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Manufacturing Company
Equipment manufacturer makes light work of pricing data
Our client, a company that manufactures and supplies heavy goods, is using a new data analytics application to provide distributors with the insight they need to set prices correctly.
Equal Experts designed and implemented a data pipeline that could ingest data and train pricing models in near real-time, along with an expert tool to help dealers to access and understand complex pricing models.
This was the first time the data had been made available in an easily accessible, consolidated form for internal teams and 3rd parties. The tool enabled 3rd party users to provide price estimates to customers quickly, reliably and repeatedly.
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Instant access
to pricing estimates and inventory
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Useable data
to understand the long-term impact of product changes on pricing
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12-week
proof of concept
About the client:
Our client is a successful manufacturer and supplier of equipment to multiple industries.
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Industry
Manufacturing
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Organisation
100,000+ employees
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Location
Global
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Service
Design, Data, Deliver
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Length of project
12 months
Challenge
Putting data at the distributors’ fingertips
Setting the best price for a used piece of equipment isn’t always easy. The price can depend on a range of factors such as condition, location and configuration.
Our client has access to many data sources that could help its network understand how to price its equipment, but this information was not accessible to most users. The company needed a powerful data analytics tool that would be easy to use, and which could give dealers fast, reliable access to pricing-related data.
In addition, the company wanted to make this rich data available to teams, to help them understand how prices change over time, and the impact new features have on pricing.
Solution
From concept to fully functional product via user feedback
To kick off the project, Equal Experts completed a 12-week proof of concept to understand the data sources available, and how this might be used to meet the needs of end users. We developed and tested algorithms and user interfaces, before developing an MVP data pipeline.
The pipeline ingested years of pricing data from a number of data sources including, cleansing the data and completing missing fields where possible. It also validated and transformed inputs against master data for serial numbers, product types, and global markets. Outliers were removed and prices adjusted for inflation. This created a consolidated data set of pricing information for all of the company’s equipment.
The next step was to train the algorithms to estimate equipment price based on usage and age, creating a price index over time for different equipment models. We gathered user feedback for the preliminary model, which was used to inform the design of a production-grade web application that could be accessed by both the data pipeline and the dealer network.
Results
Uncovering buried data to provide business insights
As well as giving distributors up to date pricing for all the brand’s used equipment, the web app can be used to forecast the value and cost of inventory through the a series of Q&A pages:
- What is this unit worth now and in the future?
- What is my fleet worth now and in the future?
- How has the price of equipment changed over time?
The business now has a reliable way to collect, process and analyze data about its used equipment sales. They also have a state of the art application that their 3rd parties can use worldwide to estimate prices for individual pieces of equipment, value their fleets and understand price change trends.
Most importantly, this platform enables 3rd parties to manage equipment more efficiently, by freeing up pricing insights that had been buried within disparate data sets. This has unlocked considerable value and revenue opportunities for the brand’s dealers.
Conclusion
Our customer has undertaken a major innovation in helping its team to make fast, intelligent and competitive decisions on pricing for equipment. The new web application provides a reliable platform to generate price estimates alongside wider insights into the value of inventory over time.
Want to know more?
Are you interested in this project? Or do you have one just like it? Get in touch. We'd love to tell you more about it.