Tuesday, July 02, 2002

Manugistics V7 seeks to deliver profit optimization in small bites

Manugistics recently announced version 7, which includes web-based component solutions for pricing and revenue optimization (PRO). PRO is a class of applications now being introduced by some of the supply chain vendors such as i2 and Manugistics, as well as point solutions from vendors such as Vendavo. Manugistics claims that its PRO solution analyzes pricing for all of a company's products across its distribution channels to determine the optimal price for each product. Specific functionality includes price list optimization, price quotation optimization, profitable promotions management, and revenue management.

Although PRO applications may be considered somewhat leading-edge, they do have an appeal in the current economic climate, where top line growth may be limited and companies are seeking to maximize profit from whatever level of sales they have. Manugistics is wise to deploy V7, including PRO, as a component-based architecture, which allows clients to implement it a bite a time, realizing important benefits quickly before committing to additional capital expenditures.

Aberdeen has a good summary of V7.