SIMALTO vs Real Decisions: Why the Model Breaks Down in the Boardroom

SIMALTO delivers clean charts.

Preference scores, constraints, maybe even some “optimization.” But none of that survives contact with the decision room.

Because real decisions don’t happen inside grids. They happen when teams disagree — and need to choose anyway.

That’s where SIMALTO fails: it refuses to surface tension. And if a model can’t show tension, it’s not built for strategy.

Why SIMALTO Feels Reliable — Until It Isn’t

Executive teams often mistake SIMALTO’s structure for rigor.

It looks balanced. It looks numeric. It looks like a model that took real thinking to produce.

But structure isn’t the same as strategy. And most of the trade-offs that matter never make it into the grid.

You don’t solve decision friction by hiding it in a matrix.

For a basic overview of how SIMALTO works structurally, see its Wikipedia page. Just don’t confuse structure with strategy.

SIMALTO reduces everything to “cost” points.

That logic assumes each trade-off is neat and interchangeable. But here’s what that logic misses:

Additive thinking flattens nuance. And the most important pricing decisions are never flat.

SIMALTO doesn’t help the team get aligned—it helps them avoid conflict.

That’s fine for pre-work. But in the boardroom?

SIMALTO didn’t fail because it was inaccurate.
It failed because it refused to carry the real weight of the decision.

Revenue Crafting doesn’t flatten.
It surfaces the right tensions—on purpose—so decision-makers can actually decide.

That means:

If the model doesn’t make the room sharper, it’s just another artifact.

Tidy models rarely survive the first real conversation.
That’s why Revenue Crafting exists.