In 2020, we launched Margin Bridge Analyzer (MBA) in a trial program aimed at helping customers conduct Price-Volume-Mix (PVM) analysis to measure the impact on revenue and margin of factors like changes in prices, volumes sold, product mix, and others. MBA allows B2B organizations to clearly simulate and quantify the lift or benefit that can result from modifying these factors.
The feedback we’ve received from our MBA trial customers, we’re very happy to say, has been overwhelmingly positive.
They’ve commented not just on MBA’s features and capabilities, but on the bigger benefits of being able to take PVM analysis to the next level. As they grow more proficient with MBA, it’s given them the ability to configure their PVM models to suit their specific business needs, making them more insightful and actionable.
PVM KPI reporting is critical for CFOs, controllers, and other members of the commercial team within organizations, not just for the pricing community. MBA answers their needs by enabling reporting on key metrics at the corporate level, to understand variance with the ability to slice-and-dice and drill down on data at an extremely granular level, in ways that are defined by the user.
We’ve found that organizations that are already comfortable with using PVM KPIs tend to recognize the value inherent in a flexible and scalable “self-service” solution like MBA, and love it.
Collaborating with customers
After more than a dozen MBA Trial projects during the second half of 2020, we gleaned a terrific amount of feedback and insight. It provided a tremendous avenue for engagement with customers and prospects, allowing us to validate customer use cases as supported with MBA’s current capabilities.
Perhaps more importantly, it enabled that virtuous cycle of continuous improvement for the product. We received valuable and insightful customer inputs on how to further increase the value MBA provides them.
Unique in the market, offering unique value
During the MBA trial, customers, prospects, and partners alike have confirmed our market positioning with this cloud-based SaaS solution, and have called out some of the advantages it’s delivered:
- It gives them the ability to design and create their own PVM models completely via clicks, with no coding required.
- It offers an easy-to-use, easy-to-consume UX, especially when it comes to visualizing dataset comparisons.
- It’s incredibly fast versus their current business intelligence solutions or self-crafted tools.
- It’s optimized to run sophisticated calculations on large, even ultra-large datasets.
One satisfied customer, a Global Manager Pricing and Commercial Support with a dataset of more than 37 million rows, said “…I am impressed by the performance of the tool! It is extremely fast! It takes much longer in our Power BI system.”
Vendavo MBA is unique in the market, and some might hesitate to offer this kind of truly unprecedented solution. But to our way of thinking, it’s the kind of timely advance many customers are willing to embrace. Judging by the responses we’ve received thus far, I am certain any global enterprise can benefit from this type of solution.