PROS Latest Cloud-Based Big Data Tool Aims to Help Firms Boost Revenues

September 4, 2013- 

By Vance McCarthy

Big data software company PROS is offering a cloud-based big data app aimed at helping companies increase sales. PROS Step, which uses Microsoft Azure, aims automatically analyze transactions and recommend how a company can adjust pricing and increase revenues.

Big data software company PROS is offering a cloud-based big data app aimed at helping companies increase sales. PROS Step, which uses Microsoft Azure, aims automatically analyze transactions and recommend how a company can adjust pricing and increase revenues.

PROS Step uses data analytics to provide mid-size firms insights into their pricing and selling practices to discover new sources of revenue and ways to increase profit, according to PROS senior vice president for products Oscar Moreno. The tool automatically separates customers according to their buying tendencies and generates pricing that better reflects each customer’s willingness to pay, so companies get more accurate, more profitable pricing in minutes.

“Companies that leverage real-time automated data science for better pricing and selling decisions can outperform their competitors with greater pricing accuracy, greater sales confidence and greater agility,” Moreno said in a statement.

To operate PROS Step, employees simply upload their spreadsheets, he added. PROS Step then applies analytics to examine transactions, prices and product type to generate recommendations for a variety of stakeholders, including:

• General Managers can understand which customers and products are most and least profitable. The app also provides guidance to marketing and sales teams so they can increase their top and bottom line.
• Product Pricers can use data analytics – rather than spreadsheets or price sheets, to increase their pricing performances and develop individualized pricing for customers.
• Sales Teams can capture insights to help close bigger and more profitable deals using detailed pricing and discounting information based on years of actual purchasing history.

PROS Step’s patent pending data science and segmentation methodologies automatically microsegments customers according to buying tendencies.  In turn, Step provides insights on customer segmentation and pricing intelligence to see underperforming product pricing strategies and need corrective attention.

One PROS Step user reported the cloud-based analytics solution offered positive results Alliance Laundry Systems, a maker of commercial laundry equipment stocks more than 20,000 parts.  Brian Stark, general manager of ALS’ Ripon Service Parts Center, said the firm was looking for a system to improve inventory and pricing management. “We conducted extensive testing on PROS Step and found it met our requirements across the board,” Stark said in a  statement.