Walpole Partnership

11/06/2026

Good to see Oracle spreading the gospel on AI into the heart of London this week. Well run, and the speakers were there to be useful rather than to dazzle, which I appreciated.

The bit that stuck with me was a session on field service. How a household appliance maker decides where to put its engineers. Sounds dull, I know, but the speaker had a line that I keep coming back to - it's like sending the detective to the scene before the crime happens. The clever part is working out where they should be in the first place, before anyone's even called to say their boiler is broken.

The speaker opened with the stat that half of AI projects never get out of pilot, and honestly the rest of the talk was a decent answer to why. The GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) stuff was impressive - millions of scheduling simulations in the time a person could weigh up one - but that wasn't really the point. It didn't replace the planners, it just handed them better options. What made it work was that the problem came from the customer, it actually mattered to them, and it was grounded in the messy detail of how the thing really runs.

Which is the whole thing, isn't it. The projects that stall don't usually stall on the model. They stall because someone picked the wrong problem. Same story we see all the time in CPQ and Opportunity-to-Cash. Process first, technology second. Pick something that matters, build it with the people who actually live it, and you tend to end up with something that ships.

Anyway, worth the trip. Not least for the part where the famous Oxford Street Hare Krishna drums and chants started up in a procession right outside! Everyone has their own gospel to preach I guess...

This post was written by Walpole Partnership's Managing Director, Andy Pieroux.

10/06/2026

As a system integrator, we're increasingly asked by customers about whether they should adopt Conga Advantage CPQ or Conga Smart CPQ (PROS B2B). While both solutions address Opportunity-to-Cash challenges, they are fundamentally different products with distinct architectural philosophies and implementation considerations.

Advantage CPQ is Conga's native CPQ platform, often designed around Salesforce data models, workflows, security, and platform services.

Key technical advantages of Conga Advantage CPQ:
- Native Conga and/or Salesforce architecture
- Single data model across CRM, CPQ, CLM, and Revenue Lifecycle Management
- Reduced integration footprint for Salesforce-centric organisations
- Easier governance, security, and reporting within the Salesforce ecosystem
- Lower latency between opportunity, configuration, pricing, and quote generation

Implementation considerations for Conga Advantage CPQ:
- Best suited for organisations heavily invested in Salesforce
- Faster deployment cycles due to reduced middleware dependencies
- Easier maintenance when business teams prefer declarative administration over custom integrations
- Strong fit for standard and moderately complex B2B selling motions

Smart CPQ originates from Conga's acquisition of PROS and brings enterprise-grade pricing science and highly sophisticated configuration capabilities.

Key technical advantages of Conga Smart CPQ:
- Strong support for highly configurable products and services
- Better handling of large-scale product catalogs and complex pricing matrices
- Advanced pricing optimisation and dynamic pricing engines
- Capable of supporting multi-channel pricing strategies
- Designed for organisations where pricing sophistication is a competitive differentiator

Implementation considerations for Conga Smart CPQ:
- Typically requires a more integration-centric architecture.
- Additional effort may be needed to synchronise CRM, ERP, pricing, and master data domains.
- Governance of pricing logic often involves multiple business and technical stakeholders.
- Greater implementation complexity, but potentially higher business value in pricing-intensive industries.

From an implementation perspective the real question is, where does complexity live in your business? If complexity primarily exists in your Salesforce ecosystem and sales processes, Advantage CPQ often provides the most efficient architecture. If complexity exists in pricing science, margin optimisation, product configuration, or multi-channel commerce, then Smart CPQ may justify the additional integration and governance investment.

The most successful CPQ programmes are not driven by feature comparisons alone they are driven by architectural fit. Here at Walpole Partnership we're pleased to be specialists in helping you work out the best fit for your implementation and in either or both of Conga's CPQs.

04/06/2026

We are pleased to welcome Paul Lundberg to Walpole Partnership as a Senior Associate Partner.

Paul brings a strong blend of business consultancy expertise, stakeholder engagement experience and practical delivery focus. He joins Walpole at an exciting stage in our continued growth, as we support customers through complex transformation, implementation and technology-enabled change programmes.

