Programmed for profit: profit optimization emerges, revealing varied vendor approaches and lessons from early adopters

摘要

Fairchild Semiconductor not only spends a fair amount of time thinking about its pricing it also has implemented a software solution to help it fine tune that pricing. In so doing, the South Portland, Maine-based manufacturer of high-tech electronic components is part of a trend toward profit optimization solutions, even if the system it has deployed is but a stepping stone to the full profit optimization vision. Pricing is no simple matter for any industry. Price a product too high, and you lose business. Price too low, and you're awash in red ink. To address this dilemma, Fairchild Semiconductor selected a dynamic pricing solution from Rockville, Md.-based Manugistics to allow it to model and pinpoint the ideal middle ground for pricing. The technology Fairchild Semiconductor uses has its roots in a clutch of acquisitions that Manugistics began making about two years ago. That's about the time that Manugistics, a vendor of supply chain management software, identified the pricing and profit optimization space as an arena in which it could gain an edge on upstart vendors. As well as its more traditional competitors. Most notably, Manugistics' acquisition of Talus brought with it a number of patented optimization algorithms that had taken Talus seven years to develop.