Most wholesale distributors and many manufacturing companies task the sales team with setting or adjusting prices on a customer by customer basis. In most cases, a centralized pricing system where a pricing structure is maintained for field use does not exist. Instead, many distributors rely upon the skill, experience and judgment of the individual reps for pricing management.
The challenge is that even though each rep has unique insights into the marketplace and customer needs, each rep may be applying their skill and experience differently with differing results. And, no mechanism typically exists that allows reps to share their experience across the organization.
Capturing the experience of a team of sales reps is no easy task. However, by beginning with historical pricing data, analysis can be performed that provides visibility to company wide price performance. Visit this page on pricing analysis to learn how to begin analyzing historical pricing data.