Summary

A global agribusiness and food company with more than 32,000 employees, operating across food, feed, and fuel to connect farmers to consumers, relied on an SAP-based quoting and contracting process that was slow and fragmented. Multiple system dependencies caused delays, and users struggled to configure the many different quote and contract types the business required.

Marlabs designed and implemented a unified platform on Salesforce Sales Cloud that consolidated quoting and contracting into a single interface, integrating with SAP and SharePoint to automate workflows, ensure pricing accuracy, and enable quote-to-contract conversion. The solution cut the contracting cycle from 60 days to 15 days, drove 100 percent user adoption, and now captures 100 percent of bid volume across the entire negotiation lifecycle.

Challenge

The client's request for proposal (RFP) process ran on an SAP-based quoting and contracting workflow that was slow, fragmented, and dependent on multiple disconnected systems. There was no single view of customer quotes, and the prices offered could not be effectively tracked against guidance from the pricing engine, which led to inconsistencies and low confidence in the process.

Sales users had to work across fragmented, Excel-based steps and struggled to configure the different quote and contract types the agribusiness needed. The absence of a unified interface and reliable price tracking created delays, inefficiencies, and a lack of governance over pricing throughout the negotiation cycle. The client needed a single, automated platform that could standardize quote creation, contract generation, and pricing analytics while integrating cleanly with existing SAP and SharePoint systems.

Solution

Marlabs designed and implemented a unified Salesforce platform that streamlined quoting and contracting into a single interface, reducing delays. Automated workflows and SAP pricing integration ensured accuracy, consistency, and compliance, while sales teams gained full visibility through quote tracking, pricing analytics, and faster quote-to-contract conversion. The work was delivered across four phases.

Quote Creation and Configuration

Marlabs built a unified interface on Salesforce Sales Cloud that let the client create, configure, and convert quotes in one place, supporting the multiple quote types tailored to its business needs. This replaced fragmented, multi-system steps with a single, guided experience for sales users. The interface established quote-to-contract conversion as a native capability, removing the manual handoffs that had previously slowed the process.

Pricing and Freight Integration

The team integrated SAP and connected SharePoint and SAP rail freight systems to enable real-time pricing, complex price calculations, and streamlined logistics cost estimation. SAP and CME pricing integration ensured that prices offered could be tracked against pricing-engine guidance, closing the governance gap that had eroded confidence. Freight cost connectivity brought logistics estimates into the same workflow, so quotes reflected accurate, end-to-end costs.

Contracting and Submission

Marlabs enabled the creation of multiple contract types and automated submission to SAP, with PDF output generation and consistent documentation templates. Dynamic output template configuration standardized the documents produced at the close of each negotiation. Automated SAP submission eliminated re-keying and manual routing, accelerating the move from agreed quote to executed contract.

Analytics and Workflow Automation

The team implemented product lifecycle management (PLM) workflows, gross profit and market swing alerts, and analytics dashboards to manage product lifecycle, pricing integrity, and negotiation trends. Pricing integrity alerting flagged deviations from guidance in real time, protecting margin during active negotiations. Negotiation trend dashboards gave management continuous visibility into pipeline and bidding activity across the organization.

Results

The unified solution streamlined the RFP process and enabled pricing analytics that improved adherence to pricing guidance. Standardized processes accelerated turnaround times, increased sales productivity, and supported revenue growth, while the platform achieved 100 percent bid volume capture across the complete negotiation lifecycle along with 100 percent user adoption.

A unified Salesforce-based platform cut the contracting cycle from 60 days to 15 days and reduced payer contractual time by 50 percent, eliminating delays from fragmented Excel-based processes and disconnected systems. Integrated pricing analytics and pricing engine connectivity improved adherence to pricing guidance, standardized calculations, and reduced inconsistencies in RFP creation. Cross-functional teams could collaborate on a single RFP through structured task management, milestone tracking, approval workflows, and version-controlled negotiations.

Faster customer response times, optimized pricing strategies, offer-based upselling, and full visibility into negotiations contributed to increased bid volume, improved win rates, and sustained revenue growth. The standardized, high-quality data captured throughout the RFP lifecycle also established a strong foundation for future AI-driven use cases, analytics, and intelligent automation. The client rated the engagement a perfect 5 out of 5 across every satisfaction metric, including partner engagement, overall value, team performance, solutions communication, risk management, and producing outcomes.

Impact

The engagement produced measurable, organization-wide gains across speed, governance, adoption, and revenue:

• Cut the contracting cycle from 60 days to 15 days and reduced payer contractual time by 50 percent.

• Achieved 100 percent user adoption and captures 100 percent of bid volume across the complete negotiation lifecycle.

• Improved pricing accuracy and governance through integrated analytics and pricing engine connectivity, reducing inconsistencies in RFP creation.

• Enabled cross-functional collaboration on a single RFP through structured task management, milestone tracking, approval workflows, and version-controlled negotiations.

• Drove increased bid volume, improved win rates, and sustained revenue growth through faster response times and optimized pricing.

• Established an AI-ready data foundation from standardized, high-quality RFP data, and earned a perfect 5 out of 5 client satisfaction score across all metrics.