Pricing and Profitability Management: A Practical Guide for Business Leaders

Tips for Moving Forward

Collecting all of the data and conducting all of the analyses described in this chapter can be a herculean task. It may seem even more challenging to synthesize these findings into a workable strategy, which must then be regularly updated to keep pace with market and organizational changes. Most daunting of all can be the task of convincing people to execute the strategy the way they are supposed to—bringing the sales, marketing, procurement and fulfillment, and other stakeholders into line with the company's agreed-upon pricing practices. Following are some tips that have proven helpful to companies in overcoming these challenges.

• Understand where you are before deciding where you want to go. Successful pricing projects generally begin with an insider's assessment of the organization's current pricing initiatives. This assessment includes analyzing qualitative as well as quantitative input from the internal stakeholders who are closest to existing pricing policies and practices. With this information in hand, the organization can then focus its efforts on improving those areas that have the potential to yield the most significant returns.
• Strengthen processes and information tools to enable rapid, fact-based decisions. Does the company have the systems and software needed to gather, store, analyze, and report on historical transaction data? Does it have the necessary competitor and market research and analysis tools? Are there well-defined processes for ...