HOUSTON, Jan 18, 2011 – PROS, the world leader in enterprise business-to-business pricing and margin optimization software, today announced it will showcase its energy industry solution at the Microsoft Global Energy Forum 2011 in Houston, TX, on January 18. At this event, PROS is showcasing how they are working together with Microsoft to enable customers to improve control, visibility and agility while realizing the most profitable pricing for market conditions.
“Our relationship with PROS reflects our commitment to helping our customers leverage their existing Microsoft Enterprise Applications to realize the power of pricing optimization,” said Craig Hodges, general manager of U.S. Manufacturing and Resources at Microsoft. “We are excited for PROS to share their solution during this year’s Global Energy Forum, allowing attendees to obtain a first-hand look at their industry-specific technologies.”
The PROS Pricing Solution Suite combines prescriptive pricing analytics and optimization capabilities with the power of Microsoft SQL Server 2008. The solution works seamlessly with Microsoft Office and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007, to provide powerful pricing capabilities to customers in a familiar context. Price optimization provides energy companies with a strategic competitive advantage, minimizes risk and increases profit margins, making it a key lever for corporate success. To effectively pull this lever, companies must not only have the right pricing strategy — one that relies on insight into customer buying behavior, cost changes, and market trends — but they must also execute that strategy with speed, precision and accuracy.
“Our key alliance with Microsoft is an example of PROS commitment to broadening the reach of our prescriptive pricing solutions,” commented Tim Girgenti, Chief Marketing Officer, PROS. “PROS continues to focus on integration with tools our customers are already using and offer innovative ways to harness the power and promise of pricing.”
The importance of setting the right price is profound in a commodity products industry, where competitor prices tend to be within narrow band, and margin of error for pricing decisions is very small. Price optimization enables companies that offer commodity products to capitalize on differentiation through product customization, service levels, product quality, delivery, marketing support, and more. PROS has implemented solutions in many commodity industries, including downstream petroleum, chemicals, and paper.