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Spurred by $13M in VC, Austin-based Zilliant heads down growth path
When Zilliant Inc. announced in July that it reaped $13 million in venture capital, the Austin-based company indicated the money would help accelerate global expansion. Part of that expansion involves bulking up the company’s headcount.
Interview with Greg Peters, Zilliant
Last week, Austin-based Zilliant (www.zilliant.com) announced that it had raised another $13M in funding for the company, which develops software for pricing optimization for manufacturers. To get the story behind the funding, and what the firm is up to, we spoke with Greg Peters, the firm's CEO.
Quoting the Best Prices in Any Market Condition
To help their salespeople win business without leaving margin dollars on the table, leading metals service centers are embracing a scientific, data-driven approach to determining the optimal prices for every quote.
Optimize Your Price Matrix
Business-to-business manufacturers often find pricing for profitable growth can be a daunting task. Of course, the quality and accuracy of the price-points themselves can mean the difference between winning business profitably, winning business at a loss, or losing business altogether. In this extremely competitive environment, having the "right" price is essential for top-line growth and bottom-line performance.
Strategies and Tactics to Optimize Your B2B Price Matrix
In many businesses its common to
find 30 to 60 percent of corporate
revenues being priced through nonnegotiated
price mechanisms such
as a price matrix or price grid. But theres
one big problem that shows up and robs
the price matrix of its full potential.
Profitability: Smart Pricing
Looking over the lifecycle of any particular product, B2B manufacturing executives are often disappointed with what they see. More often than not, the actual results bear little resemblance to the pricing assumptions and profitability projections that were used to justify the development and production of the product in the first place. Everything looks fine and on-track near the beginning of the lifecycle but then, in the heart of the lifecycle, price-levels and profit-performance take a turn for the worse.
Guest 1to1 Blogger Rafe VanDenBerg: CRM for Sales Should Provide the Answers, Not Just Data
Recently, I've noticed an interesting "evolution" in how some leading B2B companies are leveraging their CRM systems to enhance performance and productivity in sales.
Now, like many of us, these companies initially bought in to the notion that with access to more and better data, salespeople could—and would—make more-profitable decisions.
Profitable Pricing: Optimal Prices for Unique Goods
How do you figure out how to price a product youve never sold before and may never sell again? How do you determine the truly optimal price for a product thats built-to-order or uniquely configured? This is a common pricing problem faced by many manufacturers of finished goods and OEM parts, in verticals as diverse as commercial lighting, power distribution equipment, packaging automation and industrial coatings.
B2B Pricing: The Top 10 Margin-Killing Myths
Over the years, a perplexing contradiction has emerged in the B2B sector. On one hand, it's fair to say every B2B company would like to maximize their margins, improve their profit performance, and ultimately, increase their shareholder value. But on the other hand, relatively few B2B companies are focusing their attentions on the single-most powerful means to achieving all of these objectives and more: their pricing.
10 Margin-Killing Myths About B2B Pricing
Over the years, a perplexing contradiction has emerged in the B2B manufacturing sector. On one hand, its fair to say that every B2B manufacturing company would like to maximize their margins, improve their profit- performance, and ultimately, increase their shareholder value. But on the other hand, relatively few manufacturers are focusing their attentions on the single, most-powerful means to achieve all of these objectives and more: Their pricing.
Price as a profit lever
Most distributors are heavily focused on achieving operational excellence. With increased competition on a worldwide basis, improving service levels and lowering costs have understandably been a top priority. Value-added services, assembly and kitting, light manufacturing and vendor-managed inventory are now the norms, and there is not a distributor around who isn't on the hunt for the next operational innovation or differentiator.
Manufacturing Business Technology: "Zilliant Margin Maximizer v7.0 software optimizes price-setting"
B2B manufacturers can set sensitivity-based prices that maximize margins without putting sales volumes at risk using the Zilliant Margin Maximizer, v7.0.
Manufacturing Business Technology's 2009 Innovation Insight Awards Zilliant Wins Best Innovative Process.
Industrial Distribution: "Protect your margins in a down economy" Price optimization technology can help your salespeople hold the line on pricing, retaining your company's precious margin dollars.
"Supply & Demand Chain Executive Announces Its 2009 Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100" Leading business magazine presents annual listing of innovative supply and demand chain vendors By Editorial Staff.
Manufacturing.Net: "Should Manufacturers Be Pulling More Profit-Levers?" Over the last three decades, most manufacturers have been heavily focused on operational performance and supply chain integration. With increased competition on a worldwide basis, driving cost out of the equation has understandably been a top priority. Lean manufacturing is now the norm and there's not a manufacturer on the planet who hasn't adopted some form of kaizen, kanban, just-in-time, or six-sigma approach.
Sales and Marketing Management: Here's a "fun" after-lunch exercise: Grab your nearest salesperson and dissect him on the spot. What do you think you'll find under that polished exterior? What lies beneath all that confidence, training, and customer knowledge?
Managing Automation: "Holding the Line" With a global recession dominating the headlines, the value of many commodities falling, and consumer price increases in the United States at razor-thin levels, many manufacturers these days are just hoping to hold the line on the prices they can charge for their products. For many, pulling off an across-the-board increase is almost out of the question.
Industrial Distribution: "Around and About Distribution" Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC's Mad Money, jokingly apologized (on-air) for twice going negative on Airgas stock. Cramer noted that he downplayed the stock last Oct. 24th when the share price of Airgas, the large provider of gases, welding and safety equipment, dropped to $33 a share. Since then, it has risen to the low 40s. |
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