Medical equipment and devices are the backbone of the healthcare sector. However, as healthcare facilities become increasingly specialized, the complexity of procuring, configuring, and managing personalized medical devices increases.
Many equipment planners and administrators encounter significant challenges because of it. When the standard weakens or procurement strategies are not stable, the consequence can be adverse to the entire healthcare environment. This will impact the quality of care and assistance offered, as well as financial sustainability.
In this blog, we will navigate through three critical challenges of medical devices manufacturing industry that a CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) solutions address. It offers healthcare industries a roadmap to transform their equipment management seamlessly from potential liability to a strategic advantage. This transformation will elevate patient care and optimize operational efficiency as CPQ ensures that your every dollar counts in high-tech and medical-device manufacturing and selling.
The Complexity of Custom Medical Equipment Sales
Quoting medical equipment can be challenging because, unlike other industries, it is highly specialized and complex. Medical equipment also has complex regulatory standards and guidelines.
Without sophisticated systems to manage this complexity, medical equipment providers risk misconfigurations, pricing errors, and lost deals in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Medical devices in healthcare industries often consist of a wide range of hardware modules and extensions that elevate the characteristics and functionalities of the parent tools. These configurations improve accuracy and help automate medical workflows, ultimately driving better patient outcomes and operational efficiency.
Medical devices CPQ makes effective quoting and pricing strategies not just beneficial but vital for success in the medical equipment industry.
Challenge 1: Ensuring Compliance and Accuracy
In the medical device industry, following regulatory compliance and accuracy is mandatory. Failing is not an option as it results in non-compliance, which impacts reputation and can result in legal penalties and hefty fines. Medical equipment demands accuracy and precision.
Medical instruments and equipment must operate consistently. It must demonstrate reliable, standard results as they directly impact patient outcomes. Every step taken in selecting and configuring equipment must follow regulation standards and legal procedures. It will ensure patient safety and product efficiency. Even minor deviations can have serious consequences, making “close enough” an unacceptable standard.
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Regulatory Compliance Challenges Across Different Regions in Healthcare
Also, incorporating compliance in medical sales is a very common challenge for manufacturers who export medical equipment to international markets.
Navigation of regulatory requirements is difficult for those who stay domestic due to continuously evolving standards and guidelines.
It is recommended to always check for updates from the FDA and EMA. It is suggested to have a dedicated team to monitor regulatory compliance-related challenges and queries. It will ensure that the devices meet all the guidelines and standards before they are sold to and all the devices meet the guidelines before they are sold.
HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is one such regulation that imposes strict standards for protecting patients’ sensitive information, such as healthcare and other personal records.
Here is a quick overview of compliance standards for some of the regions:
North America
| Country | Compliance Standard |
|---|---|
| USA | FDA |
| Canada | Health Canada |
South & Central America
| Country | Compliance Standard |
|---|---|
| Mexico | COFEPRIS |
| Brazil | ANVISA |
| Colombia | INVIMA |
Europe
| Country | Compliance Standard |
|---|---|
| All EU Countries | CE Marking MDR, EMA |
| United Kingdoms | MHRA, UKCA Marking, CE Marking |
Middle East & Africa
| Country | Compliance Standard |
|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | SFDA |
| UAE | MOH |
| Egypt | EDA |
Asia-Pacific
| Country | Compliance Standard |
|---|---|
| Australia | TGA |
| Japan | JPAL |
| South Korea | KFDA |
| China | NMPA |
| India | CDSCO |
| Singapore | HSA |
How CPQ solves this challenge
Configuring Medical Devices with CPQ
Configure, Price, Quote solutions (CPQ) in healthcare play a crucial role in addressing these challenges by embedding regulatory rules directly into the quoting process. Their automatic system filters have configuration options based on geographic regulations.
This “compliance by design” approach prevents non-compliant quotes from reaching customers. It creates a safety barrier that sales representatives can rely on without memorizing thousands of regulatory details. It minimizes human error and guarantees that only approved product combinations are offered.
With the integration of compliance in medical devices, CPQ will prevent costly errors and ensure no breaches while streamlining the processes. Buyers and sellers will be confident with the right questions asked and the correct configurations recommended.
Also, maintaining complete documentation for future reference will be very helpful. This level of control and transparency is necessary for seamless operations in the complex regulatory landscape. It will ensure that the medical devices quoted meet the highest quality and safety standards.
Challenge 2: Configuring Complex Equipment Quickly
Medical devices are highly complex and come with several configurations, accessories, and other compatible elements. For the sales teams, these can create bottlenecks, especially when quoting medical equipment that requires input from the engineering teams to ensure accuracy.
How CPQ solves this challenge
Streamlining Medical Equipment Sales with CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote)
CPQ provides dynamic configuration guidance through the right selling prompts, helping sales representatives and even customers choose the right options easily. CPQ software seamlessly allows medical device manufacturers quoting, smoothing medical equipment sales with its complex quoting models that streamline the process between engineering and sales.
- Product Configuration: CPQ solutions are designed to easily configure medical devices and equipment so that sales representatives can effortlessly present them to customers and help them choose the right option.
- Product Visualization: The visual product configuration in CPQ solutions allows the use of 2D and 3D abilities, such as CAD drawings, bills of materials (BOM), and similar documentation. It enables the seamless exchange of orders between the engineering teams and the sales representatives.
Challenge 3: Long Sales Cycles and Coordination
The sales cycle for custom medical equipment is often complex and lengthy because it involves approvals from several stakeholders. In today’s competitive and evolving medical landscape, accuracy and speed are necessary to respond promptly to customers’.
