A price list someone is accountable for

A customer asks what a new virtual server with four CPUs, a database operating system and extended support will cost. The account manager opens the price list and finds three versions of the same spreadsheet, each with slightly different numbers. He calls operations, operations points to finance, finance points to the platform owner. The answer arrives two days later, and nobody is entirely sure it is right.

For an IT service provider, the price list is a foundational document. It decides what customers pay and therefore whether a service covers its costs. Yet we often see price lists without an owner. Prices change informally, versions multiply, and nobody can say who last changed the storage rate or why. When a customer pushes back, there is nothing solid to point to.

Why price lists lose credibility

The causes tend to repeat:

• The price list lives apart from operational data. It is a standalone file that knows nothing about the platforms, operating systems or standard configurations operations actually offers.
• Price changes have no process. Anyone with access to the file can edit a number. Approval, if it happens, happens by email.
• Calculations are manual. A server price is built from several components, and everyone adds them up a little differently.
• It is unclear what is in force. A draft and the published list look the same.

The result is uncertainty on both the customer’s side and the provider’s.

Treat the price list as a governed document

A price list someone is accountable for has a few properties. It covers everything the provider actually delivers, structured the way the service offering is structured. Each part has an owner, typically the service owner, who answers for the prices. A price change is a proposal the owner approves or rejects. And there is a clear line between the published, valid list and a draft in progress.

With that in place, the price of a given configuration comes out the same every time, no matter who asks.

How Eywo Stratum handles it

Eywo Stratum keeps the price list inside the operations platform. It covers infrastructure, virtual servers by platform, operating systems, standard server types, support, request fulfillment and change execution. The structure matches what operations delivers and what customers order.

For a specific request there is a server calculator. It builds the price from price list items according to platform, operating system, configuration and support level. The account manager and the customer get the same answer, because it comes from the same list.

A price change is a proposal in the system. The service owner approves it, and it appears in the single “To approve” queue alongside other decisions such as outages in changes and service requests. If a service has no owner, the change manager decides. A rejection always includes a reason. Publishing the price list goes through the same approval, so it is always clear which version is in force.

Every decision is written to the audit trail. At any later point you can see who proposed a price, who approved it and when it took effect. The price list also shares data with costs and billing, so monthly billing data is based on prices that went through approval.

Certainty on both sides

A governed price list is not bureaucracy. It means there is one answer to “what does this cost” and someone stands behind it. Customers know where they stand. Service owners stay in control of how their service is priced. And account managers no longer have to call half the company to answer a simple question.

The price list, server calculator and service-owner approval of price changes are included in the Enterprise edition.