Customer Success Study RENTAL CAR SERVICES RENTAL CAR COMPANY GENERATES MILLIONS IN ADDITIONAL REVENUE Pricing analysts needed to effectively manage more than 20 million prices every day Unlock Your Data Unleash Your Sales 1
Executive SUMMARY customer Pros impact Global rental car company, headquartered in North America. challenge Added millions of dollars in overall revenue improvement Recovered PROS software investment in less than one year. Pricing analysts manage over 20 million prices daily. Pricing and fleet decisions occur separately. Pricing decisions not synchronized across company to reflect actual cost. solution PROS Contribution Management: Enabled profitable decision-making strategy and improved pricing decision processes Automated the transfer of approved prices so pricing and fleet divisions can collaborate Introduced statistical methods to accurately forecast demand Provided managers insight into identifying the most profitable mix of business 1
Better Pricing Processes Needed to IMPROVE RETAIL AND FLEET PROFITS With more than 20 million businessto-business and business-to-consumer transactions per year and one billion prices active across nearly a dozen distribution channels, each of this company s pricing analysts had to manage more than 20 million prices daily. An advanced pricing optimization program was needed to effectively manage this volume, improve forecasting techniques, and support prioritized management by exception. Sort prices by highest value opportunities to increase revenue and profit. This company s dilemma is typical of the pricing challenges faced by businesses in the rental car industry. Even though pricing and fleet decisions were dependent on each other, the decision processes in each area occurred separately with little knowledge of the other s actions and with infrequent communication causing internal disconnects that impeded crucial decision making. Why PROS a partnership approach where we roll up our sleeves and work with you to get the job done. innovation that reaches beyond the status quo, creating smarter solutions to propel you ahead of the rest. embedded data science that provides guidance and recommendations to help you compete and win. nearly three decades of experience crunching big data to reveal opportunities and guide better business decisions. 2
Agility as Your Business Changes Pricing decisions were also not synchronized with continually changing fleet and distribution costs, nor were pricing strategies aligned with current fleet plans. The company s performance was further impacted by gut feel pricing decisions that failed to maximize profit opportunities at all levels of the organization. THE COMPANY WAS SEEKING A PARTNER TO HELP: improve pricing processes to offer the right price at the right time based on customer purchasing behavior and product attributes. identify opportunities to increase revenue and profit from low performing customer and product segments. enable product and pricing managers to understand the impact of different pricing initiatives on margins through enhanced reporting capabilities. Create a pricing solution that sales representatives would embrace and use consistently. 3
Pricing horizon graphs compare forecasted sales to fleet levels at every location. (location, car class, rental date, and length of keep). This baseline demand forecast became the foundation for decision making throughout the company. PROS Empowers Pricing Analysts to Maximize Margins on Every Deal The company approached PROS in hopes of improving their pricing processes with a goal of increasing gross profit by $150,000 in the next quarter. Although the company was already using a high end hardware platform, it was open to alternatives if PROS could offer a solution with the capacity to handle its multi-terabyte environment and add value beyond what its existing platform could provide. PROS implemented a solution that automated the transfer of approved prices to a central pricing storage system, a procedure that had previously been performed manually. Pricing analysts were able to effectively target a price for every rental to maximize contribution margin on every deal. PROS started the implementation by using sophisticated statistical methods to forecast demand at a product level Using a more accurate demand forecast, pricing analysts were able to balance trade-offs between length-of-rent and revenue-per-day to maximize overall profitability. PROS also provided insights into the costs associated with fleet moves between locations to identify the most profitable mix of business. 4
PROS Contribution Management System is the only complete software solution capable of addressing price optimization, inventory allocation, and fleet optimization the key challenges facing the automobile rental industry. Revenue Increases by Millions, With One Year Payback on PROS Investment After implementing PROS software, this company s pricing and fleet organizations worked in a more coordinated fashion, and accelerated their time-to-market pricing. The company also experienced a significant reduction in avoidable costs, and met or exceeded stated targets for customer revenue improvement. PROS SOLUTION ADVANTAGES: automated time-consuming manual processes for transferring approved prices to a central pricing storage system. enabled analysts to target an optimal price for every rental, maximizing margins on every deal. improved decision making with more accurate demand projection. showed costs associated with fleet moves between locations to identify the most profitable mix of business. The company realized millions of dollars in overall revenue improvement, with an ROI that recouped its entire PROS software investment in less than one year. 5
PROS Pricing Solution Suite PROS Pricing Solution Suite consists of four modules that work together to get you to Pricing Excellence Scientific Analytics Identify segment-specific pricing, find opportunities for margin improvement, and forecast and monitor your progress proactively Deal Optimizer Quote the right price for each deal by using guidance, market insights, and integrated approval workflows Price Optimizer Create the right price for each customer and product by setting science-based optimized pricing strategies and managing price lists automatically REBATE Optimizer Centralize and manage your rebate programs, and measure the effectiveness on deal profitability Monitor your performance and adherence to policy 6
About PROS PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: PRO) is a big data software company that helps customers outperform in their markets by using big data to sell more effectively. We apply 27 years of data science experience to unlock buying patterns and preferences within transaction data to reveal which opportunities are most likely to close, which offers are most likely to sell and which prices are most likely to win. PROS offers big data solutions to optimize sales, pricing, quoting, rebates and revenue management across more than 30 industries. PROS has implemented more than 500 600 solutions in more than 55 countries. The PROS team comprises more than 650 700 professionals people around around the world. the world. To learn more, visit www.pros.com. PROS.com Copyright 2013, PROS Inc. All rights reserved. This document is provided for information purposes only and the contents hereof are subject to change without notice. This document is not warranted to be error-free, nor subject to to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally or implied in in law, including implied warranties and conditions of merchantability or fitness for for a a particular purpose. We specically specifically disclaim any any liability with with respect to to this this document and and no no contractual obligations are are formed either directly either directly or indirectly or indirectly by this by document. this document. This document This document may not may be not reproduced be reproduced or transmitted or transmitted in any in form any or form by any or by means, any means, electronic electronic or mechanical, or mechanical, for any for purpose, any purpose, without our prior without written our prior permission. written permission. 7