How CPQ solves this challenge
Quoting Medical Equipment with CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote)
Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) solutions help overcome these challenges by accelerating the approval and quoting process.
- Faster Quote Turnaround Time: The architecture of CPQ software can easily manage any complex and ever-evolving product that a typical quoting tool is unable to handle. For instance, CPQ can seamlessly connect to a medical device and automatically generate quotes based on a pre-programmed set of rules. It eliminates bottlenecks and streamlines sales order acceptance by generating automatic quotes and minimizing back-and-forth.
- Streamlining Approval Processes: CPQ software has an in-built workflow that routes quotes quickly through internal approvals like legal review and price validations. This improves the approval cycle speed and helps close the deal faster while eliminating the bottlenecks.
- Integration with CRM and ERP: CPQ solutions allow integration with other platforms in the sales stack. Its seamless integration with CRM and ERP platforms like sales proposal software, revenue operations systems, sales engagement software, and more allows sales teams to achieve fluid sales motions across all sales stages.
- Pricing: Discounting and pricing can be daunting tasks when done manually. By integrating CPQ software, businesses can automate the processes and ensure that prices are accurate and up to date. It also helps track discounts and offers accurate deals to enhance customer experience (CX) and improve sales.
- Selling Through Omnichannel: CPQ is a critical tool that the healthcare industry can use to enable omnichannel selling. Its configurations enable the sales team to design and manage medical device configurations. It also helps generate quotations easily across different channels. It will provide the buyer with a seamless experience and improve interactions with them.
Advantages: The Need for Medical Device CPQ in 2025
Medical devices and healthcare institutions can reap numerous benefits from integrating CPQ into their sales stack. This includes faster quotations and proposal generation, leveraging historical insights for better decision-making, consistent pricing, and improved ROI.
Here are several advantages of medical device CPQ integration in 2025:
Improved Sales Cycle
CPQ software helps sales representatives configure medical devices and quote accurately. This reduces the sales cycle time by quoting the right pricing for the right equipment, improving customer satisfaction, and elevating sales.
Visibility
As CPQ easily integrates with the ERP and CRM platforms, product catalogs, customer information, pricing details, product inventory, and other sales activities are stored in a unified central repository, providing visibility across sales departments.
Tailored Buyer Experience
The customer’s data and ML (machine learning) will help understand the customer’s behavior, thus offering better-personalized recommendations to improve.
Enhancing Sales Performance
A guided selling process allows the sales teams to configure the right solution for the customers. CPQ solutions minimize the additional time taken between the engineering and sales representatives by streamlining the quote-to-cash process.
Reduces Errors
Medical devices and products are used in diagnosing, monitoring, and treating patients. Therefore, they should be 100% accurate. CPQ ensures that sales quotes are complete and based on correct configurations, discounts, and pricing. This will reduce mistakes in billings and contracts, thus preventing any revenue leakage.
Accelerating Revenue
Medical devices CPQ software improves revenue by helping sales representatives respond promptly to proposal requests. This will eliminate the additional time taken to create a quote personalized to the customer’s requirements. Also, they offer customers tailored recommendations to ensure all the requirements are met, which will help loyalty.
Scaling Your Medical Sales with Confidence
According to McKinsey’s reports, the US healthcare expenditure will jump by 7% from 2022 to 2027, which exceeds the average economic growth by more than 2%. These numbers show the rising demand for medical equipment and devices. These advanced medical devices enhance patient care and overall healthcare experience.
This has also created challenges for healthcare providers and medical device enterprises, as there is no room for errors. They need to streamline their sales processes, improve pricing strategies, and improve services. CPQ in the healthcare sector is gaining immense popularity. It allows medical device manufacturers and distributors to configure products based on customers’ requirements using complex standards and parameters.
CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) allows the generation of accurate quotations and pricing based on the customer’s needs. It offers visibility and tracks customer preferences to provide customized product configurations and improved CX (customer experience).
Choosing the right CPQ software can be challenging. Cincom, one of the global leaders trusted by several industry giants, can help you with that. With 100% accuracy and a 96% reduction in time, Cincom CPQ software will help configure medical devices to streamline the sales process without any delays.
Cincom CPQ solutions are designed to solve all your complex Configure Price Quote challenges to ensure improved efficiency and higher margins.
Makes a difference with Cincom CPQ software – A Medical Equipment Sales Software.
FAQs
1- What is CPQ, and how does it help medical device manufacturers?
CPQ stands for Configure, Price, Quote software that helps medical device manufacturers quickly configure medical equipment by calculating accurate pricing and generating quotes by streamlining the sales process.
2- Can CPQ prevent pricing errors and bad product configurations?
Yes, CPQ can prevent invalid product or service configurations. Rules and guidelines will be set up to ensure that a quote for one product is invalid in the presence of another product.
3- Why is quoting medical equipment challenging?
Medical devices are highly specialized, must adhere to strict regulations, and require precise configurations tailored to clinical needs. This complexity, combined with lengthy approval processes and compliance requirements, makes quoting medical equipment challenging.
4- How does medical device CPQ handle multiple custom quotes at once?
CPQ systems are designed to scale multiple custom quotes, allowing medical device manufacturers to respond promptly to buyers like hospitals and clinics, improving responsiveness and sales efficiency.
5- How does CPQ in healthcare improve pricing accuracy for medical devices?
CPQ applies rule-based pricing that factors in base prices, discounts, and regional pricing policies automatically, eliminating manual calculation errors. It ensures consistent pricing and protects against margin leakage.
