Consulting firm Bain & Company and pricing software firm Pricefx have launched three solutions to help frontline sales teams manage discounting, price leakage, and promotions.
The three new “accelerators” are prepackaged and configurable software solutions that help companies improve their pricing strategies.
Frontline discounting is a powerful business-to-business (B2B) pricing value lever, but many companies lack the tools and data to identify “like-for-like” transactions and make effective pricing decisions. Bain’s Dynamic Deal Guidance Accelerator (DDG) provides frontline B2B sales teams with target price guidance based on customer, product, and buying attributes. The solution uses proprietary machine learning algorithms to drive desired behaviors and optimize approval flows and processes, according to a release from the Big Three strategy firm.
“The accelerator is a game-changer – creating a competitive advantage for customers and building organizational alignment with real data and results. It will improve value realization, helping frontline sales teams understand what motivates behavior so they can deliver accurate pricing guidance to their clients,” Patrick Adams, CRO of Pricefx, said.
The Pricing Leakage Stopper Accelerator will help companies identify the size and causes of price leakage. Leakage occurs when systems and procedures fail to charge the prices customers are willing to pay. This can happen when discounts are offered at the discretion of sales teams (and without data-driven guidance), or when transactions and services are misclassified, for example.
The Promotions and Markdowns Accelerator, meanwhile, provides AI-powered demand forecasting to identify optimal prices and markdowns.
Bain and Pricefx in 2018 partnered to launch the Bain Pricing Navigator, which allows companies to adjust their pricing based on company performance data from real-time dashboards, proprietary insights, and CRM and ERP systems integration.
Bain became a minority shareholder in Pricefx in late 2018. Germany-based Pricefx, which was founded in 2011, raised $65 million in its latest VC round in July 2020.
“Pricefx is rapidly becoming an important voice in pricing,” said Ron Kermisch, partner and the global head of pricing at Bain & Company. “They deliver a tangible advantage for our clients as evidenced by the introduction of new solutions such as DDG as well as other pricing accelerators that further enable companies to set and negotiate the right price for their customers, ultimately boosting their pricing power.”