Solution Modeling and Pricing Tools in IT Services Companies

I have been part of presales and solution architecting in various IT services firms. One common struggle and frustration in all these firms is with using tools (software, often web-based) for solution modeling and pricing. They keep trying, but just can't get them to work reliably.

The reason may be within the underlying data and the process. And it's complicated.

The sequence of steps to get to a price, in simple terms, is: resource-estimates → resource-loading → costing → pricing. In other words, there's a 'solution' to customer requirements - which is primarily the 'how', but also the 'who', the 'what', the 'when' and the 'where', which would determine the cost of doing it.

(1) Understanding the requirements, depth of solutioning and confidence in resource estimates is the foundation the commercials would be built on. This is also the first input, and the most common source of errors.

(2) The solution - including the estimates, staffing and the delivery model - have to be mapped into the modeling/pricing tool, coz the architect who built the solution is unlikely to be able to do it 'on' the tool; it's a technical and creative process.
On the surface it sounds like a simple porting of data. But this is the point where using the tool starts feeling like a waste of time, especially for large and complex deals. The transferring of data is pretty much manual, and each major or minor change in solution will need a repetition of the whole effort. A lot of tools have capabilities to read excel sheets, but those are rarely seamless, and still require manual effort to get to certain formats each time something changes.

(3) The next input tools require is access to an accurate, exhaustive, complete and well-maintained database of costs. Besides people, there are a whole host of delivery model considerations that determine a lot of the costs, most of which are very context specific. Most companies don't have such databases with all the characteristics listed above. They end up working with averages or ballparks - another source of errors.

(4) Solutioning and pricing are iterative, and may involve numerous rounds of back-and-forth adjustments, even manipulations, to make pricing attractive. Besides for the humungous manual effort it implies, there are things that don't add up, which are easier done in excel spreadsheets.

Errors add up in strange ways.

Conventional wisdom says processes and tools bring greater efficiency and reliable outcomes. But in the case of solution modeling and pricing, the tools seem to represent vicious circles companies don't know how to get out of, yet they are things they can't get rid of.

Companies that have the best handle on the four areas - (i) depth and confidence of solution, (ii) standardized solution modeling, (iii) robust cost database, and (iv) minimum solution meddling for better pricing - also have the most successful delivery, manage risks better, make healthier margins and have sustainable growth.

China to publish less in international scientific journals

Chinese scholars being urged to prioritize domestic journals as opposed to 'international' journals may open up some room. I wonder who'll take it. How wonderful it would be if the Indian context and Indian voice became so interesting to the international journals that they'd want more of it. Journals must reflect the choices of the audience. And audience for research requires not just a mindset, but an economic model where incentives from hyperinnovation are enormous, where institutions reward novelty, where perfection and aesthetics take precedence over fail-fast, and where capital is abundant. People in academia deliberate on the importance of having some top journals from India, with the highest reputation, standards and reach. But do we have the audience? Are they asking for it? Are they ready for it? We probably need the ecosystem first and the rest will follow.

China cools on overseas publication of scientific research

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 08 July 2026

Empathy, Emotional Intelligence - ‘show’ vs ‘have’

Past couple of decades, the discourse on personality, relationships and values has laid a lot of emphasis on empathy and emotional intelligence. While the underlying intent is goodness of heart, and the emphasis intends to condition humans to be good to each other and also to themselves, the outcomes we are marching towards are performative, rather than internalized. We are taught to ‘show’ empathy, not necessarily to ‘have’ empathy. We must ‘appear’ emotionally intelligent, not necessarily to ‘be’ emotionally intelligent. A key aspect to consider here is the vantage point, of course, i.e., the world sees what it sees about you — so “look” the part; and you know what you know about yourself — so “be” the part. The worldly material incentives are tied to performances. The internal incentives (which are?) are tied to being true to oneself. Through parallel discourses on personal branding, looks-maxing, and individualism, we are only validating performance as the means to worldly success, without offering any incentive to inculcate genuine human values. I wonder whether there’s truly a way to do the latter? And what kind of success would it offer? Why does it often take experience and maturity? What if we aren’t truly anything? What if we are all just performing — as best as we can and to the extent our abilities and impulses allow — to being whatever helps us get what we need, want, desire, crave or love?

Let's make some theoretical contributions today

Good morning. As I am sucking this 'heart' in, and starting my day, the thing I am thinking about is "Theory". Ability to theorize is what differentiates a scientist from a mathematician, a statistician, a data analyst or a consultant. While all of them draw 'conjectures' and rely on data to validate them, only a scientist 'hypothesizes', tests, and offers an explanation - a theory - one that works most of the time, preferably 99.9% of the time. Until it doesn't. Until someone, also a scientist, finds a nuance which demands an additional explanation, offers one, which becomes a 'theoretical contribution' - and then, with the padding, the theory claims to go back to 99.9% success rate.

