PROS Fall 2023 Platform Release: Unveiling the Power of Explainable AI

The excitement is tremendous as we unveil the latest marvel in the world of pricing and selling technology – the PROS Fall 2023 Platform Release. As your trusted partner in fostering profitable growth, PROS continues to push the boundaries of innovation. In this Platform release you will continue to see our investments in AI, Analytics, and customer self-service capabilities. Our commitment to constant improvement shines through this release, brimming with features designed to take your business to the next level. The star of the show? Explainable AI with Comparable Transactions.

Explainable AI with Comparable Transactions

Decoding the Magic of AI-Driven Pricing Insights

In a world driven by data and powered by AI, transparency is the key to success. We understand that deciphering AI's pricing recommendations can sometimes be on par with unraveling a complex enigma. But not anymore. Say hello to Similar Transactions Analytics – your beacon of clarity and understanding in the pricing cosmos.

Dive into the world of AI-driven pricing insights as we explore how Similar Transactions Analytics enhances transparency and understanding in pricing recommendations. Discover how AI leverages data from comparable transactions to provide clear, insightful, and easily understandable pricing guidance. Join us to learn how to decode AI's decision-making process and gain the tools and knowledge needed to harness the full potential of explainable AI in your pricing strategies.

Key benefits:

• Two New Analytics: Step into a world where a simple recommendation is now enriched with a data table and chart that reveals similar peers. No more mysteries, just data-driven insights.
• Improved Transparency: Our latest update contextualizes Smart Price Optimization recommendations. It showcases the transactions that PROS Smart Price Optimization uses to generate a specific recommendation. In other words, we lift the veil on AI's decision-making process.
• Dig into the Data: The power is in your hands. Export the data for deeper analysis and gain a profound understanding of the factors influencing your pricing strategies.

Click here to watch a demo of this powerful new analytics feature.

Capacity-Aware Optimization

We have added the latest AI model to our Gen IV Optimization family. Capacity-Aware Optimization is a new AI model that can help optimize pricing in capacity-constrained contexts. It uses neural networks and machine learning to estimate the opportunity cost of a given unit of capacity in real-time. When used in conjunction with other price optimization models, the result is a price recommendation that balances a given customer's willingness to pay with the market value of the capacity.

Key benefits:

• Optimize Pricing for Capacity-Constrained Services: Gen IV now includes an additional kind of analysis that can further optimize pricing for companies selling capacity-constrained, fixed-date services.
• Real-Time Price Optimization: Capacity-Aware Optimization uses neural networks and machine learning to optimize pricing to account for demand for limited resources in real-time.
• Better Together: Capacity-Aware Optimization is designed to work with existing PROS AI optimizations and PROS Real-Time Pricing Engine.

PROS Connect Chatbot to Help You with All Things Smart Price Optimization

Our journey into the future continues with the PROS Smart Price Optimization Chatbot. This AI-powered marvel simplifies your quest for answers within our documentation. It speaks your language, making knowledge discovery faster, more intuitive, and efficient. Learn how our AI-powered Chatbot simplifies access to comprehensive documentation, guiding you to answers in natural language.

What's unique about the Chatbot is that it doesn't just provide summaries, it also directs you to specific pages in our PROS Connect documentation where you can explore topics in more detail.

So how does it work?

PROS Connect is our extensive knowledge base. You can think of it as your comprehensive documentation hub. Now think about your journey when you need information from this vast repository. You might start with specific keywords or terms, and that works well if you know precisely what you're looking for. But what if you have a unique business challenge and you're not quite sure which keywords to use? This is where the Chatbot steps in.

We've stored PROS Connect content within Azure Cognitive Search. This content is indexed and when you ask a question, the Chatbot sends it to the Cognitive Search which performs a query within the index to find all relative sources. It then takes these sources and your original question as a prompt and processes this information using ChatGPT, formulating a detailed natural language response. And very much like ChatGPT, you can ask follow-up questions to dive deeper into the topic. The Chatbot is built to understand your questions in natural language, exactly like you'd ask a colleague or friend. It responds in a conversational tone and guides you directly to the relevant pages on PROS Connect. This makes it a fantastic starting point for your learning journey. You can access the Chatbot right inside PROS Smart Price Optimization, where you will be working, so that you can find relevant information when and where you need it.

