Model N extends revenue management process with contract-authoring tools

At its annual users conference, Model N (Redwood Shores, CA) announced a record-breaking year, made some product announcements, and gave a peek at where it is going with the concept of revenue management as a compliance, efficiency and sales-enhancement function. According to Zack Rinat, CEO, the company showed 42% bookings growth for the past year and now claims over $50 billion in life sciences sales under its management tools.

The major product announcement is a partnership with Selectica (San Jose, CA), a leading provider of IT tools for contract authoring. In the “revenue management life cycle” concept that Model N espouses, a product’s life cycle is paralleled by development of appropriate sales contracts, managing revenue in channels and under various government pricing programs, and then adjusting contract terms and sales practices later in the product’s life cycle. Partnering with Selectica allows clients of Model N to expedite the development of sales contracts with customers, then replicate the contract terms in the formulas and reporting formats of the Model N software.

Another element of this vision is development of analytics, both for analyzing current contracts and as an "opportunity analyzer" for prospective contracts. A “formula builder” tool enables commercial operations managers to adjust pricing formulas dynamically (i.e., in near real-time). According to Kamal Ahluwalia, marketing manager at Model N, the goal is to gain more rapid visibility into the effects of pricing strategies in the marketplace, so that assessments and revisions can be made in days or weeks rather than months after a product campaign begins. The formula builder is built into the latest product-revision cycle of the revenue management suite.