Let me pour the 'heart' out and make some theoretical contributions today.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 17 June 2026

From memorizing to now seeking the illusive originality

As I was making my daughter do her homework, I was reflecting on how our minds were trained as we grew up. Throughout primary school and even until the 10th standard, the predominant approach to 'studying' was to learn by-heart the questions & answers. One of my teachers often used the phrase "commit to memory, vomit on the paper". Exams were fundamentally memory tests. Writing as the textbook said was rewarded with highest marks, especially in subjects like social science, general science and languages. But in later education, especially in areas that involve academic writing, more so in research and publications, one is supposed to be extremely careful not to copy verbatim. Plagiarism is next to crime in academic ethics. Original writing carries value. But because we are trained to do everything by copying, we learn even original writing by copying, in a very ironic sense. Rather, we mimic - the style, the words and the broad structure - and fit in our thoughts. And now here's AI, and plagiarism doesn't matter anymore. Originality now has other dimensions, and we have opened all of them to adultery.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 15 June 2026.

em dash—but only when you need it

The constant urge to post on social media, driven by wanting to be visible and relevant all the time, has become the defining characteristic of a certain stratum of people in our times. It offers a feeling of being watched, performing and contributing. And in the process—right from personalities on the top to aspirational life-coaches—people are throwing around garbage or in-process uncertain, unshaped fluff that the world would be better off not consuming until it has gained some genuine ground and has reliable informational value. It could be done for signalling. But a signal is effective only if the intended target is clear and the chosen medium of transmission aligns with the target with significant precision, so that there’s minimal unintended loss. For precise targeting, you can’t use a dispersed medium. And if a dispersed medium is used, then probably you don’t intend precision. You intend collective and widespread phenomena like mass-opinion, chaos, panic, doubt, uncertainty, or divided opinion amplification. This behaviour manifests everywhere: from our workplaces to WhatsApp groups to other social settings.

Anyhow, I must point out: the em dash above has come from my own keystrokes! I didn’t know of the existence of this character nor notice it as distinct until AI pushed it on the world relentlessly. And it took me some time to figure out how to type it. It is strangely satisfying that I can do what AI does.

The beauty of being one with your story

Many years ago, I tried to write a novel. It was ambitious of me, driven by the belief that “I can also do it” after reading Chetan Bhagat, yet without a good understanding of the effort it takes. I tried to weave a story, combining and building on a few bits and pieces of what I had written on my blog. Those pieces involved a fictional character called LaajVanti, and were casual, funny and relatable for readers with my kind of profile at the time. I tried to write the novel like we do a course assignment or corporate proposals - put together some nice content and write stuff connecting them all - stitch them together, ensure a flow, cook up a storyline and conclude like it conveys beauty.

In corporates we often start with a strawman when there is a boss to review, time to spare, and the broad structure is unambiguous. Writing fiction, however, is a creative process and cannot be forced to follow a set structure. It involves imagination that can suck you into itself, such that you coexist in various contexts with your characters - either being one of them or watching them, standing next to them. It consumes you so much that you literally live in many imaginary worlds for extended period of time, and this physical world just becomes a pathway to those. These other lives in other worlds bring strong emotions - curiosity, intrigue, anger, excitement, joy, melancholy, hope - in forms and depths you rarely experience in real life. Getting there, however, is not so spontaneous. It requires commitment, persistence and internal push to cross some boundaries. Until you cross those boundaries, it’s a struggle, a hustle, some trial-and-error, and mostly shooting in the dark to see sparks and patterns. It requires patience. Lots of patience. You let your mind wander. You let it dream. You’d often wake up without finishing a dream, especially when it was taking an interesting turn. You’d feel disappointed at the broken sleep and try to push yourself back into it, just so you could get to a conclusion in the dream. Sometimes when your sleep is shallow, you mix dreams with your own cooked up details (hallucinations?). And then, you can only sleep so much at a time - a limitation that frustrates you. And not all of it is about your story. But then you push harder, dream harder, free your mind, let loose your imagination, and then you don’t need sleep to be in peace, in dream or in any world you choose to be. You become one with your story.

I experienced traces of it, but I couldn’t cross those boundaries. I told myself that fiction isn’t my thing. I may have lied; I don’t know. I’ll try again.