The One Time SIMALTO Might Actually Help: Signaling, Not Strategy

SIMALTO isn’t evil. It just gets asked to do more than it’s built for.

There’s one place where it can help: it provides an early signal. Not an answer. Not a strategy. But a structured glimpse of what might matter—before the real work begins.

And that’s it.

A Structured Glimpse—Nothing More

SIMALTO gives respondents a way to express constrained preferences. That’s useful if you’re trying to avoid the “everything is important” trap early in the research process.

Internally, it might reveal which features are always selected, which ones never are, and which ones shift when pricing pressure is applied.

That’s interesting context. But it’s not a business plan.

If you’re unfamiliar with the basic mechanics of SIMALTO, Wikipedia has the standard setup. It’s tidy—but far from strategic.

Where It Breaks: Strategic Tension Can’t Be Flattened

SIMALTO assigns points.

That’s the system. But points don’t behave like dollars, margins, or operational realities. Here’s what it can’t do:

• It can’t show the trade-off between margin stability and brand growth
• It doesn’t reflect tension between manufacturing lead times and marketing timelines
• It doesn’t handle pricing dynamically—price is just another point constraint

What gets lost isn’t a feature—it’s visibility. SIMALTO can’t show how a decision affects the income statement.

It can’t walk you through what goes up, what goes down, and where the real risk lives.

It’s Often a Costly Way to Surface Internal Signals

In some orgs, SIMALTO gets used because it looks “methodical.”

But when you ask what the output is for, the answer is often fuzzy. Is it for the pricing team? The CMO? The plant manager? Finance?

If no one’s using the output to make the next real decision, you’ve paid for structure—without strategy.

Where Revenue Crafting Starts

Revenue Crafting begins where methods like SIMALTO stall out.

After you’ve surfaced the themes. After the assumptions have been laid bare. After the politics have crept in. From that point forward, the model needs to do something different:

• Reflect operational and financial constraints
• Show the upside and risk of each path
• Guide a decision that the business can actually implement

If your method doesn’t move the team from “what do we like” to “what can we afford to do,” it’s not strategy-ready.

SIMALTO can start the conversation. But it can’t lead it.

For a full teardown and example exercise, see the full guide.