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
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