In his role, Paul will work with clients to help shape clear delivery approaches, strengthen governance, improve business processes and maximise value from technology investments. His collaborative style and ability to engage effectively across business and technical stakeholders make him a strong addition to our Walpole team.

Andy Pieroux, Managing Director at Walpole Partnership, said: “We are delighted to welcome Paul to Walpole Partnership. He brings valuable experience, professionalism and a positive, outcome-focused approach that aligns strongly with our culture and the way we work with customers. We are already seeing the benefit of his contribution in active client engagements, and we look forward to the impact he will make across our projects and wider team.”

Paul’s appointment reflects Walpole’s continued investment in experienced consultants who can combine strategic thinking with pragmatic delivery support, helping customers move from ambition to successful project outcomes.

For more on Paul and to see who else works at Walpole Partnership, visit our Team page >> https://walpolepartnership.com/team/

03/06/2026

At Walpole Partnership, we are continuing our support for Nidec, a global manufacturing leader of electromechanical, electronic drive systems and industrial alternators, and their Oracle CPQ environment, working closely with the European Nidec EPG CPQ Product Owner and Admin team.

A large part of that work is the regular, practical support that keeps CPQ running effectively day to day - helping the team resolve questions, reviewing configuration options, supporting admin activities, and maintaining momentum across the platform.

Alongside that ongoing support, we are also helping deliver significant change requests, that are treated as individual projects. This is a good example of the kind of CPQ evolution that requires both product knowledge and careful ex*****on including understanding business requirements, translating them into robust Oracle CPQ design, and supporting the team through implementation and integration.

For us, the customer value is in the combination:
- Regular support that gives the CPQ team confidence and continuity.
- Structured development work that enables meaningful enhancements to the quoting and selection process.
- A partnership model that helps Nidec keep improving its commercial systems without losing sight of operational stability.

Thank you to the Nidec team for the continued collaboration. We’re pleased to keep supporting the next stage of their Oracle CPQ journey.

26/05/2026

Oracle AI Agent Studio is a significant step forward for the enterprise applications landscape and an instrumental building block for Walpole Partnership’s customers, future-proofing their CPQ & Fusion Applications.

At Walpole, our work is focused on helping Revenue Teams connect strategy, process, data, and ex*****on across the Revenue lifecycle. The next evolution is clear - combining Oracle Fusion incl. CPQ with agentic AI to create smarter, faster, and more adaptive commercial operations.

AI agents have the potential to transform how teams configure complex offers, guide pricing decisions, surface risks, automate revenue workflows, and support more consistent customer outcomes. For businesses running Oracle Fusion it is a practical path toward more intelligent, scalable revenue ex*****on.

We are excited about what Oracle AI Agent Studio makes possible and how it can help shape the next generation of CPQ, commercial excellence, and Revenue Transformation.

22/05/2026

Earlier this week, some of the Walpole Partnership team had the pleasure of meeting with Luca Cavenaghi, Oracle’s South Europe Sales Director for SaaS Applications, in the beautiful city of Malaga, Spain.

The meeting marked another important step in strengthening the relationship between Oracle and Walpole Partnership, and more than ever there was strong engagement and collaboration from both organisations as we focused on aligning our shared vision and building momentum for the future.

A key highlight of the meeting was that it presented the opportunity to pre-plan objectives for the next Oracle fiscal year, ensuring both teams are ready to hit the ground running from day one. The session was productive, forward-thinking, and reinforced the commitment to driving continued success together across the region.

Malaga also provided the perfect backdrop for Walpole Partnership's Sales & Marketing 26–27 Strategic Planning Meeting, where the team came together to shape priorities, strategy, and growth plans for the year/s ahead.

With strong alignment, clear direction, and ambitious plans in place, the few days in Malaga set a positive tone for the next chapter of growth and collaboration.

13/05/2026

Following many years of supporting Somfy’s CPQ landscape, we are pleased to see our partnership continue with the recently signed additional Change Request.

Walpole’s work with Somfy has always gone beyond day-to-day support. Together, we have focused on strengthening CPQ for Somfy’s complex Project Business including structured selling, project-specific quoting, configuration logic, and scalable commercial processes fully integrated into Somfy's architectural landscape.

