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Oracle seems intent on acquiring companies in areas other than its bread-and-butter, on-premises database and middleware businesses.
On Oct. 23, the world’s second-largest software company by revenue revealed that it will acquire 13-year-old BigMachines, a cloud-based configure, price and quote (CPQ) service provider. Oracle did not divulge financial details of the transaction, which isn’t expected to close until the end of the year. Business Insider estimated that the transaction will cost Oracle about $400 million.
In the last 12 months, Oracle has bought companies involved in networking (Acme Packet), content marketing (Compendium) and networking signaling and policy controls (Tekelec).
BigMachines’ CPQ Cloud plugs a hole in the Oracle cloud services lineup. The service accelerates the conversion of sales opportunities into revenue by automating the sales order process with guided selling, dynamic pricing and an intuitive workflow approval process, accessible via any connected device.
Oracle said that more than 275 organizations of all sizes across a wide range of industries currently use CPQ Cloud to streamline their sales processes.
Companies that use sales automation technology often rely on manual, cumbersome and disconnected processes to convert opportunities into orders. This often creates errors, adds costs, delays revenue and degrades the customer experience.
BigMachines’ CPQ cloud extends sales automation to include the creation of an optimal quote, which enables sales personnel to configure and price complex products, select the best options, promotions and deal terms, and include up sell and renewals, all using automated workflows.
In combination with Oracle’s enterprise-grade cloud solutions, including Marketing, Sales, Social, Commerce and Service Clouds, Oracle and BigMachines will create an end-to-end smarter selling cloud solution so sales personnel are more productive, customers are more satisfied and companies grow revenue faster.
BigMachines is based in Deerfield, Ill.
Interestingly, Oracle’s chief competitor, Salesforce, doesn’t own a CPQ feature. The Salesforce AppExchange carries two third-party providers: IBM Sterling Configure and Apttus.
Apttus was one of the first applications built on the Force.com platform, and it has a 5-star rating on the AppExchange. It is BigMachines’ closest competitor, and CPQ is a major part of its quote-to-cash solution.