Success story: Custom product configuration
by concircle
Optimization of product configuration
A leading innovator in electrical and optical interconnect solutions operates globally and has a strong presence in Europe, the UK, Asia, Australia, and North America. To keep pace with growth and increasing complexity, the company needed to modernize the configuration and sale of its products in SAP.
The goal: faster, smarter, more scalable
The goal was clear: to improve the interaction between customers and internal teams with configurable products. This meant creating a smoother user journey, reducing response times, simplifying the setup of new product variants, and preparing for the transition to S/4HANA.
The old configuration model was a hindrance—too technical, too complex, and not intuitive for sales or customers. A new, customer-centric approach was needed.
The approach: establishing a customer-oriented sales perspective
Together with concircle, the company explored a new approach—the “Separate Sales View.”
This idea involved creating a leaner, sales-oriented configuration model that puts the customer experience first.
The most important steps included:
- Designing a special sales model with relevant attributes and simplified relationships.
- Exploring conFIGURE, concircle’s tool for mapping sales and manufacturing data, ultimately opting for SAP Standard for consistency reasons.
- Developing a visual prototype that clearly displayed entire assemblies, making navigation and understanding easier.
This proof of concept (PoC) also redesigned the pricing logic in a clear matrix format and linked e-commerce orders directly to ERP execution. After validation, the internal IT team scaled the solution to other product families.
The challenges: Complexity and user behavior
- Complex technical models – The existing low-level configuration slowed down response times and made updates difficult. A switch to a leaner, high-level approach was necessary.
- Bridging the gap to customer intuition – Customers did not think in technical terms. The e-commerce configurator had to be simplified so that users could easily make decisions without being overwhelmed by technical details.
The benefits: speed, agility, and future viability
By introducing a separate sales view, the company has gained several advantages:
Customer-focused experience
A configuration process designed for people, not engineers, that makes it easier to integrate industry standards such as eClass.
Clarity & Transparency
A clear model with visible dependencies, making it easy to explain the logic internally and externally.
Performance improvements
Faster response times in e-commerce thanks to a sophisticated, streamlined sales model and SAP’s variant configuration and pricing service.
Agility & Flexibility
Faster product setup and easier adaptation to customer feedback or market changes.
Ownership & Structure
Clear separation of sales and manufacturing models with clearly defined responsibilities.
Future-proof scalability
A solution that is fully aligned with S/4HANA and ready for the next generation of ERP.
By switching from a technically oriented to a customer-oriented configuration model, this global leader has optimized its product configuration, improved the shopping experience, and prepared its IT landscape for the future.
