Pricing and Profitability Management: A Practical Guide for Business Leaders

Pricing Technology Selection and Implementation Recommendations

Moving from problem definition, to solution selection, and then implementation can be a difficult process for an organization. Decisions made early in the selection phase are critical if the organization is to capitalize on opportunities to improve processes, pricing effectiveness, and margin. Here are some key points that organizations need to get right.

• Start with small wins, such as finding and correcting price leakage, to fund initiatives that will provide long-term benefits. Early successes can also help build internal credibility and confidence in new systems, processes, methods, and people.
• Create a phased implementation approach to keep costs in line with the benefits realized. Consider investing first in diagnostic and analytic tools that will identify the elements contributing to existing profits and costs, help locate points of price leakage, and assist in identifying small and quick wins, which, as stated above, can help fund later phases.
• Establish improvement objectives with realistic metrics early in the project to help manage the expectations of leaders. Decide in advance which metrics will be looked at and how they will be responded to. Be realistic about estimating resource and time requirements. Talk about what thresholds could trigger an adjustment in the timeline or resources for the project.
• Ensure the final pricing software selection is handled internally with specialists being used only to ...