Questions like those led Britt Vitalone, 's senior vice president and finance chief, to look for price-optimization software several years ago. "One of the things I recognized was that there was inconsistent pricing with various product groups" --- including the group that table paper was in. He also saw that because of the decentralized nature of medical-supply selling, the company badly needed to give sales people real-time decision-making capabilities. That required getting them "richer data" about what prices different customers -- from family practices to obstetricians to radiology specialists, in small towns and cities -- might be willing to pay.

Without the best information, "two things could happen," says Vitalone: "You could lose the sale for having the wrong price, or you could get the sale, but leave money on the table."

The need to solve costly problems like that, from the frontlines of sales and distribution, today leads more and more companies to purchase price optimization software. The market has experienced a turnaround in 2010, according to that analysts at Gartner, and now generates nearly $200 million in revenues annually for the range of providers, which include , , , , and .

In most cases, CFOs like Vitalone --- who uses a PROS product --- are the target purchasers of such software.