Boston – Sept. 8, 2020 – Successful control of frontline discounting, identifying key sources of pricing leakage, and optimizing promotion management can provide a significant competitive advantage, but companies often lack discipline in these critical pricing capabilities. This creates variability in realized prices and margins. Pricefx, the global leader in cloud-native pricing software, and Bain & Company announce the launch of three Accelerators – prepackaged and configurable purpose-built software solutions - to help companies improve their pricing excellence.

Controlling frontline discounting is one of the most powerful B2B pricing value levers. Yet, according to a Bain & Company survey, many B2B companies do not provide their salesforce with the right tools and data to make effective pricing decisions. Pricing decisions can be complicated due to difficulties in identifying truly “like-for-like” transactions that allow companies to create guidelines. In other cases, sales team buy-in may be limited – a result of algorithms that are frequently a “black box.” Sales teams may also encounter pushback on price increases, due to a lack of trust in the recommendations and tools. As a result, many teams providing those recommendations lack credibility with customers.

Bain’s Dynamic Deal Guidance Accelerator (DDG) for Pricefx aims to provide frontline B2B sales representatives with deal-specific target price guidance based on important attributes that impact pricing, such as important customer, product, and buying attributes. The accelerator is powered by proprietary Bain machine-learning algorithms that incorporate salesforce knowledge, includes best in class Bain developed UI/UX to help drive desired behaviors, and optimizes approval flows and processes, which together drive better sales team adoption.

“We’re excited about introducing Dynamic Deal Guidance – the most streamlined and sophisticated CPQ solution in the market, backed by Bain & Company,” said Patrick Adams, Chief Revenue Officer of Pricefx. “The accelerator is a game-changer – creating a competitive advantage for customers and building organizational alignment with real data and results. It will improve value realization, helping frontline sales teams understand what motivates behavior so they can deliver accurate pricing guidance to their clients.”

Along with DDG, Pricefx and Bain & Company introduced two additional accelerators. The Pricing Leakage Stopper Accelerator identifies the sizes and root-causes of price-leakage – the first step on the journey to full-potential pricing. The Promotions and Markdowns Accelerator combines advanced AI optimization powered demand forecasting to find optimal prices and markdowns.

Pricefx and Bain & Company previously collaborated to launch the Bain Pricing Navigator powered by Pricefx. The Bain Pricing Navigator offers Bain & Company clients a powerful, industry-leading software solution to continuously assess and adjust pricing based on their company’s performance, leveraging real-time dashboards, proprietary insights and templates, and integration with CRM and ERP systems.

“The launch of these Bain Accelerators is an exciting step in our journey to unlock partner delivered IP powered by Pricefx technology. We’re thrilled that Bain is the first such partner to leverage our technology to deliver innovation to our customers, and we look to do more such partner led innovation heading in to the coming year,” said Joe Golemba, VP of Ecosystem & Partners at Pricefx.

In late 2018, Bain & Company became a minority shareholder in Pricefx, co-leading its Series B fundraising round.  Pricefx raised $65 million in its latest VC round in July 2020.

“Pricefx is rapidly becoming an important voice in pricing,” said Ron Kermisch, partner and the global head of pricing at Bain & Company. “They deliver a tangible advantage for our clients as evidenced by the introduction of new solutions such as DDG as well as other pricing accelerators that further enable companies to set and negotiate the right price for their customers, ultimately boosting their pricing power.”  

Pricefx is a member of the Bain Alliance Ecosystem – a network of best-of-breed partnerships with complementary tool, technology, and service providers that accelerates delivery of breakthrough client results. Through the Bain Alliance Ecosystem, Bain & Company clients have access to relevant new capabilities, enabling faster assimilation of new ideas, skills, and ways of working.

Editor's note: To arrange an interview contact Dan Pinkney at dan.pinkney@bain.com or +1 646 562 8102

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