Order Management (OM)
Order Management, simply put, is the process of efficiently tracking and fulfilling sales and service orders. It includes the cycle of people, processes, and technology to create a positive customer experience. The order management process starts from when a customer places an order, to keeping track of that order until it is fulfilled.
Order management software is designed to facilitate and automate the order fulfillment process, reducing the time in the order-to-cash cycle and improving order processing efficiency for suppliers and wholesalers.

Order management software lets business users easily enter and convert orders or quotes, maintain a visual on stock levels, search and identify trends from past invoices, verify shipping preferences, and modify pricing all from within a single system.
Order management products often integrate with Billing software, and will occasionally overlap in functionalities. Order management products may also integrate with CRM software and Subscription Management software depending on the product or service being offered and the number of customers for which the user needs to maintain records.
Order Management Components

Order Item
An order header will contain detail about the customer specifically and will include details pertaining to the account that will be invoiced and accounting details. An order item will contain details of the specific physical or logical inventory items (not available on the header) and any sales credits.
Bundle Management
Bundles are groups of products or services sold together with special terms and conditions such as discounted pricing or special product or service offers. Bundle management assists order management systems by enabling them to handle the complexities of bundles typically seen in the enterprise space.
A bundle is often presented to the customer as one product but really a bundle is a collection of specific products and services. All the constituent line items have different and unique attributes, and may all be provisioned in different ways. An order management system must identify the characteristics of each individual product or service, preserve the concept of the bundle, and then pass the information to downstream systems.
Approvals
Approvals are a key component to both contract and order management systems. In order for approvals to be effective, they must be communicated automatically to the right people, provide visibility to those involved, and be actionable to all participants. When a contract or an order satisfies certain criteria, approvals are triggered and sent to relevant parties. The approvals are typically sent via e-mail, but they can be sent via text message or other forms of mobile communication.
The approval notifications either contain enough information to allow the user to make an actionable decision, or they redirect the user to the originating system where they can view details of the contract or order. Once an actionable decision has been made, the contract or order is automatically moved to the next logical step, and the process is repeated, or it reaches a completed state.
Order Management is like Chicago; it's in the middle of everything.
Processes and Technology around the Sales Order are the critical bridge between the Sales team, and the Fulfillment, Billing, and Finance teams. ATG has deep experience building this bridge for our clients, whether it's done with platform automation or with CPQ to Billing to ERP integrations.

JAMES WALKER
Senior Principal Consultant
at ATG Cognizant
Order Decomposition
Order decomposition refers to the ability of an order management system to break down and accurately track the different components necessary to activate or “turn up” a product or service.
For example, imagine a customer purchases internet service from a local telecommunications company. The order is for internet service, but there are many individual components that are contained in the service and must be tracked. A physical modem is sent to the customer, the DSLAM is turned on at the local exchange, a truck roll may need to be initiated, and the customer may need to connect and activate the modem once they receive it.
All of these steps need to be tracked individually and completed before billing can be initiated.
Workflow
Workflow, or business process management (BPM), is a set of tools, methodology, and training for defining business processes across an organization. Workflow tools allow an organization to manage these business processes more effectively, providing:
- Visibility to real-time status of in-flight processes
- Specific task lists that allow everyone to know what they are assigned and it should be completed
- Reporting to understand the efficiency of processes
A workflow environment provides a number of high-level benefits, including:

Time
Workflow streamlines business processes by immediately routing tasks to the right people at the right time, and escalates if it is not done on time.

Money
Workflow enables expense reductions by more efficiently managing transactional workload.

