The Winners of the Pricing Case Competition 

Pricing is so important is the possible consequences of a poor pricing strategy. Companies lose significant amounts of profit by pricing too low. Conversely, they could miss out on leagues of customers by pricing too high compared to their competition. In either case, the results can be disastrous. For this reason and to support dedicated students, Pricefx’s Next Gen sponsored the 2020 Simon School of Business Pricing Case Competition at the University of Rochester. Throughout the event, students had access to Pricefx’s state–of–the–art cloud–native pricing software and the opportunity to learn pricing and its importance from industry professionals. 

The Event 

The event took place on April 15, 2020  at the University of Rochester. Kate Gladziszewski , Senior Manager of Pricing Strategy and Revenue Management  represented  Iron Mountain as a judge and to  to help provide real-world business problems for the students to solve. Iron Mountain is the leading storage and information management services company. 

About her experience of the event, Kate Gladziszewski,said, “We at Iron Mountain were excited about the level of interest and engagement from the Simon Pricing Club students on this competition. This experience gave us a chance to gain inspiration and fresh ideas from the next generation of pricing professionals and to further strengthen our relationship with Pricefx.” 

 Pricefx launched their first implementation of Pricefx Next Gen – a program designed to support the real-world applications of pricing in educational settings. Our rapidly evolving world requires not just determination but for students to master current technology, adapt quickly to changes, to think critically and the ability to work in diverse teams. Pricefx Next Gen provides all of this and more to students who are willing to learn. 

The program puts world–class technology in the hands of students, helping them to learn industry standards and real-world applications in order to prepare for the working world. Something which is absolutely invaluable in the area of businesses using modern and digital approaches to compete. By operating within a simulated business environment, the Pricing Club Students were able to get a feel for the kind of software they will most likely be working with in the future – a lack of which may have held them back in a professional setting. 

The Winners 

Judges from Pricefx, Iron Mountain and Simon Business school analyzed the Simon School of Business Pricing Case Competition participants on their depth and quality of analysis, recommendations, visualization and their presentation. The competition was tough and required a great deal of effort from all 18 highly promising students. In the end, student Yuqiao Zhong took first place, closely followed by Ruiling Shen and Andrew Datu. 

Third place winner Andrew Datu said, “I learned that it’s best to identify small portions of the data first to analyze before tacking the whole data set. This makes it easier to observe patterns and insights from the data much easier while utilizing minimum processing power. These observations can then be tested at a larger scale.” When asked why he entered the competition, Andrew responded, “I wanted to take part in this competition in order to analyze company data and implement the pricing strategies that I have learned from my classes.” 

Following the Event 

After the 2020 Simon School of Business Pricing Case Competition, Chief Evangelist for Pricefx and competition judge Gabriel Smith said, “I was impressed by the level of engagement and depth of analysis in a short period of time using real–world data and a software platform that was new to them. It was refreshing to see so many different approaches, types of analysis, perspectives and recommendations from the participating groups. The use of data–science techniques, in addition to descriptive analytics and visualizations, was particularly noteworthy and ultimately led the judges to selecting the winner. We extend our thanks to Iron Mountain and the Simon Business School for allowing us to be part of this event.” 

Everyone at Pricefx is excited to see the future of the pricing industry, especially now that they know it will be safe in the hands of hard workers like the University of Rochester Pricing Club Students. 

To find out more about Pricefx and our software, fill out our contact form here and a member of the team will get in touch with you as soon as possible.