Aspire Technologies has introduced a new solution designed to help channel pros working on sales quotes get up-to-date information from vendors and distributors more quickly.
Available now, VendorRFQ provides tools for collecting and comparing information on product availability, technical specifications, pricing, and more from multiple companies in real time through a centralized interface. MSPs and solution providers frustrated by inaccurate catalog listings, lengthy negotiations, and unpredictable inventory levels can use the system to accelerate the completion of proposals for their customers, according to Brian Laufer, vice president of QuoteWerks, Aspire’s popular quoting solution for MSPs.
“The massive business disruptions over the past two years, including the continuing issues with supply chains, clearly demonstrate why MSPs need better and more direct lines of communications with suppliers,” said Laufer in a press statement.
Channel pros can request pricing from one or more vendors through the new system with a single click. Suppliers listed in requests receive an email containing contact information that verifies the sender is a known entity, as well as an embedded link leading directly to an interface that users can employ to specify prices, terms, conditions, and availability, or to ask clarifying questions, without first creating an account and logging in. Users can then monitor the status of their queries and reply to questions from vendors inside their RFQ records.
“In the ultra-competitive IT services space, MSPs have to quickly deliver the most cost-effective and profitable solutions available, and VendorRFQ gives them that power,” said John Lewe IV, Aspire’s president, founder, and lead QuoteWerks developer, in prepared comments. “The platform’s advanced management and communications capabilities strengthen the negotiations capabilities of any IT services firm.”
Available to users of QuoteWerks Desktop Corporate Edition, VendorRFQ costs $20 per user per month. A “reserved concurrency” licensing model allows organizations that don’t expect lots of simultaneous use to avoid the expense of buying one seat for everyone who prepares quotes.
Always a complex, time-sensitive process, preparing sales quotes has grown even harder in recent years thanks to product shortages and shipping logjams brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. Though few industry observers claim to know when such problems will dissipate for sure, distributor D&H expects “2022 to be a lot better than 2021, but not without its hiccups,” while Ingram Micro believes conditions should ease in the second half of the year.
Used by more than 88,000 people worldwide in over 101 countries, QuoteWerks is Aspire’s flagship offering. The system has won the gold medal for best quoting software seven out of the last eight years in ChannelPro’s annual Readers’ Choice Awards. Aspire itself remains a privately held, self-funded company, as it has been since its founding some 29 years ago.
