A company was using up 4 pricing tools to develop budgets for global projects. Why so many?
Multiple acquisitions spanning multiple geographies, each with their own pricing tools and unique twists and preferences on service delivery.
The company had been working with limited success to integrate these tools into a single go-forward pricing tool for the whole enterprise. They also needed the new tool to integrate with their new ERP system.
Like many companies who try to complete these consolidation projects internally, the timelines to complete the project kept extending as other demands on time and energy overtook the team’s ability to focus on this important project.
In just 2 months, I worked with their pricing team to:
determine requirements,
incorporate these into a new template they had already started developing,'
work with operations to resolve conflicting algorithms across the various tools,
beta-test all results against recent and in-progress opportunities,
implement new executive review and project finance summaries, and
program the ERP integration and client output automation.
In this case, the client handled training and release.
The result was a sophisticated, tailored, global pricing tool that marked an important integration milestone for the company, expedited progress in other integration areas (e.g., ERP, project finance), and serves as a platform for more easily integrating future acquired companies’ pricing systems.
Furthermore, to this day the client has spent $0 on ongoing subscriptions, technical support, or other costs related to the tool.
By comparison…
Think of the pricing tool projects you’ve been a part of. How long did those projects run (typically 9-12 months or more)? How many were started and later abandoned? How many were a legitimate improvement upon the prior version? What ongoing costs does the company still incur?
Bottom line- you already know whether or not your pricing tool needs dramatic improvement. The ROI is obvious and important. The question is how long do you want to wait to achieve those results?
If achieving those results rapidly is important to you- let's meet.
