Why Digital Quoting and Selling Is the Conversation UK Manufacturing Needs Right Now

Smart Manufacturing Week UK is the right place for this discussion. The event’s themes — AI, connected factories, digital transformation — are exactly the backdrop manufacturers need when thinking not just about how they make things, but how they sell them.

Here’s the data that keeps pulling me back to this topic. In Aleran’s Built to Sell research — based on surveys of 200 mid-sized manufacturers — 86% reported losing deals because of slow, manual quoting. Nearly 9 in 10 reported measurable sales growth after modernising their digital selling. And yet the majority of mid-sized manufacturers still rely on spreadsheets, email, and manual order re-entry to manage their commercial processes.

Those aren’t fringe problems. They’re structural — and they’re getting harder to ignore as buyer expectations rise and margins come under pressure from every direction.

The question I want to explore in Birmingham isn’t whether digital quoting and selling matters for manufacturers. It’s why so many have held back — and why the window for acting on it is narrowing.

What I Mean When I Say “Your ERP Isn’t Broken”

I want to be precise about this, because it’s easy to hear it as a veiled sales pitch. It isn’t.

Most manufacturers I talk to have invested seriously in their ERP. It runs production, manages inventory, handles finance. It works. The problem is that the customer-facing layer — the quoting process, the ordering experience, the self-service tools your distributors and dealers rely on — hasn’t kept pace with how buyers now want to do business.

Your customers have been conditioned by their consumer experiences to expect speed, transparency, and self-service. They want to configure a product, see an accurate price, and place an order without waiting two days for a sales rep to work through a spreadsheet and come back with a number. That expectation doesn’t disappear because you sell complex industrial equipment. If anything, the complexity makes the friction worse — and your competitors are increasingly able to offer a faster, cleaner experience.

The opportunity here is specific: modernise the customer-facing commercial layer without disrupting the ERP that already runs your business reliably. That’s a very different undertaking than a full digital transformation. It’s scoped, it’s measurable, and for manufacturers who get it right, the return tends to be quick.

What I’m Hoping to Learn from UK Manufacturers

I’m coming to Birmingham as much to listen as to present. Aleran’s Built to Sell research has been conducted with US manufacturers, and while I believe the patterns are broadly transferable, the UK market has its own pressures that I want to understand better firsthand.

The UK manufacturing sector has navigated a remarkable set of challenges — supply chain disruption, energy cost volatility, inflationary pressure on materials, ongoing post-Brexit distribution complexity. That context shapes how manufacturers here think about growth and margin management in ways that don’t always map directly to the US experience.

I want to know: how are UK manufacturers prioritising growth right now — is the focus on acquiring new customers, or protecting and deepening existing relationships? How are they managing margin pressure — through pricing discipline, operational efficiency, or starting to use digital tools to reduce the cost of the sale itself? And where does the commercial, customer-facing side of the business rank in the investment conversation relative to the production floor?

Those are the questions I’m bringing to every conversation at the show, not just my own session. If you’re a manufacturer working through any of them, I’d genuinely welcome the exchange.

Frequently Asked Questions About Digital Quoting and Selling for Manufacturers

What is digital quoting and selling for manufacturers? Digital quoting and selling refers to replacing manual, spreadsheet-based quoting and order management processes with connected, automated systems — including CPQ (configure-price-quote), self-service customer portals, and ERP-integrated B2B eCommerce. For mid-sized manufacturers, it typically means giving customers, distributors, and dealers the ability to configure products, receive accurate pricing, and place orders digitally, without manual intervention from a sales rep.

Does adopting digital selling mean replacing our ERP? No. The most effective approach for mid-sized manufacturers is to modernise the customer-facing commercial layer — quoting, ordering, portals — while leaving the ERP in place. ERP-connected selling platforms integrate with systems like SAP, Epicor, and Infor via open APIs, meaning manufacturers get a modern front-office experience without disrupting their existing operational infrastructure.

Why is now the right time for manufacturers to invest in digital quoting? Several pressures are converging: B2B buyers increasingly expect the self-service speed and transparency they experience as consumers; competitors are raising the bar on digital customer experience; and margin pressure is making the cost of slow, manual commercial processes harder to absorb. Research consistently shows manufacturers who modernise their selling processes see faster deal cycles, higher conversion rates, and improved margin control through more accurate, automated pricing.

What is CPQ and why does it matter for complex manufacturers? CPQ — configure, price, quote — is software that automates the process of generating accurate quotes for configurable or engineer-to-order products. For manufacturers with complex pricing rules, product variants, or customer-specific pricing tiers, CPQ eliminates the manual work and error risk of spreadsheet-based quoting, dramatically reducing quote turnaround time and protecting margins.

Come to the Session — and Find Me on the Floor

The session is designed to be a practical, honest conversation — not a product walkthrough. I’ll be sharing what the data tells us about where manufacturers are losing ground commercially, what a realistic starting point looks like, and what the manufacturers who’ve gotten this right have in common.

But I’m equally interested in what comes after: the honest pushback, the “that works in the US but here it’s different” conversations, the real constraints that don’t make it into survey data. If you’re heading to Smart Manufacturing Week, come to the session. And if you want to continue the conversation afterwards, I’ll be on the show floor.

Smart Manufacturing Week takes place 3–4 June 2026 at the NEC Birmingham, incorporating Smart Factory Expo, Maintec, Drives & Controls, Design + Engineering Expo, the Manufacturing Digitalisation Summit, and The Manufacturer Top 100 Awards. Smart Factory Expo celebrates its 10th year in 2026.

Alex Sayyah is CEO of Aleran Software.

If you are reassessing how you sell, including quoting – or have questions to help assess your requirements, please send me a message at sales@aleran.com.