The client had relied on CAS's on-premise CPQ tool for over a decade. Growing demands and infrastructure limitations required a move to cloud-native — built on standard platforms (SmartWe CRM + CAS Merlin CPQ), integrated with multiple third-party services, and deployed outside CAS infrastructure for the first time. Two parallel workstreams served different business units, each with their own requirements and timelines.
I sat at the intersection of the client-facing project unit and SmartWe product management — coordinating across solution and standard development teams. As PO for the solution team, I prioritised and specified requirements outside the standard platform, including integrations with a centralised customer database, a third-party DMS, and a custom news feature. I maintained regular touchpoints with UX, PM, and the CAS Merlin CPQ unit to ensure cross-workstream consistency.
EU directive 2014/55/EU requires fully digital invoices by 2028. CAS, as a CRM leader for mid-size companies in Germany, decided to implement early to give customers sufficient time for adoption. The solution had to work across all CAS platforms, not just SmartWe.
The open-source Mustang library had limitations — missing specialised invoicing fields and outdated IDs — requiring custom code and eventually a decision to fork the library, increasing maintenance overhead. A key retrospective learning on library evaluation before committing.