11.5 Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

YES. The customer’s data is anonymized by Pricefx via double-blinding. Double-blinding is an automated process that removes customer identifiers to ensure that it is impossible to trace individual customer data eve if someone had access to the complete benchmarking database. Through the double-blinding process, no-one outside Pricefx has visibility to unique customer identifiers.

Read more about how we do this in PricefxPlasma here.

NO. Industry benchmarks are always compiled from aggregated metrics with a minimum of five anonymized entities. Thus, no competitor can extrapolate on your own performance and thanks to the double-blinding process there is no way for a competitor to see your data. In addition, the benchmarks are made available with a 3 month delay: fast enough to allow for relevant analysis but sufficiently disconnected from the current market status, thus ensuring maximum data anonymity.

NO. Thanks to the applied aggregation of data, it is not possible to conduct competitive comparison of individual items nor product groups or categories.

Pricefx is one of Bain’s technology partners and a member of the Bain Alliance Ecosystem. Pricefx powers Bain’s pricing software tool, the Bain Pricing Navigator. Pricefx and Bain collaborate frequently on pricing-related topics in order to better serve out respective customers and clients. Bain is also part-owner of Pricefx, having participated as an investor in our latest rounds of funding. For more information check this press release.

Bain helped Pricefx design and implement Plasma, based on their deep experience in pricing efficiency and in benchmarking. Bain staff located within the Bain Benchmarking and Pricing Centers of Expertise administer the benchmarking database, using Bain’s state-fo-the-art benchmarking technology platform and methodology.

Only double-blinded metrics that have been aggregated at entity level are shared with Bain. Bain does not receive any data on individual transactions, quotes, customers, or products. They also do not receive any company- identifying information.

Double-blind aggregated metrics are shared monthly with Bain through Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) from Pricefx servers. Metrics and benchmarks are stored on secure Bain servers with strict access rights controls.

NO. As a result of the double-blinding process, Bain does not have visibility into which metrics or KPIs belong to which Pricefx customers.

Pricefx will distribute the benchmarks into a data mart on your own partition. You can visualize these benchmarks through a set of standard Pricefx dashboards that we will deploy. You can also include this data in your own dashboards, allowing for direct comparison between your company and the benchmark.

n short, approximately one hour.

Plasma works with the data you already have uploaded in Pricefx to use with other capabilities. This means that if your data’s quality is high, the comparison and analysis will be relevant. If however your data is incomplete, some of the dashboards may not be as much to the point or may not even display. For instance if you do not have any quotes in your application, then the Profit dashboard will not display.

It terms of how long it takes to set up Plasma, it means zero man-days because the data already exists your datamart. All you have to do is spend up to an hour with a CE (configuration engineer) who will take a look at your datamarts, and have a clear understanding of your data and then map it. We need to do this because of how each customer identifies their KPIs. So this hour is need to clarify taxonomy and make sure it matches the one used in Plasma. Once this is done, all we need is a confirmation that everything looks good. After that, Plasma runs on its own.

It is advisable to review data every quarter to make sure that everything is up to date. This can be done by anyone in the organisation.