Gartner defines configure, price and quote (CPQ) applications as software that enables sales organizations to automate and optimize the creation of quotes and capture of orders. A CPQ application is a sales tool that captures the new goods and services a customer wants to buy or the changes a customer wants to make to existing goods and services. While generally focused on assisted sales channels, CPQ capabilities such as product configuration and pricing must be shared with the self-service commerce channel. The new purchases and changes must be priced and a binding contract must be formed with the customer before sending an order to downstream fulfillment systems.
CCM software is defined as both a strategy and a market-fulfilled by applications that improve the creation, delivery, storage and retrieval of outbound and interactive communications. It supports the production of individualized customer messages, marketing collateral, new product introductions and transaction documents. It is a collection of computer programs that composes, personalizes, formats and delivers content acquired from various sources into targeted and relevant electronic and physical communications between an enterprise and its customers, prospective customers and business partners. It delivers targeted communications through a wide range of media including mobile, email, SMS, Web pages, social media sites and print. The CCM market has evolved from the convergence of document generation/composition and output management technologies. Current CCM solutions include the core elements of a design tool, a composition engine, a workflow/rule engine and multichannel output management.