Project Kick-Off

I realize this is a bit lame, but here is a long email that I wrote this week. Doubt I will get any constructive criticism, but if you have time, you should add some :-)

Hi All,

I wanted to write you regarding the ‘analytics’ piece of the pricebook project. At this point, I think there has been some confusion on the term ‘analytics’ and what it represents, especially in regards to what should be included in the pricebook project. In my opinion, the right team to provide the definition is the pricing strategy team. I will recap my interpretation of ‘analytics’, and hopefully, each of you can help fill in any misunderstandings or gaps in my explanation.

Based on my discussion with Joe and Schmoe, it sounds like there is an expectation that the next pricebook software will help with creating pricing strategies using built in analytic software. However, it doesn’t sound like there is a firm grasp on what specifically the software will do. Should we compare costs, historical sales data, incorporate margins, estimate market trends, create graphs, what kind of graphs, etc? There are hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of different ways to try and analyze data, but in order to do that, we need to have some sort of requirement on which data to use, and how we are going to use it. Currently, there are no ‘analytics’ requirements established for the pricebook project. If analytics is to be built into the pricebook project, then a set of specific requirements need to be created.

From my understanding, Jack and Jill aren’t going to provide these requirements, and quite frankly, I don’t believe they are the proper users to create them. They are not necessarily being called on as market experts in the field of pricing analytics and software. They are experts in the field of Siebel/Oracle functionality. Based on my discussion with Jack and Jill, they can help determine whether Siebel will meet a set of requirements that we provide them, but they probably won’t be good consultants in the area of current market pricing strategy software.

Before we even begin a vendor analysis regarding our requirements, we (pricing strategy) need to nail down what the exact requirements are. If you ask a tire salesman if you need new tires, then of course he is going to tell you that you do. The same will be true when bringing in a bunch of vendors that sell pricing strategy tools. It might be hard to sort through what is useful, and what is a bunch of extra fluff. Because of this, I feel there are a few options that have been suggested on how to proceed:

1.)    Bring in a consultant/expert in semiconductor pricing strategy. There are a lot of new tools and capabilities out there, and finding the right fit for Xilinx is going to be important. I’m unaware of any internal employees that fit this expertise requirement, but maybe there is someone who is top notch with the most up to date and effective pricing strategy market trends. If that person does exist, will they have time to dedicate to this project? Also, which team will be responsible for bringing in the expert?

2.)    Put an existing team member exclusively on the task of researching what is common pricing software practice today. This could take weeks or months of research, I really don’t know what sort of timeline would be needed. As stated before, there are several vendors, all with different capabilities and ideas. Each will claim to have everything we need. Sorting through the necessities is going to take time and due diligence. This sort of research, in my opinion, would probably take persistence to detail and full time dedication to this process.

3.)    Continue the project without analytics included in the price creation software GUI. This is the route that was suggested in December by my previous team because of the complexity involved in the pricing strategy and graphing capabilities utilized by the pricing strategy team in excel today. Instead of integrating analytic capability, a friendly user interface would be provided to allow easy database access and data extraction for analysis in excel. This is very similar to what is done today. Data is pulled from XPM, Finance (cost), Vendavo, and COMPASS and integrated into excel manually. Integrating all of these data sources conveniently into one environment is a lot of extra overhead by itself, let alone adding capability to create various charts, graphs, and trending analysis with all of the data.

Although I am capable of filling the role suggested in number 2 above, this role will probably be a full time role on its own. The role would not leave a lot of extra time for other responsibilities and tasks. If I take on this responsibility on my own, it would be hard to maintain the current pricebook support role at the same time.

I apologize for the length of this email, but please review and analyze the above ideas and suggestions. I would like to have a meeting sometime this week to make any changes, suggestions, and correct any misinterpretations. Hopefully this will allow us to iron out the kinks and figure out exactly what needs to happen next to get on the right track for the pricebook project.

Thank you all very much for your time,

-Dan Cherry

Next Step

Where to Move??
Over the last several months Erin and I have been contemplating where to move. Although we love the people we have met in SF, it's not quite home. However, that's not to say that we will be moving back to Colorado yet either. Realistically, it looks like we could go just about anywhere and that's a lot of fun, stress, and job searching if you don't even know where you are looking.

So we're hoping to narrow down some possibilities, but they actually just keep growing. This means that I'm going to need to be prepared for anything, which even means a new job of my own.

Social Media
With the new norm of today stemming from twitter, facebook, and most importantly LinkedIn, it's important to stay on top of the game. Unfortunately, I'm not good at this and I have to work at it. As you can tell from my blog, it's a little rough around the edges. So over the next few months, my goal is going to be to clean up my online image. Start to build a niche for myself and maybe learn how to use all these fancy tools that so many people are able to work with today.

Useless Info:
Yup, a lot of this is useless data. I'll try to begin brainstorming more creative topics over the next few weeks. Perhaps my experience with creating a media niche for myself will bring some more creative content in the future. First blog of 2012... super lame. Guess the good thing is that it can only get better.