Customers: Automated Non-Standard Pricing

Challenge

• Sales model requires price quote for every deal
• Inside sales was wasting time emailing both standard and non-standard price quotes for review and approval
• Order management was struggling to verify discount and approval authorization level against complex pricing matrix of hardware, software, professional services and support 
• Offline process was not only inefficient, but susceptible to human error

Solution

• Created automated pricing application
• Designed simple interface to create standard discount schedules using geography, partner level, partner account, specific customer account, or Riverbed promotion
• Designed logic to pre-approve quotes with standard pricing
• Allowed inside sales to identify non-standard discount and reason within opportunity and submit quote for approval
• Developed flexible workflow to progress non-standard pricing quotes through a multi-tier approval process
• Captured complete quote audit trail within opportunity

Results

• Reduced the time and effort required to approve quotes
• Improved the productivity of sales, finance, and order management by automating the end-to-end process
• Increased partner loyalty
  and market competitiveness by accelerating the process
• Reduced the risk of authorizing the wrong discount by minimizing the potential for human error