This latest step reflects the broader trajectory of a long-running collaboration built on continuity and practical CPQ value.

Thank you to the Somfy and Walpole teams involved. We look forward to continuing to support Somfy’s Opportunity-to-Cash digitisation journey as its CPQ capabilities evolve.

11/05/2026

Driving Europe’s clean energy transition requires strong partnerships, practical financing models and cross-sector collaboration.

Last week, Walpole Partnership’s Ingmar Hermans joined the Clean Energy Transition Investment Forum 2026 (CETIF 2026) in Brussels run by CINEA - European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency together with Lieven Vanstraelen, to support the Ainglie initiative and engage with leading stakeholders shaping Europe’s sustainable energy future. CETIF 2026 brought together public authorities, financial institutions, businesses and practitioners to exchange actionable solutions for accelerating clean energy investments across Europe.

The conversations throughout the forum reinforced the importance of scalable financing mechanisms, energy performance partnerships and collaborative innovation in delivering tangible impact for communities, cities and industries.

A special thank you to Lieven Vanstraelen for the insightful exchanges and continued leadership in advancing energy transition initiatives. At Walpole Partnership, we are proud to contribute to initiatives like Ainglie's, that help to bridge the links between innovation, investment and implementation.

08/05/2026

CPQ is entering a more difficult phase...

MGI Research’s CPQ Buyer’s Guide webinar points to a market that is crowded, consolidating and full of promise, but still carrying significant ex*****on risk.

The line that should make every revenue leader pause is '1 in 3 first-time CPQ implementations fail'.

That is rarely because the software cannot configure products or generate quotes. More often, it is because the business has underestimated the operating model around CPQ including product data, pricing governance, approval logic, integration architecture, sales adoption and change management.

The MGI webinar has also highlighted important market shifts:
• CPQ is hyper-fragmented
• AI is everywhere, but ROI is not
• Vendor consolidation will continue

For organisations planning CPQ, Revenue Cloud or Opportunity-to-Cash investment, the implication is simple - vendor selection is only one part of the decision. Readiness to implement, integrate and operate the platform is what separates value creation from programme fatigue or failure.

At Walpole Partnership, this is where we spend a lot of our time with customers, turning revenue technology decisions into workable, scalable delivery plans, so if this is of interest to you, please get in touch.

Also give the MGI Research webinar a watch this weekend >>

Join MGI analysts in discussing findings from the latest CPQ Buyer's Guide, top vendors, best practices, and emerging trends in the CPQ market.

06/05/2026

Salesforce pricing pressure is no longer theoretical, it’s showing up in integration costs, API usage, and CPQ strategy decisions.

Recent shifts (price increases, bundling, AI-driven cost structures) are already forcing organisations to rethink their enterprise architecture. At the same time, Salesforce CPQ has entered end-of-sale pushing companies into complex, high-stakes decisions about their future revenue stack.

For organisations running Salesforce + third-party CPQ, this creates a very specific risk profile:
🔻Integration/API costs (quietly) scaling with volume
🔻Expensive re-platforming paths (often +30–100% licence uplift + full rebuild)
🔻Growing technical debt and shrinking talent pools on legacy setups

When asked what the next steps should be by a customer, most partners will give a predictable answer: “move more into Salesforce” e.g. RCA (Revenue Cloud Advanced). But that’s not always the economically optimal path.

At Walpole Partnership, we’re taking a different approach. We're launching a Salesforce + CPQ integration cost & risk assessment, designed to bring financial clarity to architectural decisions including:
🔻 Quantifying API + integration cost drivers
🔻 Modelling total cost of ownership across scenarios (status quo, optimise, replatform, hybrid)
🔻 Evaluating when Salesforce-native actually makes sense, and when it doesn’t.

Overall this should determine a vendor-neutral approach which is financially rigorous, focused on outcomes and which is not product bias. In this market, the real risk isn’t just cost increase, it’s making the wrong structural decision under pressure.

So if you’re currently running Salesforce with a third-party CPQ and seeing integration or cost impact like many other organisations, now is the moment to get ahead of it.

We’re opening a limited number of early assessments over the coming weeks.
If you're interested, then let’s talk. Book your date/time slot here: https://calendly.com/ingmar-walpole/30min