Global Consultant Giant Leverages Big Data to Outperform

Customer Success Study: Professional ServicesCustomer Success Study: Professional Services

1PB

Global Consultant GIantlEVERaGEs bIG Data to outPERFoRM

unlock Your Data • unleash Your sales

Now deal teams collaborate in real time,pricing teams respond quickly to demand,

and the entire business is thriving

PROFESSIONAL SERVICESCustomer Success Study


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at a GlanCE

A global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company delivering services and solutions through approximately 18 focused industry groups within five operating groups.

Span the full range of industries around the world and include 96 of the Fortune Global 100 and more than 75 percent of the Fortune Global 500.

$21.58 billion for fiscal year 2009.

About 177,000 employees, with offices and operations in more than 200 cities in 52 countries.

COMPANY

ANNuAL REVENuE

EMPLOYEES

CuSTOMERS

Scientific Analytics, Price Optimizer and Deal Optimizer.

SOLuTIONS

Increased revenue and win rates.

RESuLTS


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Global Consultant DIFFEREntIatEs PRICEs FoR REsPonsE to DEManD

oVERVIEW:

At this consulting company, more than 14,000 people were involved in pricing deals, with much of the key data stored in individual computers and emailed at request. With no central storage for important deal information, the company had no visibility into underperforming clients, resource types, and business segments. This lack of insight fostered ad-hoc pricing practices, price inconsistencies, and lost opportunities. It also made adherence to best practices difficult to enforce.

Executives realized that to improve profitability, the company needed a comprehensive pricing strategy that would incorporate information about pricing changes in the marketplace and provide the ability to respond dynamically.

The company selected PROS to supply a full suite of price optimization software including functionality to analyze price performance of historical deals. With clients in 52 countries, this services industry giant needed to ensure its large project teams had up-to-date pricing strategies and the supporting data necessary to collaborate on deals in real time.

Time-based functionality enables companies to calculate the appropriate price utilizing monthly resource and cost information. Because resource usage is not consistent through the life of the deal, having the ability to enter this information is vital to determining profitability.


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baCKGRounD:

The company’s existing tools could not effectively differentiate pricing based on the attributes of individual deals or the skills of assigned resources. As a result, executives were unsure of the appropriate prices to quote. Cost-plus pricing, along with a lack of enterprise-wide insight into fluctuating market demands and effective price levers, meant the company was missing opportunities to increase margin.

Because they relied on offline tools, geographically diverse teams had no access to centralized information that would allow them to cooperatively review the deals on which they were working. Sales and category managers, who often handled more than 10,000 deals annually, lacked sufficient time to focus on strategic business.

PRos DElIVERs PRICInG PoWER anD salEs EFFECtIVEnEss

Cash flow is a vital element to evaluating deals for service firms. PPSS gives companies the ability to quickly and accurately see the impact of a proposed deal on cash flow.


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obJECtIVEs:

If it was to retain margins and remain in a leading market position, this company had to significantly improve its pricing capabilities. To do that, it needed solid business insights, including integrated cash flow calculations to view the cash position over time, which would enable more effective evaluations of deal profitability. This critical data, combined with greater overall visibility into resource and customer transaction history, would facilitate a consistent and profitable pricing strategy.

The company’s primary objective was to provide its sales executives with the tools to quote profitable deals in a timely fashion. The company’s sales teams needed to automatically apply real-time price adjustments based on attributes of the resources used, such as position and skill level, as well as

other deal attributes like geographic location. Another key objective was to have a scalable architecture that could handle a projected 14,000 users and allow them to work efficiently. The company was not comfortable that other solutions available would meet this performance challenge

solutIon:

PROS centralized all the relevant data into one easily accessible, high-performance online system— the PROS Pricing Solution Suite (PPSS). PROS configured reports using the Scientific Analytics module to provide a vital feedback loop, enabling the company to identify and act on opportunities for price improvement. With Scientific Analytics, executives could analyze trends and monitor compliance with the company’s best practices.


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REsults

The company has rolled out the solution globally, with user numbers rising quickly. Early scalability testing has proven to be time well spent. No performance issues have arisen even as the number of users nears the 14,000 mark. Close collaboration between PROS and this company has resulted in impressive product enhancements. One such example is cash flow functionality, a capability critical to the deal review process in the consulting services space. Additional developments resulting from this close cooperation and partnership include time-based deal functionality that enables phasing resources in and out of the deal at the appropriate time, as well as deal level discounts and adjustments.

Deal teams can now collaborate in real time using up-to-date pricing and resource information. The pricing team has taken advantage of the system’s functionality to differentiate prices based on specific client attributes and resources used in the deal and are able to quickly respond to changing demand for specific skills with targeted price adjustments. These actions have resulted in increased revenue for many deals as well as increased win rates where outdated prices were uncompetitive.

The Deal Optimizer module enables the entire deal team to collaborate online without the risk of using stale information to price deals. The timeinterval functionality models deals and provides a monthly view of resource utilization and cash flow— vital information for companies such as this one with long-term engagements. Additionally, access to all deal metrics empowers users to accurately price deals at every stage of the process—from deal creation to negotiation of payment terms and internal approval.

The company utilizes PROS’ external reporting integration to configure the highly customized deal reports that the company uses in the internal approval process. Furthermore, several of the company’s employees have become certified in PPSS configuration. This makes the company self-sufficient in making updates to the workflow to stay in step with business changes or best practices and will continue to keep the total cost of ownership low.


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PRos PRICInG solutIon suItE PROS Pricing Solution Suite™ consists of four modules that work together to get you to Pricing Excellence

sCIEntIFIC analYtICs Identify segment-specific pricing, find opportunities for margin improvement, and forecast and monitor your progress proactively

PRICE oPtIMIzER Create the right price for each customer and product by setting science-based optimized pricing strategies and managing price lists automatically

Monitor your performance and adherence to policy

DEal oPtIMIzER Quote the right price for each deal by using guidance, market insights, and integrated approval workflows

REbatE oPtIMIzERCentralize and manage your rebate programs, and measure the effectiveness on deal profitability


PB8

PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: PRO) is a big data software company that helps customers outperform in their markets by using big data to sell more effectively. We apply 27 years of data science experience to unlock buying patterns and preferences within transaction data to reveal which opportunities are most likely to close, which offers are most likely to sell and which prices are most likely to win. PROS offers big data solutions to optimize sales, pricing, quoting, rebates and revenue management across more than 30 industries. PROS has implemented more than 600 solutions in more than 55 countries. The PROS team comprises more than 700 professionals around the world.

To learn more, visit www.pros.com.

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Global Consultant Giant Leverages Big Data to Outperform