Model N Inc. today announced it’s overhauling its revenue management platform with new cloud-based features that automate the price quotation and configuration process and provide new visibility into omnichannel distribution.

The San Mateo, California-based company, which focuses on the technology, manufacturing, media and life sciences industries, said it brings order to the often chaotic process of optimizing revenue by automating such processes as contract and rebate management, customer intelligence and regulatory compliance.

Revenue management is a form of analytics that predicts consumer behavior and optimizes product availability and price for maximum revenue. The company’s products work with Salesforce.com Inc.’s customer relations management tools on the front end and SAP SE’s financials on the back end.

The new products are aimed at helping customers adopt what McKinsey & Co. calls an “offensive corporate strategy” that involves “willingly cannibalizing existing businesses and reallocating resources aggressively to new digital models.” The consulting firm said online marketplaces are one of the best says to do that, but few companies have the back-end systems to optimize configurations and pricing, much less support self-service.

Model N said the new release of its Revenue Cloud supports offensive strategies by delivering accurate, complete product and channel data in a format that enables sales representatives to optimize configuration, pricing and incentives.

“We redefine the business around who the customers are, making sure you’re leveraging the ecosystem and aligning operations with intelligent processes,” said Neeraj Gokhale, chief product officer at Model N. He cited the example of one customer that recast its business of selling hospital beds to add instrumentation that warns of potential accident scenarios. The company now charges for the software and has expanded its sales constituency to include nursing staffs.

The new Model N CPQ (for “configure price quote”) enables sales teams to create customer-specific product bundles and configurations with a particular emphasis on complex products with multiple options and configurations. For example, it simplifies the price quotation process for complex products by only showing valid combinations. Sales representatives can combine products to optimize revenue with cross-selling and up-selling suggestions built in. In addition to bottom-line pricing, the software supports subscription, outcome-based and risk-shared models as well.

Internal process automation supports intelligent approvals, guided selling and customer-specific business intelligence to reduce time. Model N CPQ connects to SAP’s Variant Configurator for the creation of new packages and configurations.

The new Channel Cloud manages a global ecosystem incorporating multitier channels to determine the most efficient way to deliver products to the market. Customers can avoid channel conflict while customizing incentives and optimizing such tactics as discounts and post-deal rebates, the company said. “It’s master data management in the sky with a complete view of transactions and data sets,” Gokhale said.

The company, which reported $131 million in revenue in 2017, said it has customers in more than 120 countries. Pricing is on a per-user basis, but Model N didn’t provide specifics.

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