First let me explain who Cincom is. Cincom is a Cincinnati, Ohio based Software Company that was founded in 1968 and offers, beside many others products, a CPQ solution. They are specialized in the manufacturing and distribution industries and their product addresses complex configuration challenges.

Before I talk about the actual event let me add some comments about the location, San Antonio, Texas. At this time of year this is a great choice since it is still fairly warm (and humid – well I didn’t say it was perfect). Plus the event location in Downtown San Antonio is great for a variety of evening entertainment options.

Cincom’s CPQ User Conference from November 2-4, was a small event for their current customers. While they had some international customers almost all attendees were domestic customers. They mentioned at the end of day Thursday that they plan to hold this event now every ~18 months. I was invited to speak about Ongoing CPQ Tool Maintenance (as always, from a vendor agnostic point of view).

Cincom put in considerable effort to make this a successful event for all participants with a mix of presentations, workshops and opportunities for customers to ask questions directly to the responsible Cincom specialists. I joined them on Thursday and started the day with a one-hour presentation about above-mentioned CPQ Tool Maintenance. After a short break it was time to have a hands on configurator workshop with Tips & Tricks from Product Manager David Allison. The session was well organized and first showed system improvements on slides, then a short demo in the system and last an exercise for all participants.

The workshop regarding the Cincom Sales Portal (CSP) after lunch basically followed the same process as the configurator workshop. First some slides to show what has been developed/improved, then a demo in the system and then have an opportunity to do a practice exercise in the system. The session regarding Document Generation Tips & Tricks was fairly detailed with lots of demos in the system.  Customers who wanted to learn more about Document Generation had lots of opportunity to dive into details.

As a summary I would say this meeting was good for existing customers, those who are familiar with Cincom CPQ and the available functionality. That is because Customers had ample opportunity to learn more about upcoming functionality directly from the responsible Cincom resources. I’m sure the Tips & Tricks shared during these sessions will proof helpful to all attending customers.

Note that this meeting was not meant for new customers or prospects and so the level of detail and information shared there was not tailored for them.

A last note concerning CPQ events. After the last three blog posts covered various CPQ events I’m not planning to post any more for a while.