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The exploding number of brands, channels, and distinct customersegments means that many companies must now jugglethousands of price points while seeking to maintain consistent

pricing strategies and communications across an ever-increasingnumber of products and outlets. For a broad variety ofmanufacturers that sell to consumers and businesses alike, thisproliferation has made pricing more difficult but the rewards formanaging it well much greater..

To realize the full potential of today's state-of-the-art approachesto analyzing and improving pricing performance, companies needa new operating model built on three pillars: 1. better visibilityinto pricing performance and clearer performance standards; 2) acommon system for pricing across brands, channels, and

segments; and 3) organizational balance, with a central pricinggroup that integrates the model throughout the company butdoesn't make every decision. In many cases, the model willrequire substantial changes in the way companies make dailypricing decisions, as well as changes to systems, organizationalroles and responsibilities, performance metrics, and incentives.Making these changes stick calls for real dedication and,frequently, a new performance culture focused on pricing.

1) Visibility into the performance of pricing

For many companies, generating even simple bottom-line priceand margin reports for individual customers or SKUs is amonumental task exacerbated by the proliferation of brands,channels, and segments. Companies frequently find themselveswith a variety of systems that capture key pricing data.Integrating the data is difficult and time consumingandtherefore rarely done. With so little information available centrally,it isn't surprising that sales forces have even less informationwhen it is most criticalat the point of negotiation. Fewcompanies have tools to help the frontline sales force manage orimprove pricing.

Given the importance of incorporating clear information as well asthe growing need to bring pricing decisions closer to customers,an integrated database and frontline tools for pricing are essentialingredients of success. The information required to develop theseinsightsproduct volumes, list prices, promotional spending,trade allowances, payment terms, and data on the cost of

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products, for exampletypically resides in a broad array ofisolated systems run by finance, sales, logistics, and customerservice. We have witnessed situations in which managers had topull data from more than 35 sources to develop a comprehensive

profit-and-loss statement for products and customers.

The answer is to combine a laserlike focus on the most importantinformation needed to make pricing decisions with a simpleprocess that integrates this information so that salespeople canuse it. One leading beverage company regularly captures andsynthesizes accurate field pricing data, including prices,promotions, and shipments at the retail level. This company alsoenlists its vast field sales forces to calibrate pricing on a market-by-market basis. By methodically capturing information in apricing database and support tool, a company creates a consistent

set of data to guide its decisions and measure their impact.

Common system for pricing across brands, channels, and segments

If a lack of visibility makes it difficult to monitor and enforce goodpricing, inconsistent processes across an organization furthercomplicate the execution of pricing. As the products and channelsof companies become more complex, each silo within anorganization develops its own approach to making importantpricing decisions, such as pricing new products, negotiating thepricing of deals, and managing trade funds. Without consistency

across the organization, a company can't leverage best practices,shift and promote talented workers effectively, or present auniform image to customers who make purchases in a number ofproduct categories, often from different salespeople.

To ensure consistency across silos over time, it is critical toidentify and standardize the two or three most important pricingprocesses and to institutionalize them across the business. Byformally establishing a consistent set of core pricing processes,companies can deploy best practices and process improvementsmore quickly and make key pricing and promotion decisions moretransparent. Other benefits include predictable planning cycles,standardized communications to key retail and distributionpartners, and a system of internal checks and balances to avoidpoor decisions and potentially illegal pricing actions.

Organizational balance

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As companies try to make their pricing performance more visibleand to institutionalize core pricing processes, the question of whomanages and maintains the infrastructure becomes increasinglyimportant. If most pricing decisions remain decentralized, who

makes sure that strategy and tactics are integrated across brands,channels, and segments? Who maintains the central pricingdatabase and mines that data to create reports and identifypricing opportunities? Who trains the organization's people in theelements of the pricing system? Leading companies haveanswered these questions by creating a central pricingorganizationa center of pricing excellencethat maintains basicsystems and functions and can collaborate with the rest of thecompany.

To be effective, the pricing organization must be led by a full-time

manager who is well respected within the company and hasstrong interpersonal skills, since the role involves frequent workwith sales, marketing, finance, customer service, and operations.While the organization needn't be large to be effective, it musthave the ability to perform several key functions. First, it shouldmine the database and produce regular reports for top managers.Second, the group must collect and synthesize pricingintelligence, which may include consumer research, marketstudies, and publicly available information about competitors. Itmay also weigh exceptional discounting requests from frontline

sales reps and make recommendations or even final decisions.Last, the organization could be charged with identifying pricingopportunities and leading cross-functional teams to capture them.

More and more, companies are supplementing the pricingorganization with a cross-functional pricing council, typicallychaired by the pricing leader and including executives from brand,product, sales, and channel management and from customerservice, finance, and operations. Meeting every month or two,such a council serves as a central clearinghouse for pricing issues.Among other things, it resolves conflicts across sales and

operational silos, refines and coordinates strategy for pricing,reviews the performance of pricing, and responds to majorcompetitive moves.