You won't have to navigate a web of links or scroll through search results. Instead, you receive the most relevant and important information and are provided links to the pages to see more information if desired.

The PROS Connect Chatbot is more than just an advanced search tool. It provides answers in a way that feels intuitive and natural and simplifies your access to critical information.

Key benefits:

• Say goodbye to sifting through an ocean of documents. Effortlessly retrieve the information you need from PROS Connect, our comprehensive knowledge base.
• Need support? The Chatbot is your guide, ready to assist whenever you need it.
• Express your business challenges in everyday language, and the Chatbot will provide you with tailored solutions. It's like having a pricing guru at your beck and call.
• PROS Connect Chatbot fuses Smart Price Optimization's discriminative AI with generative AI, leveraging a ChatGPT-like interaction for a truly intelligent knowledge sharing experience.

To see the Chatbot in action watch this video here.

Subscription Management Evolution

In this release, we've enhanced the PROS Subscription Management capabilities to accommodate diverse selling scenarios, offering a more flexible approach to meet your specific needs. Now, not only can you define subscription pricing, but you also have the power to make amendments to your subscription contracts, including changes to terms, subscription products, and charges. Additionally, you can terminate a subscription contract before its end date, based on negotiated cancellation policies. The termination can be authorized or not and can even be executed with or without penalties.

But that's not all – we've introduced automated versioning and workflow management to streamline the subscription contract lifecycle. This means less hassle and more efficiency in managing your subscription contracts. All of this is supported in both Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales.

Key benefits:

• Amend: A Customer Success Manager can create a new version of a subscription contract including amendments on terms and/or subscription products and charges.
• Terminate: A subscription contract can now be terminated in anticipation of its end date based on the cancellation policy negotiated by the Sales Rep. This termination can be authorized or not and can be done with or without penalty.

Collaborative Quoting with Smart CPQ – Now Available for Customer Preview

The future of quoting is here, and it's collaborative. We are thrilled to introduce Collaborative Quoting powered by Smart CPQ – a game-changing feature that brings buyers and sellers together in an integrated, interactive online environment. This environment offers self-service experiences and capabilities that transform the buying journey into a modern, efficient, and collaborative experience.

With Collaborative Quoting for Smart CPQ you can leverage data and configurations to create branded customer portal experiences within minutes that modernize and enhance the buying journey by allowing a diverse range of personas to interact and engage on quotes.

Using Collaborative Quoting, you can capitalize on the core capabilities of the PROS Platform and Smart CPQ to transform the sales experience between buyers, partners, and sellers through digital self-service and direct sales channels.

Key benefits:

• Customers and/or partners can review and update quotes on a digital, interactive website created by Sales Reps in Salesforce or Dynamics 365.
• Creating personalized customer portals is no longer a tedious task. With Collaborative Quoting, CPQ designers and admins can set up branded customer portals within minutes, using the configurations, quote models, and catalog data setup within Smart CPQ.
• Buyers and Sellers are brought together, fostering stronger relationships, and facilitating seamless communication.
• Responsive Design supports mobile quote viewing and editing scenarios, ensuring a seamless experience on the go, so your business isn’t confined to a desk.

The power of Collaborative Quoting is that users can extend Smart CPQ configurations and investments to create a modern digital quoting experience within minutes. Please contact your Customer Success Manager if you are interested in participating in a Customer Preview Program to trial this collaborative capability.

Watch this video to learn how you can leverage this Collaborative Quoting experience!

What's Next?

PROS thrives on driving continuous innovations that help you outperform and achieve profitable growth. We’ll have more exciting new features and capabilities in our Winter 2024 Platform release, so be sure to check back then.

For further details on the latest PROS Platform release, view the specific product highlights and release notes here.

For further training and release information, Customers and Partners can access PROS University here.