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Case study · Sales & customers

Whoever quotes first leads the conversation

The sales assistant: the quote and the pre-meeting brief

The agent reads the enquiry, builds the quote from SAP prices and availability, enforces the discount policy and prepares a brief before every meeting. The rep reviews, personalises and sends — the same day.

3 daysis how long a customer of this example company waits for a quote. The fastest competitor answers the same day.

Executive summary

The challenge

A quote needs data from SAP, a discount spreadsheet and the CRM — it takes days and varies by rep.

What changes

The agent assembles the quote from source systems and enforces policy; the rep just approves.

Business value

The quote reaches the customer the same day; ~1/3 of team time returns to selling.

Systems & scope

SAP, Pipedrive, Teams, quote templates; UiPath agent + robots.

Illustrative scenario

A B2B manufacturer, 60 reps, 900 quotes a month

Every quote is the same trek: prices and availability in SAP, discounts in spreadsheets and email, client history in Pipedrive, assembling a document in Word. On average 130 minutes of manual work.

Then the waiting: for a discount approval, for a free moment, for Monday. The customer gets the quote on day three — often after a competitor has already called with theirs.

The current reality

  1. HumanThe rep collects prices and availability in SAP
  2. HumanHunts for discounts and terms in spreadsheets and email
  3. WaitingWaits for the manager's discount approval
  4. HumanAssembles the quote in Word, pastes it into email
  5. Error riskAn outdated price or discount reaches the customer
  6. WaitingThe customer waits 3 days — a competitor already called
HumanWaitingError risk

The hidden cost of the current process

The company's most expensive people work as copy-paste operators.

  • 1,950 hours a month of sales time on admin — the equivalent of 12 full-time roles.
  • A slow quote is a lower win rate: customers decide where they got an answer first.
  • The pre-meeting brief happens in the car — decisions run on partial data.

The cost of doing nothing

A year of sales admin≈ 702 000 €
3 years — the same process≈ €2.1m
At growth to 1,200 quotes (per year)≈ 936 000 €

Manual work is an operational tax: the automation investment is finite, the manual cost is paid again every month.

The process after automation

  1. AutomationAn enquiry arrives — the agent reads it and configures items from SAP
  2. AutomationDiscounts per policy; beyond-standard → one approval on Teams
  3. AutomationThe branded quote is ready for review in 15 minutes
  4. HumanThe rep reviews, personalises, sends
  5. AutomationBefore the meeting the agent serves the brief: history, overdues, cross-sell
HumanAutomation

What the automation handles

  • Quote configuration from SAP and Pipedrive data
  • Enforcing discount policy on every line
  • A brief before every meeting — unprompted

When a human decides

  • The client relationship and negotiations
  • Off-policy discounts — a manager's conscious call
  • Priorities: which client, which deal, when

Before

Time to send a quote~3 days
Manual work per quote~130 min
Discount-policy compliancedepends on the rep
Pre-meeting brieftime permitting

After

Time to send a quotethe same day
Manual work per quote~15 min of review
Discount-policy compliancebuilt into the process
Pre-meeting briefalways, automatically

Value model — example assumptions

Illustrative model
900 quotes × 130 min of manual work= 1,950 h / month
1,950 h × €30 fully loaded hourly cost= €58,500 / month
12 months× 12
Annual capacity trapped in admin≈ 702 000 €

Business benefits

  • The quote reaches the customer the same day — often within the hour
  • The team wins back ~1/3 of its time for client conversations
  • Margin protected by rules, not by a rep's memory
  • A new rep quotes like a veteran from week one

Board-level KPIs affected

Quote turnaroundWin rateRevenue per repDiscount discipline

What management gains

  • A live funnel: enquiries in, quotes out, where they stall
  • Price discipline made measurable — policy deviations surface at once
  • A forecast built on Pipedrive data, not optimism

Estimate it for your organisation

hours released per month
annual capacity released

An illustrative estimate based on your inputs. A model of released capacity — not a savings promise.

Systems in this scenario

Inputs

  • Skrzynka ofertowa / formularze
  • Pipedrive
  • Teams

Mientha agentic layer

  • UiPath Agent Builder
  • UiPath robots
  • Maestro™ · Action Center

Core systems

  • SAP (ceny, dostępność)
  • Pipedrive
  • Szablony ofert (Word/PDF)

Human approval: Teams / Action Center

What we deliver

  • Quote-process mapping with the head of sales
  • The discount policy translated into rules and thresholds
  • Agent + robots: configuration, document, dispatch, CRM entry
  • Pre-meeting briefs on Teams
  • A pilot with one regional team
  • Monitoring: time to quote, win rate, discount deviations

What we need to start

  • 20–30 recent quotes with their enquiries
  • Price lists and the current discount policy
  • Access to Pipedrive (a sandbox)
  • Two workshops with the sales team

Implementation roadmap

Discovery

We map the process, data and exceptions with process owners.

Design

Target flow, business rules, approval thresholds.

Build

Agents, robots and integrations in your environment.

Validate

Tests on real cases, exception handling.

Go-live

Controlled rollout with human oversight.

Optimise

Monitoring, reporting and continuous improvement.

Typical duration depends on systems and rules — a single process is usually weeks, not quarters.

Risk and controls

Autonomy under control

  • Prices and discounts only from SAP and policy — the agent does not negotiate
  • Every quote passes through the rep before it goes out
  • An off-policy discount → manager approval on Teams
  • A full trail: who approved what and when

Why now

  • Customers pick the supplier who answers first — speed has become a buying criterion
  • The edge is less and less the price — and more the hour you answer in
  • Every month freezes ~€58,500 of selling time in admin

Why this matters to:

Dyrektor sprzedaży

More conversations, a shorter cycle, discount discipline without a cop.

CFO

Margin stops leaking through “exceptional” discounts and stale price lists.

CEO

Sales grow faster than the cost of running sales.

Questions we usually hear

“Our reps will not use it.”

They do not have to use anything — the quote arrives ready for review, the brief reports in before the meeting. Resistance ends with the first free Saturday.

“We are planning a CPQ rollout.”

CPQ structures configuration — great. The agent closes the loop: reads the enquiry, builds the quote, writes the brief. We start in weeks on what you have today.

“Our quotes are too bespoke.”

We start with the 60–70% of repeatable configurations. The unusual ones stay human — just with the data served, not an hour of hunting.

When this may not be the right solution

  • A few dozen quotes a month from 2 people — not enough scale
  • No price lists — every price negotiated from scratch
  • The CRM has been dead for months — funnel hygiene first

A question for your next board meeting

How many quotes did you lose this quarter before you even managed to send them?

What is a one-day head start worth across 900 quotes a month?

Walk us through one enquiry — from email to sent quote. We will size the rest on your numbers.

Show us how a quote gets made today

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