4 Ways manufacturers Can Gain Better Pricing Data Visualization

This post originally appeared on INSIGHT2PROFIT.com

Pricing data can be dense. If no one is reviewing it, managing it, comparing it or scrutinizing it, it’s likely your organization is missing price leaks you could otherwise put a stop to. From volume discounts to price overrides, profits are lost and margins are cut, but do you know by how much? Can you identify your true pocket price for your top selling products?

If not, you may have a data visualization problem. But like any problem, a solution exists, you just have to seek it out. Here are four ways to gain better visualization into your organization’s pricing data.

1. Establish Pricing Ownership:

In most manufacturing businesses, pricing is a responsibility divided amongst marketing, sales, finance, product teams and other executives. But whose job is it to see the big picture? If you can’t validate hiring a pricing manager, you can develop a Pricing Ownership Matrix.

In a decentralized customer environment where no pricing leader is appointed, you can define pricing area ownership. Consider catalog and list pricing, discounting, key accounts, geography and business divisions.

Then ensure these “area owners” meet often to talk about the big picture of pricing.

2. Search Out Discounting Visibility:

Do you know how many discounts your sales team is offering? How about your customer service team? From freight and volume discounts to rebates and “long-time customer” pricing, the hits to your margins add up.

Obtaining clear visibility to your discounting structure through a Pricing Waterfall is a powerful way to determine pricing leaks and non-value added discounts. Discover how to determine your true pocket price in the this 1-minute video.

3. Determine Product Value:

Your organization deserves to be paid for the value it creates. But do you know which products create the most value for your company?

Most businesses focus on getting the price they set for each product, but are often disappointed when customers won’t agree to it. More important than “getting the price” is balancing what the right price is.

Some products won’t create a lot of value for the brand—perhaps they are not differentiated enough when compared to the competition. Those products will fetch a lower margin. Other products may create a lot of value; they may be highly differentiated or solve a problem your competitors can’t. Higher margins can be sustained, bringing in higher revenues.

Once you determine and utilize this information, your pricing strategy can become far more sophisticated.

4. Utilize Technology:

If you are using an outdated ERP system or BI tool, you may not be seeing the entire pricing picture. While you can track list price and invoice price, what about analyzing pricing and mix analysis? Without actionable information from your tools, how will you identify outliers, see pricing variations among peer groups or be immediately alerted to pricing variances?

While there is power in your data, you must utilize the proper pricing application to discover that power. To truly visualize your pricing data in the most efficient manner, you need a pricing application that can stop price leaks before they become dangerous to your bottom line, predict customer churn and identify the root causes of profitability issues.

The Bottom Line

By establishing pricing ownership, seeking discount visibility, determining product value and utilizing technology, you can gain the pricing data visualization you truly need. In fact, one manufacturer worked with INSIGHT2PROFIT to gain better visualization and was able to realize an additional $2.3 million in revenue over 16 months. Learn more in our case study.

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Big Data, Mobile and Social Media Dominate the Conversations at the 2014 BMA Global Conference

By Matt Sonnhalter, Vision Architect

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I recently attended the Business Marketing Association (BMA) global conference which was held in Chicago May 28-30, 2014. The largest B2B marketing conference in the world, BMA14 was attended by a record 950 B2B marketers from 450 firms, 33 states and 12 nations.

The 2014 BMA conference also deployed two digital platforms—Livecube and ISEBOX—to enable speakers to take polls and attendees to ask questions, follow tweets, share photos and access conference content. If you are in charge of planning live events/conferences, I would suggest checking out these two resources.

The 3-day conference was jam packed with content – featuring 79 speakers and presenters leading 41 sessions—three pre-conference programs, nine panels, 12 keynotes and 17 firestarters. These sessions covered a wide array of topics and trends of critical interest and importance to B2B marketers today. Someone at the conference referenced the amount of information presented was like drinking from a fire hydrant!

Here are a few themes I saw throughout the entire conference:

Big Data

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It’s becoming more and more difficult for marketers in today’s environment and I thought one illustration that did a great job of representing our challenge was the Marketing Technology Landscape graphic by ChiefMartec.com. We are surrounded by data, but starved for insights; that is, data does not automatically equal insight. Today’s marketers need to solve both analytical and creative issues as we continue to trend toward extreme personalization…segments of one.

Mobile

Since mobile devices are the predominant way people globally access the web and information, mobile is a critical factor when planning future marketing efforts. Here are a few stats from the conference that help reinforce the importance of mobile:

  • Mobile data usage doubled in 2013
  • In the US, 1 of every 5 minutes spent on mobile are on either Facebook or Instagram
  • More Facebook users globally now engage the site via their mobile device compared to their desktop
  • 78% access Twitter via a mobile device

Social Media

Social media continues to be a key component of the B2B marketing mix, with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube still being the main ones utilized by B2B marketers. There was a great session by Tim Washer from CISCO on “How to bring humor to B2B storytelling.” Just because you work in B2B marketing does not mean you need to be devoid of humor…check out some of these examples shared by Tim:

You can view/download videos and documents from the entire conference here: http://bma.isebox.net/.

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