Exotel TCO Calculator — Deepak Ruchandani

The Problem

A complex Excel model was slowing the sales motion

The sales team at Exotel was facing significant operational bottlenecks while creating and sharing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculations with prospects.

The entire process depended on a highly complex Excel sheet that required manual intervention and technical understanding. As inbound prospects increased, the team struggled to scale the process efficiently.

Complex calculations that were difficult for sales teams to explain and operate
Heavy dependency on Excel formulas and interconnected fields
Manual effort required to prepare the sheet before sharing externally
Time spent hiding formulas, internal fields, and sensitive calculations
No customer-friendly interface for prospects to self-understand pricing and channel requirements

Impact of the Problem

Inefficiency that hit velocity and experience

The bottlenecks directly impacted sales velocity and the prospect experience.

Up to 2 hours spent generating and validating a single TCO quotation
Delays in sharing proposals slowed the entire sales cycle
Prospects lacked transparency and clarity around pricing calculations
Sales productivity dropped significantly due to repetitive manual work
Scaling outbound campaigns using the calculator became nearly impossible

Solution Designed & Implemented

A simple, customer-facing web calculator

I designed and built a web-based TCO Calculator that simplified the entire process for both the sales team and prospects — transforming a complicated backend Excel model into a simple, intuitive, customer-facing experience.

Converted the complex Excel-based TCO model into an interactive web application
Simplified the user experience with drag-and-drop and minimal-input fields
Automatically calculated core requirements and cost comparisons:
- Required channels
- Call estimations
- Infrastructure requirements
- Total cost of ownership comparison between Exotel and Telco lines
Created a dedicated customer-facing screen that could be shared directly with prospects
Removed the need for manual formula hiding and Excel cleanup

My Role & Execution

End-to-end ownership, independently driven

I independently drove the end-to-end execution of the project — from workflow design through AI-assisted build.

Product & Workflow Design

Identified the mandatory input fields required for accurate calculations
Mapped backend formulas to relevant frontend inputs
Simplified the calculation flow to make it understandable for non-technical users
Designed separate internal and customer-facing workflows

AI-Assisted Development

Claude — structured formulas, mapped logic, and generated calculation workflows
ChatGPT — UI/code iteration and project structuring
Lovable — refined the frontend UI and improved the customer experience layer

Claude · logic & formulas

ChatGPT · UI & structure

Lovable · frontend polish

Outcome & Business Impact

Adopted across the sales organisation

The solution was successfully adopted across the sales org and became an active part of Exotel's sales motion.

Reduced TCO quotation turnaround from 2 hours to under 5 minutes

Enabled sales teams to instantly share live TCO calculations with prospects

Improved sales efficiency and reduced manual operational dependency

Increased scalability for outbound and demand generation campaigns

Simplified complex infrastructure pricing into a transparent, customer-friendly experience

Enabled faster decision-making for prospects during sales conversations

Today, the calculator is actively used by the sales team to accelerate customer discussions and simplify pricing consultations at scale.