At PricingBrew, we sometimes get a bit of grief for focusing so much attention on the organizational aspects of pricing in B2B environments. Frankly, some practitioners simply believe that technical pricing proficiency is all that’s required to be effective.
But as former practitioners ourselves, we know that the organization itself can often act as a gauntlet to effective pricing in B2B. Figuring out what to do is just the first step, and very often, figuring out how to get it done is the more challenging part.
A new case study in the Journal illustrates how much difference your approach to “getting it done” can really make…
Two Ways to Champion Pricing Initiatives details one practitioner’s experiences securing internal support and buy-in for new pricing initiatives. Subscribers should find this case study to be particularly instructive as it contrasts two different approaches used by the same practitioner, toward very similar pricing initiatives, in very similar situations.
In one situation, the practitioner used an approach that we see all the time. It’s an approach that will probably sound very familiar to a lot of readers. In a nutshell, the practitioner identified the pricing problem; determined the most effective solution; and then spent the next 10 months getting the management team to agree to move forward with the solution.
That’s not unusual, is it? These things just take time, right?
Later, when the practitioner found themselves in a nearly identical situation, they decided to take a very different approach in an attempt to speed things up. This time around, they paid much more attention to how organizations and management teams actually make decisions—particularly decisions that involve significant change and investment. And using this approach, securing the necessary approvals took a little over six weeks.
Six weeks versus ten months. Which would you prefer?
As this case illustrates, your approach can make huge difference. Technical pricing proficiency will help you identify the problems and even help you devise the right solutions. But given the organizational dynamics involved in any B2B environment, technical skills alone won’t get it done…at least, not in a timely fashion.
