“The power behind this technology is that we are using insights from the past to inform the future. We aren’t setting prices out of a brand new black box, we are setting prices that are based on historical data. This has helped tremendously with adoption in the field.”
Reid Garrett
Vice President of Merchandising
How Do Vendavo and Pricefx Stack Up?
Evaluating vendors of business software can be like wandering through Alice’s wonderland, where, often, things appear different than they are in reality. Take, for instance, the proposal process: a solution provider responds to your RFP with a brilliant package, priced just under the budget you cited and checking off all your requirement boxes. A perfect fit! Yet, after the contracts have been signed and it’s time to do the hard work, their rosy projections masked a maze of hurdles and uncertainty. You’re left to navigate the path ahead with little support beyond expensive consultants.
As a leader in enterprise pricing solutions for over two decades, Vendavo has tackled an array of complex challenges with our customers, from economic downturns to transforming how Fortune 10 companies price their products to achieve bottom-line revenue growth.
The People
It’s More Than Software
Most pricing and selling software companies will tout the benefits your business can achieve with the features and functions of their product but as anyone who has gone through a pricing transformation at their organization will tell you, there’s a lot more to a successful pricing project than implementing software.
Software alone is not going to allow you to realize a return on your investment. Implementing new technology can seem risky with many holes you can fall into along the way. Successful businesses need to feel confident that they can navigate the change management necessary to see success. Choose a vendor who has a team of experts who have been in your shoes and have seen success in the role you’re in today.
Blindly applying a one-size-fits-most approach like Pricef(x) does not take into account the nuances of your specific business. By having a team with deep experience in pricing, CPQ and rebate management, Vendavo can ensure that our solutions meet your specific needs. We’re going to walk alongside you every step of the process to ensure you see success. Whereas, Pricef(x) users often report a lack of understanding by the project team during implementation.
At Vendavo, we’ve helped industry leaders like Ford, Dell, and Medtronic undergo digital transformations and have the in-house expertise to anticipate your unique business challenges with a defined process to understand your needs and plan accordingly. Additionally, our Value Acceleration team stays with you for each step of your journey to ensure your business realizes its commercial goals through continual measurement and refinement.
By contrast, Pricefx users describe functionalities that had to be “designed from scratch” and recommend hiring “external help” (read: consulting companies) in the stand-up phase.
$26M
Average Bottom Line Benefits for Customers
The Process
Those Who Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail
There’s an inconvenient truth lurking in the background of any pricing project – sometimes this stuff is hard! And, these projects have a lot of visibility in your organization. Do it right and you will look like a hero. Get it wrong and it could be a career limiter. You should work with a vendor who has a proven, easy to understand process that will de-risk the project, accelerate time to value, and lead you to that gold medal you want to earn.
Vendavo has developed a 3-step process, that we call The Vendavo Way, to make sure there’s clarity and efficiency at each stage of your pricing transformation journey. The Vendavo Way starts even before you become a customer, leads you through discovery and onboarding, and allows you to maximize the ROI you’re getting. It’s not a situation where you’re going to stand up the software and hand over the keys. We will be right by your side every step of the way. You’ll have a plan. You’ll know what to do next. You’ll feel confident that your team is on the right path.
The Technology
Leading, AI-Embedded Solutions Built for Enterprise
Vendavo’s enduring presence in the enterprise pricing field has resulted in an AI pricing solution set designed from the ground up for large manufacturers and distributors tackling the challenges of the middle office like:
- Highly volatile input costs
- Lack of deal-specific pricing
- Administering and tracking price increases
- Understanding cost-to-serve activities
- Limited segmentation in pricing
While Pricefx customers could struggle with a lack of advanced pricing algorithms and problems with large datasets, Vendavo’s pricing and selling solutions were built for large enterprises, with the ability to handle product lines with hundreds of thousands of SKUs, incorporate real-time data, and produce analyses of millions of transaction records. Because we are laser focused on solving the challenges faced in industrial businesses, Vendavo’s out-of-the-box pricing playbooks and prescriptive analytics were engineered to give the B2B user a leg-up in advancing their revenue goals.
Gartner cites Pricefx’s solution as “an option for companies that sell nonconfigurable products” [emphasis added], but you only have to look as far as PriceFx’s customer list to understand the scale their solutions allow.
AI You Can Trust
Many companies tout their AI capabilities to appear forward-thinking but struggle to explain how artificial intelligence helps deliver value to their customers. Vendavo’s unique Centaur AI emphasizes the value of human perspective in evaluating AI-generated insights, allowing real-world and business-specific understanding to affect how algorithms perform. Whether it’s our patented Power & Risk algorithm featured in Vendavo Deal Price Optimizer or the highly personalized cross-sell recommendations generated by Vendavo Sales Optimizer, our customers use the power and time-saving capabilities of AI/ML while keeping the understanding and control over how it generates value for your business.
Compare that with IDC’s assessment of Pricefx’s machine learning capabilities calling out “[Pricefx’s] customers wanted more descriptive and predictive insights to better understand customer behavior.”
It can be hard to discern fact from fiction when comparing competing proposals but when you look behind the fantastical forecasts, you may find the projected route more curious.
Is a Pricefx alternative right for you?
For some companies looking to maximize their revenue and margins, Pricefx’s reliance on third-party consultants and out-of-the-box solutions may be fine. But if your business is looking for an experienced partner to guide you toward profitable outcomes with enterprise-grade solutions to match, there’s only one choice: Vendavo.