We have two decades of experience, we revolutionize revenue technology, steering companies away from outdated tools towards sophisticated data environments and AI analytics. Sam Rosenberg, Partner at our Pricing, Sales and Marketing Practice highlights that in today's evolving market landscape, it's crucial for businesses to refine their strategy and bolster their go-to-market initiatives with advanced technology. This enables targeted pricing, customized messaging, and nuanced customer journey management.

With over 10,000 companies offering diverse solutions, the need for adaptation and innovation in this domain is pressing. Sam provides four key recommendations to navigate these waters: robust data analytics, engaging field teams, developing customer-centric processes, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Implementing these strategies is essential for securing a competitive edge in customer engagement and enhancing commercial success.

I’m Sam Rosenberg, a Partner at Oliver Wyman focusing on applications of digital, data, analytics and enterprise architecture to pricing, sales and marketing capabilities. In my 20 years at the firm, I have helped companies from a range of sectors develop their commercial strategies and supporting technology enablement.

There are all types of technologies that promise to help businesses steer their salesforces, determine prices and promotions, and market themselves more effectively. We call this space Revenue Technology. There are over 10,000 companies with solutions, and the market is growing at 5% per year. The array of options is huge — it can be pretty confusing.

To win, companies need to vastly improve the way they navigate the revenue technology landscape, make smart build versus buy decisions, focus on impact, and win hearts and minds of the salesforce along the way. I have four recommendations for doing that.

First, emphasize powerful and pragmatic data analytics. Especially as we are now leveraging generative AI to enable more advanced insights, the bedrock of all good commercial platforms is solid customer, product and transaction data to make these meaningful. A good example is sales targeting, cross-sell and upsell. If companies build and enrich data on their customers and prospects, it is then possible to build on top of these powerful propensity modeling and account-based marketing. Building the right data foundations and core insights on the sales funnel is a critical first step.

Number two is to construct clear magnetic processes. There are many powerful platforms on the market that offer dashboards, integrations, and user interfaces. But they don’t always fit well into the workflows of your front-line reps. My recommendation to clients is to focus first on the processes that you are looking to improve, and then build the tools around them. Make the technology work for the business behaviors you are looking to improve, not the other way around. Engage the field to generate pull change and make the impact sustainable.

Three is to build a capability of constant testing, learning and improvement. The truth about the journey to world-class commercial is that you are never as good as you could be. Run good quality tests, build rapidly, fail fast, and seek to truly understand the impact of changing messages, price points, and behaviors.

My final recommendation is to make smart buy, build, and integrate decisions. With the proliferation of solutions, that’s a big challenge. Leading organizations carefully evaluate their internal capabilities, assess the market landscape, and identify strategic partnerships to ensure they have the right mix of solutions to meet their unique needs and maximize the value they derive from revenue technology investments.

Implementing these four recommendations is crucial for any organization, given what a pivotal role revenue technology plays in enabling improved pricing, sales, and marketing. Embracing it is no longer an option for businesses — it’s a necessity. I’m Sam Rosenberg and this is my take on revenue technology.

The transcript has been edited for clarity.

We have two decades of experience, we revolutionize revenue technology, steering companies away from outdated tools towards sophisticated data environments and AI analytics. Sam Rosenberg, Partner at our Pricing, Sales and Marketing Practice highlights that in today's evolving market landscape, it's crucial for businesses to refine their strategy and bolster their go-to-market initiatives with advanced technology. This enables targeted pricing, customized messaging, and nuanced customer journey management.

With over 10,000 companies offering diverse solutions, the need for adaptation and innovation in this domain is pressing. Sam provides four key recommendations to navigate these waters: robust data analytics, engaging field teams, developing customer-centric processes, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Implementing these strategies is essential for securing a competitive edge in customer engagement and enhancing commercial success.

I’m Sam Rosenberg, a Partner at Oliver Wyman focusing on applications of digital, data, analytics and enterprise architecture to pricing, sales and marketing capabilities. In my 20 years at the firm, I have helped companies from a range of sectors develop their commercial strategies and supporting technology enablement.

There are all types of technologies that promise to help businesses steer their salesforces, determine prices and promotions, and market themselves more effectively. We call this space Revenue Technology. There are over 10,000 companies with solutions, and the market is growing at 5% per year. The array of options is huge — it can be pretty confusing.

To win, companies need to vastly improve the way they navigate the revenue technology landscape, make smart build versus buy decisions, focus on impact, and win hearts and minds of the salesforce along the way. I have four recommendations for doing that.

First, emphasize powerful and pragmatic data analytics. Especially as we are now leveraging generative AI to enable more advanced insights, the bedrock of all good commercial platforms is solid customer, product and transaction data to make these meaningful. A good example is sales targeting, cross-sell and upsell. If companies build and enrich data on their customers and prospects, it is then possible to build on top of these powerful propensity modeling and account-based marketing. Building the right data foundations and core insights on the sales funnel is a critical first step.

Number two is to construct clear magnetic processes. There are many powerful platforms on the market that offer dashboards, integrations, and user interfaces. But they don’t always fit well into the workflows of your front-line reps. My recommendation to clients is to focus first on the processes that you are looking to improve, and then build the tools around them. Make the technology work for the business behaviors you are looking to improve, not the other way around. Engage the field to generate pull change and make the impact sustainable.

Three is to build a capability of constant testing, learning and improvement. The truth about the journey to world-class commercial is that you are never as good as you could be. Run good quality tests, build rapidly, fail fast, and seek to truly understand the impact of changing messages, price points, and behaviors.

My final recommendation is to make smart buy, build, and integrate decisions. With the proliferation of solutions, that’s a big challenge. Leading organizations carefully evaluate their internal capabilities, assess the market landscape, and identify strategic partnerships to ensure they have the right mix of solutions to meet their unique needs and maximize the value they derive from revenue technology investments.

Implementing these four recommendations is crucial for any organization, given what a pivotal role revenue technology plays in enabling improved pricing, sales, and marketing. Embracing it is no longer an option for businesses — it’s a necessity. I’m Sam Rosenberg and this is my take on revenue technology.

The transcript has been edited for clarity.