learning Objectives
At the end of this class, you will be able to:
 Delineate between sales systems for marketing, sales and engineering
 Describe major functional components for such systems
 List potential benefits and ROI
 Understand key steps to system deployment
© 2012 Autodesk
Technicon
 Easy-to-use
guided sales systems for leaders in
industries representing:
– Architectural &
Building Products
– Lighting
– Electronics and
controls
– Industrial Parts
– Contract Furniture
4
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Sales systems 101
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Overview

Sales systems come in a wide range of types to fit manufacturers and
their customers

Marketing catalogs and guided sales systems for end-users
 Online sales systems targeted at a dedicated sales professional
 Engineering oriented systems oriented to customer engineering groups
© 2012 Autodesk
Marketing catalogs

New customers
 Unfamiliar with products
 Few projects
 System goals
 Guide novices and provide confidence in
manufacturer’s products
 Expose a broad range of products
 Provide detailed documents and product
images for customers
 Track activity and provide leads
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Sales systems


Sales personnel, distribution and experienced
customers
 Very familiar with products
 Many projects
System goals
 Allow sales personnel to design in products
and solutions
 Foster collaboration
 Create detailed proposals, quotes and project
documents
 Track activity and provide leads
 Process orders
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Engineer to order

Customer engineering
 Intimately familiar with product construction
 Comfortable with complex calculations
 System goals
 Allow customer engineering to validate
engineering solutions or standard specials
 Create engineering documents and drawings
 Approve and document orders
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Why implement a sales system?
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Reduce cost-per-sale

Customers can make educated purchase decisions without expensive
sales calls
 Project documents and quotes can be generated in minutes instead of
hours or days
 Configuration and validation eliminate order errors
 Drawing and visualization allows customers to visually confirm their
orders
 Lower print cost
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Boost sales

Online catalogs mean you are always open for business
 Customers order with confidence
 Generate leads automatically
 Target specific markets
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Real world results

SMC Corporation

Online guided sales system serves over 300,000 users
 Generates over 1000 leads per week
 Increased sales at one customer by over $500,000
 Cut monthly CAD cost by $25,000

Acuity Corporation


Cut engineering validation of orders from days to minutes
Cut annual print cost by $300,000
“It used to take us 2 weeks to create a submittal package..., we can now do it in 20
minutes.” - Acuity Agent
© 2012 Autodesk
What components do you need?
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Inventor ETO
Sales
Drawings
Bring engineering and
visualization to the
point of sale
Renderings
Proposal
Documents
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Guided Sales

Catalog


Browsing, filtering and search
 Pricing
 Configuration rules
 Product
 Assemblies
 System validation
 Document and collateral generation
User management





Authentication
Collaboration
Favorites
Pricing authorization
Visualization


Interactive configuration
Layout
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Content Management

Product information management

Products
 Options
 Rules
 Pricing

System management



Guided sales
User roles
Documents
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How do you put it together?
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Mockup the Use and Output
Guided Sales User Interface
Walk throughs
Renderings
Documents
BIM Output
Drawings
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Document Model Standards

Standards Questions






How products be configured?
What dimensions will vary?
Will products need to mate?
Will orientation need to be adjusted?
How much detail will be required?
May require new marketing geometry



“Lighter weight”
Less concern about IP
Designed for interaction
© 2012 Autodesk
Architect the Rules Strategy

What types of rules will you need to guide sales?

Filtering and demand shaping?
 Configuration – this option with that?
 Assembly – this product with that?
 System – do all these products work together?
 Sizing – will the products meet engineering requirements of the environment?

How will you author and maintain the rules?
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Next steps

Find the team



Track record
Technology and experience
Layout milestones and methodology
Go!

Proposals
 Project models (detailed project requirements)
 Prototypes
 Release candidates
© 2012 Autodesk
Autodesk, AutoCAD* [*if/when mentioned in the pertinent material, followed by an alphabetical list of all other trademarks mentioned in the material] are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and
services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2012 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2012 Autodesk