Tantron commercial proposal system
From scattered Excel sheets to a system of our own for preparing commercial proposals
At first the problem looked fairly simple: every Tantron manager put proposals together in their own way. Most often these were ordinary Excel sheets — with different structures, different formatting and different levels of care.
For a premium technology brand that format worked badly on its own terms. A commercial proposal is one of the key points of contact with a client, yet visually it did nothing to support the level of the product or the brand.
We solved that problem first. And then ran into the next one.
Stage one — rebuild the proposal itself
Managers needed to keep a simple way of working with the data, but the client had to end up with something other than an Excel sheet: a clean, structured document closer to a short project presentation.
We rebuilt the proposal format completely: structure, visual presentation, equipment images, specifications, prices and the make-up of the solution now come together in a single branded PDF.
That solved the problem of quality and consistency.
A new problem
But the larger the project, the more clearly a new problem showed itself: a good document took far too much manual work.
In a large specification a manager had to add dozens or hundreds of line items by hand, look up the right part numbers, and keep track of finish options, images, prices and the structure of the document.
And the Tantron catalogue is complex in itself: different series, finishes and colours, mandatory and optional components, alternative items and compatibility constraints.
As a result, preparing one large proposal could take 4–6 hours.
At that point it was clear that refining the template further made no sense.
Automate not the formatting of the document, but the process of preparing it
Build an internal system where a manager can go the whole way from choosing equipment to a finished proposal in one interface. The tool should not merely hold a list of products: it has to carry Tantron’s product logic, help assemble the specification correctly, and serve managers, sales leads and the administrator at the same time.
Approach
Move product knowledge inside the system
A manager should not have to hold the structure of the catalogue in their head every time, or check the completeness of a proposal by hand.
So the system carries the equipment catalogue, part numbers, categories, finish and colour options, the relationships between components, alternative and optional items, and the constraints and warnings that come with compatibility.
As a result the tool helps not only to format a proposal, but to assemble it correctly.
Build the product around the real sales process
The system developed iteratively. New features appeared not because “that is how CRMs do it”, but out of specific working scenarios.
A custom price was needed — manual price adjustment appeared. The sales lead needed to see which proposals used manual prices — a marker for that appeared. A client had to be shown several options — the ability to create several configurations inside one proposal appeared.
That is how the original configurator gradually turned into a full internal product.
Split the system by levels of responsibility
Users have different jobs to do, so the system got a role model.
The main administrator has full access and can edit the catalogue, the products and the core settings. The sales lead runs their team: adds and removes managers, sees the whole team’s proposals, and can manage range priorities — putting an item on hold, for example, or flagging one that should be offered more actively. A manager gets a simpler working interface: they create proposals and see the history of their own.
So one product does several jobs at once: it speeds up preparation for the manager, gives the lead oversight of the team, and gives the administrator control of the system and the catalogue.
Make the catalogue part of the product
The catalogue can be updated from an Excel price list while keeping one consistent structure of products and their attributes.
This matters fundamentally: the system does not sit apart from the Tantron product — it becomes a working layer between the equipment catalogue and sales.
That is exactly why it can be developed further not as a “PDF generator”, but as a genuine part of the company’s commercial infrastructure.
What I did
I was responsible for the product logic of the system and its development:
The system was built iteratively: from a first MVP to a tool that gradually absorbed the real working scenarios of the sales team.
What came out of it
Today the system can:
- work with a single Tantron catalogue and its part numbers;
- select equipment with compatibility and kit composition taken into account;
- choose finishes and colours;
- use alternative and optional components;
- create several configurations inside one proposal;
- use manual prices and track those proposals separately;
- keep a history of proposals;
- separate access for the administrator, the sales lead and the managers;
- manage range priorities;
- generate a branded proposal as a PDF automatically.
Preparing a complex proposal, which used to take 4–6 hours of manual work, now takes about 10–15 minutes.
But the main change is not only about time.
First we made the commercial proposal a real part of the brand. Then we built a system that holds that level of quality without hours of manual work — and gives the sales team a new working tool at the same time.
Next stage
The system keeps developing.
Planned next: integration with 1C, to sync prices and stock automatically, and with amoCRM, so that proposal data can feed sales analytics.
At that point the product finally moves beyond being a “proposal configurator” and becomes the connecting layer between the catalogue, the sales team, the CRM and the accounting system.
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