Metreo Releases Deal Analysis Solution

New offering aims to help companies make real-time pricing negotiation decisions

New offering aims to help companies make real-time pricing negotiation decisions

Palo Alto, CA — September 26, 2005 — Pricing intelligence solution provider Metreo has released a new analytics solution intended to help sales management (specifically the deal desk) evaluate proposed deals quickly to ensure that negotiated prices meet required pricing guidelines that are well-understood.

Using the new Deal Analysis solution, manufacturers and distributors can look to eliminate costly pricing errors and deliver proposals to customers more quickly by using "real time" negotiation, thus maximizing the productivity of their field organizations and bringing in more revenues, Metreo said.

Metreo said that Deal Analysis addresses three primary deal desk challenges:

  1. Quickly assessing whether a proposed deal falls within pricing guidelines,

  2. Identifying which specific components of a deal are out of compliance, and

  3. Determining how best to make adjustments that maximize the overall value of a deal.
By focusing on these specific needs, Metreo said, Deal Analysis provides three key benefits:

  1. Immediate Deal Assessment — With deal scoring, the deal desk can appraise whether a deal meets required guidelines and, if it does not, immediately see how far out of compliance it is.

  2. Detailed guideline enforcement — Using alerts, Deal Analysis identifies which specific components of a deal are out of compliance, which can be a critical time saver when a deal consists of hundreds of separate line items.

  3. Easy information access — Allows the deal desk to make quick changes or suggestions to maximize a deal's value, even at the line-item level.
Metreo said that, with the new solution, the deal desk also can quickly see information on customer history, product sales and so on during a live negotiation to make adjustments or defend prices. In many cases, this cumbersome review process creates a significant bottleneck in getting proposals back to the customer and, in a push for speed, pricing errors are often missed.

"Metreo Deal Analysis is the first vendor to focus on the deal desk — closing the loop on pricing analytics by infusing relevant historical data into everyday decisions," said Kosin Huang, analyst at Yankee Group. "Focused on increasing the speed and accuracy of the deal desk, this new solution provides a clear source of rapid [return on investment (ROI)] by directly impacting the efficiency of the entire sales organization."

"Manufacturers and distributors process hundreds of deals every day, with the vast majority of prices determined by negotiation or contract rather than a standard price list," said Daphne Carmeli, president and CEO of Metreo. "We are the first to simplify this process with our Deal Analysis solution, which allows companies to ensure that each deal is truly profitable while increasing delivery time to customers and simultaneously increasing profits and revenues."

Metreo said that Deal Analysis packages pricing analytics into a focused "portlet" that can be embedded into existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems or used alone. "Deal Analysis is designed to move pricing analytics from the realm of strategic planning to the arena of daily tactical decision-making, enabling the deal desk to consistently assess deal profitability and rapidly evaluate different pricing scenarios for deal improvement," the solution provider said.


Additional Articles of Interest

— For more information on price optimization solutions from both the buy- and sell-side perspectives, see the two-part series "Finding the 'Right' Price" in the July 2001 (sell-side) and August 2001 (buy-side) issues of iSource Business (now Supply & Demand Chain Executive) magazine.

— For an in-depth look at how Nortel Networks is increasing the effectiveness of its lead management program, see the SDCExec.com article "Closing the Sales Loop at Nortel Networks."

Tax and supply chain management are often considered to be two distinct disciplines, but this view misses an opportunity to leverage the business benefits achieved by an automated and integrated tax department. For more insights, read "Transaction Tax Management: A Seat at the Supply Chain Table," an SDCExec.com exclusive.


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