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Embracing Pandemic-Driven Change in Business

January 12th, 2021 (Updated 06/20/2023) | 6 min. read

By Tolu Oke

Pricefx 2021: Embracing Pandemic-Driven Change 

2020 was a challenging yearto say the least, with a global pandemic and mandatory work-from-home initiatives impacting virtually every business across every industry. 

In spite of the difficulties, thanks to the company’s focus on attaining new funding, expanding global market leadership and accelerating product innovationPricefx grew its year-over-year subscription revenue by 44%. 

Our commitment to product innovation kicked off with the release of Lightning, our turnkey solution that delivers pricing analytics, management and CPQ realization tools able to go live in just six weeks. 

Our acquirement of Brennus Analytics brought additional advanced AI technology and a team of AI professionals into our mix, leading to the launch of our ground-breaking Vesper release and the Unity UI – PriceOptimizer AI. 

We partnered with Bain & Company to launch three price accelerators to assist Bain customers with discounting, pricing leakage and promotion management. And, we offered our own Sales Insight Accelerator free to all our customers to help them react quickly to the challenges of COVID-19 through actionable transactional data and visibility into pricing opportunities and threats. 

Then, most recently, we introduced Velo, the industry’s first negotiation solution designed specially to maximize profitability and leverage on large and complex deals by combining strategy with innovative technology. 

During the last 12 months, Pricefx won the Gold Stevie® Award for the manufacturing solution category in the 2020 International Business Awards and a Bronze Stevie® Award in the 2020 American Business Awards for best cloud application/service. We again featured on the Constellation ShortList™ for Price Optimization and was also included in the Tracxn Soonicorn Club of Germany, placing the company amongst the leading tech startups of Germany. As our successes continued to mount, we were named the only Leader in Pricing Software by G2 Crowd and came top of the G2 Momentum Grid, which highlights companies achieving continued growth at accelerated rates. TPricefx was also named Best SaaS for Sales and Marketing at the 2020 SaaS Awards and became a 2020 SAP® Pinnacle Award finalist for SAP App Center Partner of the Year. 

It’s been a busy year. One that has bought unprecedented challenges and unforeseen changes. One that has taught us that no status quo can be taken for granted and that agility and resilience are the names of the game. 

How the Business World Changed in 2020 

Accelerated Digital Transformation 

Businesses had to invest in technology to remain competitive and, while digital transformation is not an outcome of COVID-19, it is certainly upping the ante. With extraordinary challenges, disrupted supply chains, shifting priorities and sudden changes in demand, the need to be able to adapt quickly has never been stronger. 

Companies are having to rethink the way they do business in order to survive, breaking down rigid structures to make way for more agile, data-driven, technology-powered ways of working, placing an emphasis on improving processes and increasing productivity with automation.  

It’s a trend that’s set to continue. And those ahead in the game are already turning to Software-as-a-Service solutions in their droves. 

“The pandemic has shown that businesses need to evolve to SaaS and distributed services for mission-critical applications, and this trend will continue to become the norm, eventually becoming the default standard for B2B enterprise.” – Patrick Moorhead, Chief Marketing Officer at Pricefx. 

 The Rising Trend of Remote Working 

Safety concerns forced companies to enable effective and secure remote working. But those not technologically mature enough for the sudden mammoth transition faltered.  Patrick Moorhead adds that “saying nothing of the efficiency gains to be had through SaaS for mission-critical functions, the forced shift to remote working meant many companies relying on central on-premise technology were severely limited.”

According to Flexjobs, 4.7 million people were already working remotely before the epidemic and Gartner found that more than 80% of companies plan to permit employees to work remotely at least part of the timegoing forwardIt’s a trend expected to continue even once the vaccine becomes commonplace. Having made this huge cultural shift, more employees will expect flexibility at work and more companies will need to evolve to enable a widely distributed workforce.

Ecommerce HaChanged Forever 

The pandemic has fundamentally changed how and what consumers buyEcommerce boomed in 2020 as more people turned to online shopping amid free movement restrictionsAnd this led to major structural changes to the way retailers operate. We saw an accelerated shift to digital, expanded offerings, new lines introduced, a focus on essential products, contactless deliveries and in-store/curb-side pickup services. 

The behavior of consumers will be forever changed as a result. Retailers that want to satisfy new customer expectations will have to reimagine digital strategies and ramp up their ecommerce offering. 

The increase of digital commerce and directto-consumer was a huge trend, which will continue to gain momentum in 2021. A digitalfirst quotetocash process and an omnichannel strategy are more important than ever.”  Gabriel Smith, Chief Evangelist and Vice President of Innovation at Pricefx. 

Shift in Pricing Strategy 

The pandemic exposed weaknesses in many approaches to pricing, revealing it to be relatively static and misunderstood aspect of business performance.  

As companies were forced to look to pricing as a way to survivethey discovered a lack of the tools, teams, and infrastructure needed to effectively adapt to a dynamic marketplace. 

This lesson will continue to spread, resulting in aincrease in awareness of and demand for pricing solutions that plug into the modern enterprise software landscape.”  Moorhead 

As pricing continues to become more central to both strategy and operations, the role of the CFO will likely be redefined, their focus shifting away from budgets and forecasts towards strategy and management, with new skills being required for 2021. 

Resilience: The Key Success Factor for 2021 

With lessons learned (from a year full of them), companies now recognize the importance of long-term strategies for greater resilience that better prepare them for an unpredictable future and help them outmaneuver uncertainty. 

“No one predicted 2020, but one thing became clear: resiliency was key to performance: companies that were able to adapt their strategy and tactics to account for the new normal are the ones that outperformed their peers.”  Smith. 

Some of the important trends that took 2020 by storm have now taken root. We must ground ourselves in the new business reality: digital transformation is vital to ensure our employees can work without interruption, that we meet the demanding new expectations of customers, and are agile and resilient enough to ride any unexpected waves in the years to come. 

Tolu Oke

Content Marketer , Pricefx

Tolu had 5 years of experience with content planning and strategy and got her start with inbound marketing.

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