Evolving Industry
The term “quote-to-cash” might sound like a buzzword only consultants or platform vendors toss around.
But at its core, the process is simple — and essential.
John Garvens, Owner and Principal Architect at Garvens Consulting, put it in this episode of Evolving Industry:
“I explain ‘quote-to-cash’ in four words, and it’s taken me years of consulting to distill it into its very essence… and that is, ‘Sell stuff. Get money.’”
John talked with us about:
- What quote-to-cash (Q2C) really means
- Where Q2C breaks down inside organizations
- Why now is a pivotal time for companies to rethink how they sell, price, and collect revenue
What Quote-to-Cash Actually Means
Ask 10 people in tech what quote-to-cash means, and you might get 10 different answers.
For John, clarity comes from simplicity — and that means decision-makers asking simple questions.
“Sell stuff. What do you sell? How do you sell it? How [do your products] relate to one another? What are you allowed to and not allowed to sell together?”
He explained that the process spans everything from configuring a product and pricing it to configuring price quotes (CQP), managing approvals, invoicing, receiving payment, and applying it correctly.
“ At the end of the day, what the business cares about for [a] sale is generating a nice, beautiful document that shows the customer, ‘Wow, it's totally worth it to spend a million dollars with this company,’” John implied.
Quote-to-cash is a full-cycle discipline that impacts nearly every part of a company’s operations.
When done right, it's not just a sales tool — Q2C is a way to unify teams and smooth out some of the most common friction points in modern revenue operations.
But when broken, quote-to-cash creates confusion, delays, and missed opportunities.
Where Most Systems Break Down
John has seen the mess firsthand when companies fumble Q2C.
“The pain points [of a quote-to-cash situation], you could probably distill into three big buckets,” he said. “We're wasting time, we're wasting energy, [or] we're wasting money.”
He pointed out that outdated tools — like spreadsheets, homegrown quoting systems, or long email threads for approvals — aren’t built to support modern sales velocity.
“It takes too long to create a quote. It’s taking my reps the entire week, and by the time they go through all the approvals… we’re handling it in email inboxes and not in a clear, thoughtful, methodical, strategic way,” he argued.
Beyond inefficiency, there's emotional burnout from process friction. Sales reps get frustrated by systems that make simple tasks harder.
“ We've all used software enough that we know what it could be, and we know what it is, and we become quite quickly dissatisfied with the way it is,” John pointed out. “[We ask ourselves], ‘Why can’t I just click a button, and this thing happens? Why do I still have to go through this whole arduous thing?’”
This process complexity doesn't just drain morale — it affects revenue. Pricing errors, missed cross-sell opportunities, and compliance issues pile up when teams aren't aligned.
“[Now], you have additional complications of Sales selling things that the product management team didn’t actually make,” John said. “And the compliance team [is] saying, ‘You’re not allowed to sell that there.’”
These gaps highlight why quote-to-cash isn’t just an IT or sales issue — it’s a business-wide challenge.
Why Quote-to-Cash Is Being Prioritized by Big Investment
Today, there’s a wave of renewed attention and funding flowing into the quote-to-cash space from Salesforce, ServiceNow, HubSpot, and other major SaaS players.
John sees this moment as the result of a broader industry push to bridge the gap between back-office systems and front-office experiences.
“What we have now is the actual tactics of, ‘Okay, if this is the strategy, to use quote-to-cash to go from back-to-front, front-to-back, et cetera,” he suggested. “Then how are we going to do it?”
But amid the M&A activity and evolving platforms, John offers one succinct piece of advice to any business considering a shift:
“Slow down.”
He warns against rushing to replatform just because a vendor sunsets a product or announces a new one.
“The business fundamentals don’t change all that much. You’ve got to make money, you’ve got to make more than you spend, and your competitors are in just as bad a spot as you are,” John cautioned. “[If] it’s end-of-sale, it is not end-of-life. End-of-sale, end-of-support, end-of-life — that’s your timeline.”
Instead, John encourages leaders to revisit their processes, align their teams, and be realistic about the talent and time needed to make major platform shifts work.
“ We're doing business differently than we were five years ago, so we can't just copy and paste what we have,” he said. “These projects are going to take a lot more time, energy, and money than people think. That’s just how the world works.”
And for companies facing this turning point, John leaves us with a quote that perfectly captures the balance between urgency and perspective.
“Nothing’s ever as good or as bad as it seems.”
Craving more? You can find this interview and many more by subscribing to Evolving Industry on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or here.