Risk
Gateway
Often times an order management system needs to interface with 3rd party vendors to manage fulfillment of particular goods and services. Traditionally, the term gateway is used to describe the ability to integrate with 3rd party systems. Today, this integration is common and a basic requirement of all Q2C systems. This integration is commonly performed through web service APIs.
People, Process & Technology of Order Management
People
Seven of the 10 organizations within most companies touch Order Management, chief among them Sales, Operations, Product, and Finance - Billing. The Marketing, IT, and Legal orgs also have a hand in the Order Management domain.
Sales
Product
FINANCE - BILLING
OPERATIONS
LEGAL
MARKETING
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
I.T.
Process
ATG maintains a set of over 100 key business processes to support the management of customers and revenue for enterprise clients. Twenty-six of these processes originate or are impacted by, the CRM: Customer Service domain functions. Below is a list of those processes, grouped by the org primarily responsible for the stated process:
Opportunity Management
Prioritizing, tracking, and managing of sales opportunities.
Quote - Product Configuration
Configuration of features and attributes of products and services prior to a sale. Typical in a custom solution environment.
Quote - Product / Service Discount
Configuration of product and service discounts relating to certain criteria (e.g. volume discounts, geography, trying to win the deal, etc.).
Cross-Sell Processing - Initial Order
Selling a customer an additional product or service from what they had originally requested at the time of ordering. This process is separate from Cross-Sell Processing - Ongoing.
Partner Ecosystem Management
Overall category for Management and integration of any of third-party resellers, partner, or add-on marketplace business models and oversight.
New Pricing Introduction - Existing Construct
This process is for creation of a new pricing rate for an existing construct. For example, creation of a $24.95/mo. plan for a geography that previously had been at $27.95/mo.
New Pricing Introduction - New Construct
This process is for creation of a new pricing construct for an existing product or service. For example, creation of a monthly subscription where previously there had only been annual.
Bundled Product Introduction Process
Configuring and introduction of a bundled product or service to the product catalog and supporting systems. Includes definition of product/bundle attributes, pricing rules (usage, recurring, non-recurring), discounts rules, product/service lifecycle, revenue recognition, and reporting attributes.
Trial Processing
Configuration and management of trial products that do not bill at all during an agreed-upon time frame, or under a certain set of use restrictions. Includes processes for provisioning and reporting.
Payment Processing
The steps taken to process different payment methods from customers.
Invoice Finishing & Delivery
Typically, billing engines produce raw invoice or statement data. Often, external applications are used to package this data for presentation on a paper invoice, electronic distribution, or alternate media. Most billing engines have rudimentary invoice presentation capability.
Dunning Processing
The process a business goes through to initiate collection of a past due payment from a customer. Includes reporting on aged balances and monitoring revenue leakage associated with past due balances.
SOX/Regulatory Compliance
The ability to provide proof of internal controls to prevent fraud and material misstatements.
System Auditability
Provides assurance that source system data is accurate, and a paper trail exists from a transaction to financial statements.
Quote - Product / Service Approval
Configuration of required approvals for products, services, discounts, and pricing configurations prior to the sale.
Order Management - Orchestration
The business processes related to customer orders for products or services. Typically important when there are complex products and services that span multiple provisioning and fulfillment options. Bundling of disparate products, or bundling of products and services (PS, Training, etc.) can add to the need for Order Management.
Inventory Management - Physical
The process a company uses to manage the consumption and replenishment of tangible inventory levels.
Inventory Management - Logical
The process a company uses to manage the consumption of non-physical asset inventory levels including inventory creation and deletion.
Contract Lifecycle Management
Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) supports the process of negotiation, redlining, electronic signature, versioning, and storage of contracts.
Export Compliance Processing
Managing and adhering to the federal and international export compliance requirements.
Proactive Customer Notification - Marketing Focus (New Lead, Up-Sell/Cross-Sell Existing)
Similar to pro-active notification from a Customer Success perspective, this process is specifically targeted to generating additional revenue from information captured about a customer, account, or user that can be turned into a Lead.
Customer Usage Monitoring
Tracking and recording customer product usage throughout a billing period and life cycle. Closely related to daily usage processing, this process can be used by Customer Success agents to find customers who are experiencing problems with their product usage, are not using key functions of the product, or are nearing billing thresholds.
Data Stewardship Across Monetization Ecosystem
Process of assigning ownership and sources of truth for data within the organization.
Cross-Training of Monetization Ecosystem Components
Process for training organizational resources
Vendor Management of the Monetization Ecosystem
Management of ecosystem component vendors including proactive communication of changes and general relationship nurturing.
Daily, Periodic, or Ad Hoc Reporting (ETL, Report, Dashboard)
Movement of data between domains to create a single source of truth for reporting and dashboarding. Includes key metrics such as revenue analytics and other KPIs
Technology
Order management products often integrate with Billing software, and will occasionally overlap in functionalities. Order management products may also integrate with CRM software and Subscription Management software depending on the product or service being offered and the number of customers for which the user needs to maintain records.
Key Order Management Vendors

