Inspirage solution manages flexible warranty durations for the same product based on sales negotiations
Innovative high-tech and industrial manufacturing companies are always looking to capitalize on growth opportunities by embracing flexible business solutions to meet their customers’ needs. Consider the case of a leading provider of semiconductor and electronics assembly solutions with unique requirements to offer flexible warranty durations to customers at the time of a sale. Based on the product or service being sold, its warranties needed to be flexible enough to offer coverage for either an incremental duration (e.g., three months, six months, nine months) or a specific number of days.
This situation highlights the need for a subscription solution with the capabilities to entitle sales representatives to capture the specific warranty duration offered to the customer during the quote/sales negotiation — and to reference it during fulfillment for more accurate service and support tracking. To address this issue, Inspirage created a flexible warranty solution to help businesses meet and manage such challenges more effectively.
Reducing inefficiency and errors
Before the flexible warranty solution was implemented, the company’s sales team was using an Excel-based offline solution for tracking warranties. In the absence of order and asset level details, however, it was cumbersome for the team to maintain warranties in Excel. Inefficient and error-prone operational challenges inspired them to transform their business processes to Oracle’s cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) ERP solution.
As part of its transformational, end-to-end Oracle Cloud ERP solution, the business wanted users to be able to continue leveraging the flexibility that had been provided by Excel. This included allowing sales representatives to capture customer-specific warranty duration information from the time of quotation/sale. Oracle’s Subscription Management system supports only fixed duration warranties maintained at the product level. To meet this requirement, Inspirage implemented its flexible and scalable subscription solution to remove the fixed product level duration and introduce a variable warranty duration. With the help of Inspirage’s implementation solution, the business was able to sell the same product to different customers under different sales conditions with flexible warranty durations. The business also gained the ability to manage customer service/support without Master Data overhead or operational inefficiencies.
Key Considerations
- Product Information Management (PIM)
- Oracle Configure, Price, and Quote (CPQ)
- Order Management
- Oracle Install Base
- Oracle Subscription Management Cloud
Inspirage has designed two solutions to address requirements for flexible warranties. Businesses can adapt either — or both — options based on need.
Option 1: Manage subscription end date:
This option is suitable if the business needs the flexibility to manage warranty duration to specific dates on a calendar.
During the quotation/sales cycle, the included warranty item will allow the sales user to capture the start and end dates (i.e., the warranty duration) for the customer in CPQ. These values are passed to the Order Management module for further processing. Once the sales order is created and processed, an asset is created in Install Base and the included warranty subscription line with additional duration is created in Subscription Management Cloud. This Inspirage solution takes care of adjusting the subscription’s start date and end date associated with an included warranty item.
Option 2: Manage additional duration as extended warranty:
This option is suitable when additional warranty durations are always offered for incremental fixed periods, such as three months, six months, nine months, etc.
At the time of the quotation/sales cycle, the sales user can capture additional warranty duration information for the customer in CPQ by adding an appropriate extended warranty line. Once the sales order is created and processed, the additional duration is created as an extended warranty line in the Order Management module with a line reference to the product. Upon fulfillment, the asset is created in Install Base and an included warranty subscription line with standard duration is created in Subscription Management. This Inspirage solution enables additional duration as an extended warranty line associated with the same product in Oracle Subscription Management Cloud.
Inspirage can help
Implementing a robust subscription management solution is key to facilitating efficient processes and generating a real impact for your business. Inspirage delivers value to our customers by achieving those results.
As the Integrated Supply Chain Specialists, with recognition from Gartner, IDC, and winners of Oracle’s 2021 Game Changer Award for SCM Service Delivery Partner of the Year, Inspirage is uniquely qualified to be your success partner. Whether you are upgrading your on-prem system or have decided to move to the cloud where continuous improvement is built-in, our team is prepared to guide you on your transformational journey.
