Client
Our client is a leading company in the power solutions market, as a premier manufacturer of UPS Systems. By maintaining a strong emphasis on technological innovation, wide product options and adhering to quality excellence, they can provide trusted partners to both business and homeowner customers. Providing dependable backup power options to better serve our customers’ businesses so they may thrive in a world that demands more power.
Challenge
Our client wanted to enable their direct sales team to create customer quotes fast and accurately, to apply internal discount policies, to provide better visibility of approvals, and to push sales into Salesforce CRM and back-office operations. We used to do quotes using Excel spreadsheets only. Quotations were made by the salesman at a meeting of a customer, based on an Excel-based template. When a quote was ready, it had to be sent for approval via email, crisscrossing between managers and departments. This process led to several critical issues:
- No Centralized Tracking: There was no system to track who approved a quotation, what changes were made, or where a quote stood in the approval process. Approvals and revisions were scattered across various email inboxes.
- Risk of Errors and Delays: Manual handling of Excel files and email approvals resulted in frequent errors, miscommunication, lost attachments, and delayed responses—especially when urgent customer negotiations occurred.
- Inconsistent Policy Enforcement: Discount approval rules were difficult to enforce, as quotes could be modified or approved without appropriate oversight or a clear audit trail.
- Limited Visibility for Leadership: Management lacked real-time insights into approval bottlenecks, discount trends, and the sales pipeline, making accurate revenue forecasting and team performance optimization difficult.
- No Integration: Quotation data remained siloed in Excel and emails, requiring manual re-entry into Salesforce and other systems, which increased the risk of mistakes and duplication.
The customer wished to remove these pain points by implementing a centralized, automatic, and completely integrated quotation management system.
Solution
To meet these challenges, the company adopted a comprehensive Quotation Management App built on the Microsoft Power Platform Integration by combining Power Apps (with tailored mobile and desktop layouts), SharePoint for centralized data storage, Power Automate for automated, rules-based approvals and notifications, seamless integration with Salesforce for sales operations, and Power BI for real-time analytics—all designed to empower field sales and office teams while enforcing approval policies and enhancing visibility.
Dual Power Apps Canvas Layouts:
The app features both a mobile-optimized layout for sales representatives to generate and negotiate quotations in the field, while collecting all the necessary customer and product information, and a desktop edition for improved usability and overview for managers and back office staff, when they want to review, approve, and analyze offers.
Centralized SharePoint Online Backend:
All quotes, customer information, approval status, negotiation history, discount rate, and contents are retained to SharePoint, archiving them and becoming a real reliable repository with full versioning, full audit trail and no more chaotic files and emails.
Automated, Multi-Level Approval Workflow (Power Automate):
Power Automate drives a rules-based approval process by automatically routing quotations to the correct managers based on discount thresholds—starting with the Sales Representative for smaller discounts and escalating to the Regional Sales Manager, Business Unit Head, VP of Sales, and finally to the CFO and CEO for higher discounts. Every approver receives real-time notifications and can review, approve, or comment from any device. Each decision and action is logged for transparency, compliance, and auditability, guaranteeing policy enforcement and eliminating overlooked approvals.
Salesforce Integration (via Power Automate Premium):
Once a quote is fully approved, all quotation and pricing details, including approval history, are automatically synchronized with Salesforce, streamlining the sales process, eliminating double entry, and ensuring the entire sales team has access to the latest data.
Power BI Analytics:
The application delivers comprehensive, real-time dashboards and interactive analytics through Power BI, enabling leadership and management to track and visualize every aspect of the quotation process—including quote volumes by salesperson, region, or product line; discounting patterns and trends across different customer segments; average and maximum approval cycle times by hierarchy level; bottlenecks and pending approvals; as well as detailed win/loss rates, negotiation frequency, and quotation conversion ratios—empowering data-driven decision-making, accurate forecasting, proactive process optimization, and continuous compliance monitoring across the entire sales organization.
Low-Code, Flexible Platform:
The app is developed with help of Power Platform Development for internal “citizen developers” to adjust workflows, approval rules, or UI when business needs shift within minutes — all without having to depend on external vendors or custom code.
Result
- Faster Quoting and Approvals: Sales representatives now generate and submit quotes in real time, with approvals completed in hours instead of days.
- Consistent Policy Enforcement: Automated, rule-based approval workflows ensure discount policies are followed at every level, reducing revenue leakage and risk.
- Centralized Oversight: All quotations, approvals, and changes are tracked in one system, with clear audit trails and easy access for management.
- Real-Time Analytics: Leadership benefits from instant visibility into sales and approval trends, helping forecast revenue and identify opportunities for improvement.
- Improved Data Accuracy: Integration with Salesforce eliminates manual entry and the risk of duplicate or lost data, supporting a seamless sales-to-fulfilment process.
- Agile & Scalable: The low-code platform allows for rapid updates and process changes, keeping the solution aligned with evolving business strategies.
- High Adoption: Sales and office staff quickly adopted the new system thanks to familiar interfaces, mobile readiness, and significantly improved usability.
Tools Used
- Power Apps
- SharePoint Online
- Power Automate
- Power BI
- Salesforce
- Microsoft 365 (Outlook & Teams)
- Azure Active Directory