Developing Price-to-Win Analytical Models by Michael Nash, Independant Consultant (USA)

After Michael approached me last night at the Dolce’s bar - going into a discussion about the importance of processes as a major carrier for any of the competitive routines – I had decided to see his session on price analytics, called price-to-win in competitive bidding.

Michael’s impressive background in defence and aerospace as strategic planner provides a rock solid foundation for in-depth analysis on huge government contracts, oftentimes exceeding dozens of millions of dollars in price tags.

The business development model Michael visualized was impressively simple, yet complete for my judgement.

Although I have to admin that I failed to understand his analytical algorithms and models in all detail he demonstrated impressively that price prediction does work when applied carefully and under utilization of all facts and data that can be drawn from a wide array of publications and sources.

Michael presented examples of press releases that contained a lot of information about rewarded contracts including conditions and even elements that allowed to reverse-engineer pricing equations.

Most impressive to me though was his advice how to best practice models and analysis like the ones he applied and presented:

“Pick historic events and try to calculate a prediction that you would have done at the time. Do it again and again, pick stock market events or Mergers that might have been predictable and act as if working at the time. Compare with the real outcome and try to unveil the flaws in your models…”

I really do like Michael’s approach there as it provides a fun playground in an entirely risk-free environment. In conclusion I would promote Michael’s work to anyone who is looking to predict pricing in an industry that might handle large to huge contracts.

You gotta bring a mathematician though or some profound understanding of complex algorithms as Michael’s presentation was the first and only competitive intelligence presentation that I have ever seen featuring actual mathematical formulas that go way beyond anything I have ever calculated ;-)