
Congratulations Pricing Managers! You’ve successfully convinced your C-Level management to overhaul your pricing policy, unlocking significant profitability gains and finally streamlining your processes. Now, the real adventure begins! Before diving headfirst into the system implementation guide, it’s absolutely crucial to meticulously prepare.
Why preparation is critical for pricing system projects
A pricing project isn’t merely an operational tweak; it’s a profound transformation that compels your organization to rethink price-related processes, bridge departmental silos and navigate change management. Success requires:
- Overcoming data quality challenges
- Aligning stakeholders on price-related process
- Integrating new processes into daily operations
- Transforming, while managing business-as-usual tasks
These aren’t minor hurdles; they are substantial technical, strategic, temporal, and organizational considerations that demand your attention from the outset.
Your pre-project pricing checklist
To ensure a successful and scalable pricing tool implementation, we recommend the following steps:
1. Gather Pricing Strategy, Rules and Criteria
Create detailed pricing rules and criteria across business and product lines.
Identify which dimensions explain price versus which are only scoping variables.
2. Collect and Qualify Data
The relevance and precision of pricing recommendations hinge entirely on qualified, organized, and granular data.
Assemble representative transactions and define how they map to your pricing logic. Engage with IT to build the data-sharing protocol for efficient collaboration.
Define KPIs, set a baseline, and prepare to measure ROI and pricing impact over time.
3. Formalize Functional Requirements and Use Cases
Develop an intuitive user experience by designing new workflows with and for your sales and operational teams, all within a strategic “time-to-price” framework.
Identify and document your key user groups and scenarios (e.g. spot vs. contract pricing, retention workflows, re-rating). Include all validation and escalation paths.
From the start : identify test conditions, key users, and feedback loops.
4. Align Early with Stakeholders & Navigate Change Management
Before diving into technical setup, secure alignment on:
- Quotation process modifications & ownership
- Pricing governance
- Strategic objectives and pricing vision
Develop a structured communication plan to both inform and consult all stakeholders, ensuring everyone is engaged and on board with the new pricing vision.
Proactively manage organizational change to mitigate potential pitfalls arising from shifts in roles and responsibilities.
A shared understanding builds trust, boosts adoption, and increases project impact across your company.
Build the right project team
Given the magnitude of the preceding points, assembling the right team and support system is paramount. Critically, don’t forget to factor in your personal time for strategic thinking and for engaging and co-creating with your colleagues. You should also proactively plan for your current job responsibilities, considering whether to delegate certain activities to your team or if additional resources, such as trainees, might be necessary.
- Map your internal ecosystem: Identify the full spectrum of internal resources and the entire ecosystem within your company that needs to be mobilized for the project.Typically, such projects would require a PMO, Subject Matter Experts from Pricing, Finance, Operations, Sales & Marketing, IT & BI Specialist.
- Secure external expertise and resources: Actively seek out additional resources and competencies, as well as the necessary long-term support for the project’s duration. Crucially, budget for these from the outset.
- Ensure management and executive sponsorship: Ensure the commitment of middle management, and the unwavering support of executive leadership. This high-level backing is essential for the rapid resolution of issues and to facilitate quick decision-making and arbitrations, vital for strategic pricing initiatives.
Empower your pricing transformation with open pricer
With 20+ years of experience supporting freight and parcel carriers, Open Pricer helps pricing teams implement impactful tools that drive performance. Our platform integrates pricing logic, robust workflows, and data-driven insights to ensure faster quoting, better margins, and controlled discounting.
➡️ Let’s talk about how we can support your pricing project.