In the modern business world, adopting innovative technology like pricing software is crucial for staying competitive. However, the effectiveness of the technology can rely heavily on how seamlessly it integrates with your existing infrastructure. Get pricing software integration right first time and your organization will benefit by quickly achieving increased profit and revenue. Get it wrong and your new pricing tool does not synchronize properly with other tools, it can lead to inefficiencies and hinder your business operations not to mention data inconsistencies, errors, and duplicates, which can negatively impact your pricing strategies and lead to revenue loss.
At Pricefx, for the last decade and more we have successfully been assisting our customers to integrate their systems with our cloud-native pricing software. With every integration along the way, we have learned a lot and happily have enjoyed sharing amazing success stories with hundreds of companies following their pricing software integration journeys.
In this article, we will analyze the concept of integration, why empowering the various components of your tech stack to work seamlessly together is important to executing your pricing strategy and delve into the vital steps to take to ensure your system is ready for smooth integration with pricing software.
Understanding Integration
Before diving into the specifics, it is essential to grasp the concept of integration. Integration refers to the seamless connection of different software applications and systems, allowing them to work together cohesively. Infrastructure readiness refers to the ability of a business’s systems and processes to support the integration of pricing software. This includes factors such as data quality, system compatibility, and process automation.
In the context of pricing software, integration involves aligning it with your current business systems, such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
To ensure that your organization’s infrastructure is ready to integrate with pricing software (and also continue with post-implementation monitoring, tweaking, and optimization – remembering that working with pricing software is not a ‘set-and-forget’), follow these steps:
Step 1: Evaluate Your Current Infrastructure
The first step is to evaluate your current infrastructure to identify any potential roadblocks to integration. This includes assessing your data quality, system compatibility, and process automation.
- Assess what legacy pricing systems you currently have in place – Before integrating a new pricing software system, it is imperative to assess the legacy pricing systems currently in operation within your organization.
Many companies find themselves managing a diverse array of pricing systems, often tied to various legacy platforms. For example, a company might predominantly operate on SAP, but following an acquisition, utilize another system for the pricing of a specific branch or division. The need to maintain both systems can persist until the eventual consolidation of these disparate ERP systems.
As a crucial component in the broader examination of data quality, system compatibility, and process automation, understanding the number and intricacies of existing pricing systems becomes pivotal. This assessment ensures a comprehensive approach to implementing a new pricing solution, fostering seamless integration, and maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of the pricing ecosystem within the organization.
- Assess your data quality: Ensure that your data is accurate, consistent, and up-to-date. This is crucial for seamless integration and optimal pricing strategies. Transitioning to a new pricing software solution involves migrating existing data, a process that could require cleansing, restructuring, or even manual entry. These tasks, often time-consuming and intricate, can contribute to unforeseen integration delays, lengthening the time to value, all contributing to additional expenses that businesses might not initially consider.
- Check system compatibility: Verify that your existing systems and processes are compatible with the pricing software you plan to integrate. This includes evaluating the software’s ability to work with your current data formats, APIs, and other integrations.
- Evaluate process automation: Identify areas in your business processes that can be automated to streamline operations and improve efficiency. This may include automating data mapping, system updates, and other tasks related to pricing software integration.
Step 2: Identify Your Integration Needs
Once you have evaluated your current infrastructure, the next step is to identify your integration needs. This includes determining which pricing software you will be using and what data you need to integrate.
- Determine the right pricing software: Research and compare different pricing software options to find the best fit for your business. Consider factors such as compatibility, features, and pricing.
- Identify data integration requirements: Identify the data that needs to be integrated with the pricing software, such as product information, pricing rules, and customer data.
Step 3: Scalability Considerations
Your business is a living entity that evolves over time. When selecting pricing software, prioritize solutions that are scalable and flexible. Ensure that the software can grow alongside your business without causing disruptions to your integrated systems. Scalability is key for long-term success and return on investment.
Step 4: Choose the Right Pricing Software
Choosing the right pricing software is crucial to ensure a seamless integration. Look for software that is compatible with your existing systems and processes and offers the features you need to optimize your pricing strategies.
- Evaluate software features: Assess the features offered by different pricing software options to ensure they meet your business needs. This may include features such as price optimization, dynamic pricing, value-based pricing, and rebate and channel management.
- Check system compatibility: Verify that the pricing software you choose is compatible with your current systems and processes, including data formats, APIs, and other integrations.
Step 5: Secure Your IT Team’s Availability and Collaboration
Effective integration requires collaboration between business leaders and IT teams. Involve your IT professionals from the outset to leverage their expertise. Make sure the IT Team is ready and available to take on the pricing software integration task and not dedicated elsewhere to updating your ERP or CRM for example.
Once the IT team has been confirmed as ready and available to work on the integration, establish open communication channels to address any technical concerns and align business objectives with IT capabilities. A united front from Executive Decision Maker all the way through to the IT Project Manager across your core pricing software implementation team ensures a holistic and well-executed integration strategy.
Step 6: If You Need Integration Help, Ask for It!
From the get-go, you may know extremely well that your company can benefit by implementing a pricing software solution, but your internal IT Team may not have the resources to manage the pricing software implementation and integration tasks, or they are already committed elsewhere to other jobs such as updating your ERP or your CRM. If that is your predicament, you may need to consider working with a System Integrator (SI). But remember, depending on the pricing software vendor you are working with, that could come with an additional expense. At the very least, it will be a good question to ask of your vendor as you develop your company’s SI options.
Check out the following article for more information on working with an SI:
Step 7: Test Your Integration – User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
Before going live, it is important to test your integration thoroughly to identify and resolve any issues. Carrying out User Acceptance Testing (UAT) before Go Live effectively lined up with your organization’s long-term business objectives for your pricing software is your company’s opportunity for your end users to test the tool as a whole and ensure it will work well in the real world.
UAT even has its own set of sub-steps to follow that will ultimately lead to better pricing software user experiences:
- Pre UAT for deployment and system integration fixes, any additional training modules and clarifying inconsistencies and misunderstandings.
- End-to-end Functional Testing ensuring test cases work in your own pricing software environment
- Bug Reporting, Fixing and Retesting
- Code Freeze and Final Regression Testing – a final opportunity for testers to play around in the pricing software one last time before the Go-Live to ensure that everything works for users.
- Final Acceptance and Business Go-Live
For those wanting to learn more in more detail about the steps to UAT and how to perform it, check out this handy article for more information:
Step 8: Go Live
Once you have completed testing and resolved any issues, you are ready to go live with your pricing software integration.
Step 9: Monitor and Optimize
After going live, it is essential to monitor and optimize your integration to ensure continued success.
- Monitor your integration: Regularly review the performance of your pricing software integration to identify any issues or areas for improvement.
- Optimize your integration: Implement changes and improvements to your integration based on your monitoring and analysis.
Infrastructure and Process Readiness is Critical to Your Pricing Software Integration
Successfully integrating pricing software with your existing infrastructure is a strategic move that can elevate your business to new heights of efficiency and competitiveness. As we have discussed in detail above, by carefully assessing, preparing, and optimizing your systems, you can pave the way for a seamless integration experience.
By staying proactive and collaborating with your IT teams and/or Systems Integrator Partner, you give yourself the best opportunity to fully embrace the transformative power of an integrated pricing solution like Pricefx.
Now you know if your infrastructure is pricing software ready (and how to get it ready if it is not), check out this handy article below that dives into the practical details of implementing your chosen solution with your third-party systems:
Meanwhile, Happy Pricing!
