Last week I spent a great couple of days with the Oracle CPQ Cloud team at the Oracle CPQ Partner Roadmap Seminar.
Even though a lot of the event content was under non-disclosure, I’d like to share a few quick reflections:
- The development roadmap for Oracle CPQ Cloud is as exciting and impressive as I can remember. When Oracle first acquired BigMachines back in 2014 I was warned that it can sometimes take five or more years for Oracle to properly assimilate a new technology. As far as I’m concerned they are already there. The combination of the old masters (Chris Haussler and Art Carlucci) with the new (Khalid Qayum, his team and the support from the Solution Specialists) means that the technology is now really functioning excellently, and that’s a pleasure to see.
- Oracle’s commitment to customer success feels refreshed in the CPQ space. I understand that Chris Shutts is now bringing renewed focus to this area – many years ago I felt the benefit of his support when I was a BigMachines customer. The event itself was masterfully customer-focused. Existing customers heard about the future roadmap, and the social event afterwards (that Walpole Partnership was delighted to sponsor) enabled great networking. Oracle has also listened to repeated requests from its partners to get customers involved in new feature development and feedback sessions, which is proving very worthwhile. It really feels like the ‘Service’ in SaaS is back with a bang for Oracle CPQ Cloud.
- It was great to see so many old faces, as well as some new, with many different types of partners joining the event. From CPQ specialists like ourselves, broader CX partners, larger S.I.s and technology partners like KBMax with their exciting integrations with the CPQ platform – altogether there was a vibrant and friendly feel to the seminar, and it was a pleasure to be a part of it.
Overall the day was a great success, and we look forward to more engagements like this from the Oracle CPQ team.
“Reflections on the Oracle CPQ Partner Roadmap Seminar” was written by Walpole Partnership’s MD, Andy Pieroux.
