You aren’t getting the whole story from pricing technology vendors.
Pricing software companies have made some tremendous advances in recent years, but they seem to be hiding things. We regularly evaluate many of the products on the market, and frankly, we’ve been shocked by the things these vendors are not telling their potential customers.
What’s the big secret?
The truth the pricing technology vendors are hiding is that their products have become much more easy to use and more powerful than ever before.
In the past, pricing software usually required a large capital outlay and a great deal of involvement from the IT department. It was difficult to deploy and even harder to use.
The advent of cloud-based software-as-a-service solutions that you can purchase on a subscription basis has changed all that. The technology is much more affordable and accessible — even for smaller companies with only a few pricing professionals on staff.
The problem is that the vendors are not doing a very good job of making potential customers aware of how good their products are. They still seem to be speaking a different — much more technical and esoteric — language than their customers are.
It’s a little bit like the early days of the PC. Computer companies talked a lot about megahertz and kilobytes — a language only a few geeks spoke at the time. Yes, the measurements were important, but most people didn’t really understand what it all meant. For a long time, it was just nerds talking to nerds while most people scratched their heads wondering what all the fuss was about.
It wasn’t until companies did a much better job of advertising what people could actually do with their computers that the market really took off.
We’re in a similar position in the pricing technology market today. The vendors are still advertising their products in the same way they used to in the bad old days when it was really hard to use. Most pricing practitioners don’t understand what the products can do or what they should be looking for when buying software.
Here at PricingBrew, we frequently get asked questions related to technology. Frequently, we end up playing a “translator” role where we take what the vendors say and turn it into language that pricing professionals can understand.
A few of the vendors are starting to do a better job of letting people know how approachable and affordable the technology has become. We’re hoping that the rest start to catch on as well.
In the meantime, we’ll continue playing our translator role. Feel free to submit questions you may have. You might also find some of the answers in our technology-related resources.
Making Sense of Pricing Technology covers the basics, explaining the different types of tools available. It also provides a diagnostic process to help you figure out what you need, as well as some suggested evaluation criteria.
Many of the tools available have a price optimization component, and the All About Price Optimization webinar looks at this aspect in more depth.
Today’s pricing technology is capable of incredible things, and it’s so much easier to use than in the past. We just wish the vendors weren’t keeping their capabilities such a secret.
Making Sense of Pricing Technology
Are pricing technologies all the same? Do the differences actually matter? What do we need? How do we choose? In this webinar, we cut thru the confusion to help you understand your options for technology-enabled pricing.
All About Price Optimization
The term "price optimization" is being thrown around with such abandon these days that confusion, rather than clarity, is the more likely result. In this on-demand webinar, you'll learn what price optimization really is and how it works.