ESSENTIALS
Founded: 2014
HQ: San Francisco, CA
Company Type: Public
Website: https://www.salesforce.com/solutions/industries/
Delivery Method: Cloud
OVERVIEW
Salesforce Industries, formerly Vlocity, builds on and extends standard Salesforce objects' functionality. Salesforce Industries applications leverage all the powerful extensibility, workflow, analytics, and collaboration capabilities of the Salesforce platform.
In addition, Salesforce Industries provides unique capabilities for declarative, guided process flows (OmniScript), flexible UIs (FlexCards), interface implementations, and a library of plug-and-play, industry-specific features.
KEY FEATURES:
- Order Management
- Decomposition
- Orchestration
- Fallout Management
- Amendment/Cancellation
TARGET MARKET
Salesforce Industries targets medium to large enterprises in the telco, media & energy industries.
CUSTOMERS
- TELUS
- Telestra
- Sky Italia
- T-Mobile

ESSENTIALS
Founded: 1999
HQ: San Francisco, CA
Company Type: Public
Website: www.salesforce.com
Delivery Method: Cloud
OVERVIEW
Salesforce Commerce Cloud (acquisitions include Demandware and CloudCraze) is focused on personalized shopper journeys, predictive intelligence, and a unified commerce experience. Products offered in Commerce Cloud include Digital Sales, Order Management, Einstein, Endless Aisle, and B2B Commerce.
PRODUCT & SERVICES:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- E-Commerce
- Order Management
- Marketing Automation
- Business Intelligence
- Payment Processing
TARGET MARKET
Salesforce Commerce Cloud targets organizations in many industries of virtually any size.
CUSTOMERS
- Burton
- Puma
- Panasonic
- Ethan Allen
- L'Oreal

ESSENTIALS
Founded: 2009
HQ: London, UK
Company Type: Privately Held
Website: https://cloudsense.com
Delivery Method: Cloud
OVERVIEW
CloudSense is built on the Salesforce platform and is an end-to-end, omnichannel solution. CloudSense CPQ offers industry-specific functionality for businesses in communications, media, utilities, and beyond. CloudSense is designed to transform sales effectiveness for high complexity business to business products to high volume business to consumer services.
KEY FEATURES:
- Order Management
- CPQ
- Contract Management
- Product Catalog Maintenance
- E-Commerce
TARGET MARKET
CloudSense targets organizations in the communications, media, government, energy, data center, and logistics industries. Target organizations are generally medium to large enterprises.
CUSTOMERS
- Spotify
- Informa
- Liberty Global
- Proximus
- Compass

ESSENTIALS
Founded: 2006
HQ: San Francisco, CA
Company Type: Public
Website: www.mulesoft.com
Delivery Method: Cloud
OVERVIEW
MuleSoft powers the Salesforce Integration Cloud with three main components: Integration Platform, Integration Builder, and Integration Experiences. Platform, a tool based on the Mulesoft technology, will help users accelerate their digital transformations and make faster decisions to create highly connected customer experiences. Builder allows users to map all systems to produce a single view of the customer across clouds, multiple orgs, and systems outside of Salesforce. The Experiences tool helps users create seamless and customized customer experiences based on the information gathered by the other tools.
PRODUCT & SERVICES:
- Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
- Integrations & Connectivity
- Order Management
- APIs
TARGET MARKET
MuleSoft tends to target companies in industries including financial services, government, healthcare, higher education, insurance, media & telecommunications, and retail, ranging from emerging brands to Global 500 enterprises.
CUSTOMERS
- Unilever
- Toyota
- Netflix
- HSBC
- Nestle

