Computer-implemented method, system and program product for quoting a business service

• US 7,769,616 B2
• Filed: 11/06/2007
• Issued: 08/03/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/18/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: LinkedIn Corporation (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ollivier, Jean Christophe
• Primary Examiner(s): Jeanty; Romain
• Assistant Examiner(s): Santiago; Luis
• Application Number:
  US11/935,752
• Publication Number:
  US 20080147460A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,001 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7, 705/30, 717/101
• US Class Current: 705/7.25
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0206 Price or cost determination based on market factors

Abstract

The present invention provides a method, system and computer program product for quoting a business service wherein a large variety of predefined scenario may be exercised to assess a business quotation in real time. The invention allows to establish relationships between an infrastructure design and the various components of the solution to offer a flexible solution that automatically check the impact of changes and new requirements.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for quoting a business solution for a customer, performed on a computer, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving customer requirements;

determining a plurality of types of price units to be invoiced to customer, with each type of price unit being an elementary unit used to measure the billing to the customer;

designing a business solution to map the customer requirements;

decomposing the business solution into a plurality of types of cost elements, where each type of cost element represents the cost of a technical component;

creating rules to link the price units to the cost elements so that values for the cost elements are determined as a function of values for the price units; and

generating, by the computer, a quotation by applying the rules created to at least one business rollout scenario;

wherein the generating step is performed iteratively to generate iterative price quotations, with at least one of the price units, the cost units and the rules being iteratively modified before each iteration of the generating step, and with the relationships between the price units and cost units being interlocked so that an iterative adjustment of any one of the price units, the cost units and the rules will cause corresponding adjustments, based on the interlocked relationships between the price units and cost units, to values of any affected price units and values of any affected cost units in order to generate the iterative price quotation; and

wherein the receiving, determining, designing, decomposing, creating steps are performed on a computer.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of determining price units further comprises the steps of associating a marketable price to the price unit.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the price units is a price applicable to units from a group of technical units, application units or business units.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the cost elements are individual or multiple technical components of the business solution.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the rules creation step comprises the step of defining rules between a price units deployment and a cost element to be deployed to support said price units deployment.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the generating step further comprises the step of selecting a business rollout scenario among a plurality of predefined scenarios.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the generating step is run for a predefined rollout time period.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer-implemented method is implemented in conjunction with a spreadsheet computer program.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of generating a dashboard summary showing the computing step results.

10. A computer system for quoting a business solution for a customer, the system comprising:

means for receiving customer requirements;

means for determining a plurality of types of price units to be invoiced to customer, with each type of price unit being an elementary unit used to measure the billing to the customer;

means for designing a business solution to map the customer requirements;

means for decomposing the business solution into a plurality of types of cost elements, where each type of cost element represents the cost of a technical component;

means for creating rules to link the price units to the cost elements so that values for the cost elements are determined as a function of values for the price units; and

mean for computing a quotation automatically by the computer system by applying the rules created to at least one business rollout scenario;

wherein the means for computing further comprises means for iteratively generating iterative price quotations, with at least one of the price units, the cost units and the rules being iteratively modified before each iteration of the generating step, and with the relationships between the price units and cost units being interlocked so that an iterative adjustment of any one of the price units, the cost units and the rules will cause corresponding adjustments, based on the interlocked relationships between the price units and cost units, any affected values of the price units and any affected values of the cost units in order to generate the iterative price quotation.

11. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the means for determining price units further comprises means for associating a marketable price to the price unit.

12. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the price units is a price applicable to units from a group of technical units, application units or business units.

13. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the cost elements is individual or multiple technical components of the business solution.

14. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the means for creating rules comprises the means defining rules between a price units deployment and a cost element to be deployed to support said price units deployment.

15. A computer program product comprising programming code stored on a computer readable medium for quoting a business solution for a customer, performed on a computer, comprising:

means for receiving customer requirements;

means for determining a plurality of types of price units to be invoiced to customer, with each type of price unit being an elementary unit used to measure the billing to the customer;

means for designing a business solution to map the customer requirements;

means for decomposing the business solution into a plurality of types of cost elements, where each type of cost element represents the cost of a technical component;

means for creating rules to link the price units to the cost elements so that values for the cost elements are determined as a function of values for price units; and

means for computing a quotation automatically by the computer by applying the rules created to at least one business rollout scenario;

wherein the means for computing comprises means for iteratively generating iterative price quotations, with at least one of the price units, the cost units and the rules being iteratively modified before each iteration of the generating step, and with the relationships between the price units and cost units being interlocked so that an iterative adjustment of any one of the price units, the cost units and the rules will cause corresponding adjustments, based on the interlocked relationships between the price units and cost units, any affected values of the price units and any affected values of the cost units in order to generate the iterative price quotation.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the means for determining price units further comprises means for associating a marketable price to the price unit.

17. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the means for creating rules comprises the means defining rules between a price units deployment and a cost element to be deployed to support said price units deployment.

18. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the means for computing further comprises means for selecting a business rollout scenario among a plurality of predefined scenarios.