How Cambium Networks Cut Quote Approval Times by 90% with OroCommerce
Customer Success by the Numbers
adoption in deployed markets
faster quote approval times
customer satisfaction score
countries served globally
The Challenge
For years, Cambium Networks ran its entire operation, including its external distributor portal, on its ERP system, NetSuite. While NetSuite was excellent for internal bookkeeping and master data, exposing it to external partners created a massive bottleneck.
To place an order, distributors had to navigate a complex, highly rigid system. If a distributor wanted to buy product lines housed in different warehouses, they had to log out and log back in under different user roles, sometimes repeating this process five times just to place a 10-line order.
VP of IT at Cambium Networks, Mano Sivashanmugam, shared: “The famous line we heard from our distributors was: ‘Cambium, you guys are teaching us Mandarin in 30 minutes, and then asking us to write poetry in the next hour.‘
Internal processes were equally painful. To request a Price Exception (PE) for special volume discounts, distributors and internal teams had to navigate a customized 10-step approval process. The workflow was opaque, frequently broke down, and took up to three weeks to process a single request.
The tipping point came during a 2018 employee engagement survey, where the ERP-based quoting process was universally flagged as the company’s biggest productivity drag.
Justin Jenkins
Applications Manager and Senior NetSuite Business Analyst, Cambium Networks
The Solution
Cambium’s IT and Business leadership set a core guiding principle for their digital transformation: system complexity must stay inside the system; it should never be shifted onto the distributor.
The company spent 18 months evaluating six major eCommerce platforms, including Shopify and Magento. However, most platforms were fundamentally built for B2C and required heavy, non-native customization to handle Cambium’s complex B2B needs.
OroCommerce stood out. During the evaluation, Oro’s team took Cambium’s complex, 10-step PE workflow and built it on the spot using OroCommerce’s drag-and-drop workflow engine. This proved that Cambium could manage complex approval chains with simple configuration, rather than custom code.
With buy-in from the CEO, Cambium selected OroCommerce and partnered with global implementation agency Synolia to orchestrate a phased rollout.
A 5-Phase MVP Rollout
Instead of a risky “big bang” launch, Cambium and Synolia rolled out its new Cambium Partner Ordering Portal in targeted Minimum Viable Product (MVP) phases:
- Simple Ordering: Delivering custom catalogs and unique pricing tiers for every single distributor, alongside a BOM feature for easy reordering. Behind the scenes, OroCommerce’s order routing automatically splits complex orders to target three different global distribution centers (US, Europe, Asia).
- Price Exceptions: Moving the dreaded 10-step PE process into OroCommerce. The new workflow features sequential and parallel approvals, email triggers, and a highly configurable routing grid.
- Unified Quoting: Bringing different pricing programs (deal registrations, spend agreements, NFRs) into a single, intuitive dashboard for distributors.
- Stock Rotations & Credit Memos: Automating the highly manual quarterly product return and credit memo process.
- Promotions Automation: Digitizing rebate tracking and promotional claims.
To ensure the portal didn’t become an isolated island, OroCommerce was deeply integrated into Cambium’s complex IT ecosystem, syncing with NetSuite (ERP), Salesforce (CRM), Allbound (Channel Management), Zendesk (Support), Zuora (Subscriptions), and dedicated entitlement and digital rights management systems.
The Results
By early 2024, Cambium achieved an incredibly rare milestone in B2B digital transformation: 100% of the company’s global revenue now flows through OroCommerce. The legacy NetSuite portal was entirely shut off for external users.
By migrating to OroCommerce, Cambium realized massive efficiency and satisfaction gains:
- 90% reduction in approval times: The Price Exception approval process dropped from a sluggish 2-to-3 weeks down to under 2 days.
- Zero-code agility: When personnel or business rules change, Cambium’s team simply updates the OroCommerce workflow configuration grid. No custom coding is required.
- Surging customer satisfaction: In early surveys, distributor satisfaction hovered below 3 out of 5. After the rollout, customer satisfaction scores jumped to 4.1 out of 5, with internal employee satisfaction mirroring those gains.
- Real-time visibility: Distributors previously relied on static pricing and inventory sheets updated once a month. Today, everything is synced live in OroCommerce.
With their core ordering and quoting portal up and running, Cambium is already tackling the next set of challenges. Right now, the team is rolling out a new tool to automate stock returns and planning another to handle promotional rebates.
Looking further ahead, Cambium wants to use AI to speed up quote approvals even more, removing bottlenecks and keeping the focus on making things as easy as possible for their distributors.
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