ESSENTIALS
Founded: 2006
HQ: San Mateo, CA
Company Type: Privately Held
Website: https://conga.com
Delivery Method: Cloud
OVERVIEW
In 2020 Conga & Apttus merged with the combined companies rebranded as Conga.
The heritage Apttus CPQ product provides a broad set of CPQ capabilities suited to most industries that sell across all channels on the Salesforce platform. It integrates with Salesforce Sales Cloud and Salesforce Partner Communities. Companies running Microsoft Dynamics 365 have the option of integrating with Conga CPQ running on Salesforce, although few companies do this today. Self-service digital commerce is built on the same platform as the other channels. A Salesforce1 UI enables the use of mobile devices.
KEY FEATURES:
- Order Management
- CPQ
- Contract Lifecycle Management
- Billing & Collects
- Commerce
TARGET MARKET
Conga targets organizations in many industries of any size.
CUSTOMERS
- Box
- Thomson Reuters
- CenturyLink
- Sungard AS

ESSENTIALS
Founded: 1911
HQ: Armonk, NY
Company Type: Public
Website: www.ibm.com
Delivery Method: Cloud
OVERVIEW
IBM order management tools can track orders from inception to delivery, manage processes and data throughout the order lifecycle, and get real-time visibility into every order across all channels. Accurate, up-to-the-minute inventory views and Available-to-Promise data help clients maximize responsiveness and keep more customer promises while reducing financial impacts of lost or non-productive inventory. Embedded AI enables smarter sourcing and fulfillment decisions at the lowest cost-to-serve.
PRODUCT & SERVICES:
- Order Management
- Order Fulfillment
- Inventory Management
- Digital Store Operations
TARGET MARKET
IBM targets organizations and industries across the spectrum.
CUSTOMERS
- Eileen Fisher
- Follett Corporation
- Parker Hannifin
- JOANN Fabrics
- Sally Beauty

ESSENTIALS
Founded: 1977
HQ: Redwood City, CA
Company Type: Public
Website: https://oracle.com
Delivery Method: Cloud
OVERVIEW
Oracle strives to connect data, applications, processes into one hub for maximized performance. With the flexibility of the applications and integrations, secure platform, and uniquely powerful adaptive AI Oracle CX platform will deliver powerful customer service experiences. With four goals to fully connect CRM systems, enhance better advertising outcomes, fully utilize data to develop customer relations, and power real-time customer experiences.
KEY FEATURES:
- Customer Service CRM
- User Experience (UX)
- AI & Cloud Learning
TARGET MARKET
Oracle CRM targets large enterprises with complex configuration, pricing, and approval needs.
CUSTOMERS
- Hunter Douglas
- Bosch
- Mazda
- Cisco

ESSENTIALS
Founded: 1997
HQ: Munich, Germany
Company Type: Public
Website: www.hybris.com
Delivery Method: Cloud or On-Premise
OVERVIEW
SAP Hybris Commerce Cloud is a major provider of omnichannel e-commerce and product content management software with solutions for digital commerce, marketing, revenue, service, and sales. Its modular architecture is flexible and scalable, and SAP Hybris Commerce Cloud is pre-integrated with all other SAP Hybris products and SAP S/4 Hana and other solution suites.
PRODUCT & SERVICES:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- E-Commerce
- Order Management
- Service Delivery
TARGET MARKET
SAP Hybris Commerce Cloud targets organizations in a wide range of industries. Target organizations range from small to large, both domestic and international who require scale and capability in their e-commerce systems. SAP Hybris Commerce Cloud brings expertise and innovation that these organizations need.
CUSTOMERS
- Tommy Bahama
- The Chamberlain Group
- Office Depot
- SPAR
- Doka Group