Four mistakes to avoid with revenue management software

Is your enterprise looking to optimise its revenue in FY2024, as business costs continue to rise? If you answered in the affirmative, you’re far from alone. Across the country, enterprises of all stripes and sizes are exploring ways to sustain and grow demand by packaging, marketing and pricing their products and services more effectively.

A sound revenue management strategy is one which harnesses the power of data analytics technology to develop a deep understanding of customer needs and behaviours, including how, when and why they want to buy from you.

Business intelligence gleaned in this way can be used to refine your offering, to ensure you’re selling the right products to the right customers, at prices that represent value for both parties.

Raise data gathering capacity

Optimising your revenue is impossible without the right tools: cloud-based revenue management software that covers the revenue cycle from end to end and integrates seamlessly with the ERP solution that powers your business.

This technology allows you to capture and consolidate usage data, integrate it with systems that track and manage your customers and extract actionable insights to inform decisions about your products and pricing.

These are vital choices that can make or break businesses, and in challenging economic times, such as those we’re currently experiencing, never more so.

But implementing a modern revenue management platform is not without its pitfalls. Understanding and avoiding them will ensure your project is completed on time and on budget.

Here are four common mistakes that can derail projects and prevent businesses from deriving maximum value from their investment in this transformational technology.

Poor project management

Gone are the days when implementing an enterprise solution was an exercise that took years in the planning and execution. In 2023, those sorts of timelines seem – and are – absurdly protracted. Other things haven’t changed though; having a dedicated project leader from go to whoa is as important as ever.

Organisations that attempt to scrimp on this expense do so at their peril because sloughing the responsibility and the work to existing finance and invoicing personnel, to handle alongside their regular duties, is a recipe for distraction, disruption and delay. 

Failure to prioritise the project

Revenue management initiatives don’t take place in isolation. In fact, the reverse: many functions of your business rely on the successful operation of a billing system. That’s why it’s vital your project is positioned as a strategic investment; one which requires buy-in from business leaders across the enterprise. You’ll find their support easier to maintain if your project has clear goals and timelines, and you’re proactive about anticipating issues and communicating with stakeholders when adjustments need to be made.

Failure to understand linking technology

Third-party integrations can slow the implementation process. Your revenue management roll-out will only proceed as quickly as other linked technology – current and legacy – allows. Identifying the systems that will be in place during the implementation process and developing a comprehensive plan to transition personnel and resources to the new platform  will help you prevent unexpected time blow outs.

Building a bespoke solution

“To build or not to build, that is the question,” to paraphrase Hamlet, protagonist of the eponymous Shakespearean play. Sure, starting from scratch allows you to customise your solution, make sure it is compatible with other applications in your tech stack and keep tight control of testing and implementation.

But – and it’s a big but! – it can be complex and expensive. You’ll need a dedicated IT and software team who can meet your requirements and support your platform on an ongoing basis. With skills shortages remaining persistent across the high tech sector, that can be an ambitious ask. There’s also the danger your team will overlook important requirements, which means essential features and functionality may need to be retro-fitted to your bespoke platform after it’s gone live. Doing so can be expensive, inconvenient and disruptive to your operations.

Organisations which fail to understand the dangers and downsides of a DIY approach all too often find themselves floundering in complexity and cost blow-outs, neither of which are hallmarks of a well executed project.

Strengthen your enterprise in FY2024

Optimising revenue could be a make or break exercise for your enterprise in FY2024. Partnering with a software vendor that can help you implement the technology you need to make it happen – a robust scalable revenue management platform that allows you to extract the insights you need to renovate or refine your offering – will ensure your investment represents time and money well spent.

 Carl Warwick is regional sales director Asia-Pacific and Japan at BillingPlatform.