See where margin is leaking — even when revenue looks healthy.
Revenue growth does not automatically mean commercial quality is improving. Pricing & Margin Intelligence brings realised price, discounts, concessions, product and channel economics, mix and contribution into one management view — so leadership can see where value is being protected, where it is leaking, and what requires a different decision.
21 days · Diagnose → Reconcile → Interpret → Act → Systemise12 points never reach the invoice — standard trade terms and negotiated positions
7 points conceded at the point of sale — part contractual, part discretionary
5 points absorbed by promotion and rebate structures
45 points are product and delivery cost — what remains is contribution
Two cohorts can post identical revenue and land on very different contribution.
ILLUSTRATIVE Indexed to a reference price of 100, constructed for explanation only. Not client data, not a benchmark, and not an indication of typical or expected margin performance.
Does this sound familiar?
Revenue looks healthy, but contribution is under pressure.
Discounts have become normal rather than exceptional.
Different customers receive different concessions without a clear commercial rationale.
Promotions generate volume, but nobody is certain what they do to contribution.
High-revenue products or channels are assumed to be the best performers, even when the economics say otherwise.
Management sees an average margin, but not where margin is leaking.
Sales teams negotiate price while management has limited visibility into concession patterns.
Product or channel mix shifts revenue without making the contribution effect obvious.
The problem is rarely that prices are simply too low. More often, pricing is broadly right and the visibility around it is not.
From headline revenue and average margin to managed contribution
The same commercial activity, seen through a different lens — one that separates what was sold from the quality of the economics behind it.
- Revenue
- Average margin
- Ad hoc discounts
- Promotion activity
- Sales discretion
- Limited visibility
- Reference versus realised price
- Discount and concession exceptions
- Contribution by relevant cohort
- Mix visibility
- Management actions
- Commercial governance
Not every discount is leakage. A concession may be entirely justified. The engagement identifies where the evidence suggests a decision deserves management attention.
What the customer actually pays, and what is left afterwards
- What customers actually pay, against the commercial position that was intended
- Where discretionary concessions occur, and how consistently
- What commercial value remains after price decisions have been made
- How product, channel and customer mix moves contribution independently of price
- Which exceptions warrant investigation, and which are working as intended
This engagement does not advocate universally higher pricing. It exists to improve the quality of the decision, whichever direction the evidence points.
How the 21-day engagement works
Baseline & Reconcile
Days 1–5Establish the evidence before forming any view. No recommendations at this stage.
- Commercial definitions
- Pricing architecture
- Reference or list price, where relevant
- Realised price
- Discounts and concessions
- Rebates, where applicable
- Contribution definitions
- Channel, product and customer cohorts
- Available transaction data
- Data quality
Identify Commercial Patterns
Days 6–10Read the transaction evidence for pattern and exception.
- Realised-price variance
- Discount patterns
- Concession patterns
- Product economics
- Channel economics
- Customer and segment patterns
- Contribution differences
- Mix effects
- Promotion behaviour
- Material exceptions
Correlation is not automatically causation. A price difference is not leakage merely because it exists.
Prioritise & Activate
Days 11–17Build a client-owned Pricing & Margin Action Register. Each item is classified by what the evidence supports:
Systemise & Readout
Days 18–21Leave management with a way of working, not a dependency.
- Management views
- Exception register
- Pricing decision rules
- Review rhythm
- Approval logic
- Commercial governance
- Operating playbook
- Management Readout
The objective is better pricing judgement — not automated price setting.
What the client receives
Realised Price & Discount Leakage View
Reference against realised price, material concessions, discount depth and frequency, exceptions, and the commercially relevant patterns underneath them. Discount frequency on its own is not treated as leakage.
Product & Channel Contribution and Mix View
Where the economics differ materially across product, service, channel, customer cohort and segment — and how mix moves the result. Built on commercial contribution rather than sales value alone.
Pricing & Margin Action Register
A management action view covering priority exceptions, price decisions, concessions, promotions, contribution issues and investigation priorities — owned by the client, not by us.
Pricing & Margin Operating Playbook
Decision rules, review rhythm, authority levels, escalation, price and concession governance, and how management measures the result afterwards.
Promotion & Markdown Review
Where sufficient data exists, a review of material promotions, markdown events, rebate structures and comparable commercial interventions.
A management view — not an automated pricing engine
Pricing & Margin Intelligence does not set prices, and it does not run them. It helps leadership answer:
- Where is realised price materially below the intended commercial position?
- Which discounts appear commercially justified?
- Which concessions deserve management review?
- Which high-revenue products carry weak contribution?
- Which channels create strong sales but poor economics?
- Where are mix effects being mistaken for pricing effects?
- Which promotion decisions deserve a second look?
- Which commercial exceptions should management protect, change or investigate?
Revenue tells management what was sold.
This engagement helps management understand the quality of the economics behind those sales — and then decide. No autonomous pricing, no live price execution, no algorithm quietly moving numbers on your behalf.
The commercial view management works from
One prioritised register, reviewed on a rhythm. Not a dashboard to admire — a list of decisions with the evidence attached.
| Product / cohort | Reference | Realised | Concession | Contribution | Exception | Management action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core range · National retail | 100 | 91 | 9 | 34 | Healthy | Protect the current position |
| Core range · Regional distributor | 100 | 78 | 22 | 19 | Investigate | Establish the basis for the concession |
| Premium line · Direct | 100 | 97 | 3 | 41 | Healthy | Protect |
| Premium line · Marketplace | 100 | 82 | 18 | 12 | Review | Test a narrower promotion window |
| Entry range · Key account | 100 | 71 | 29 | 8 | Exception | Escalate for commercial review |
| Service attach · Direct | 100 | 100 | 0 | — | Data confidence low | Establish the cost basis before acting |
ILLUSTRATIVE Synthetic data, indexed to a reference price of 100 and constructed for explanation only. Not client data, and not an indication of typical or expected commercial performance.
A 29-point concession may be entirely justified by volume, contractual terms or channel economics. The register flags it for a decision — not for automatic reduction.
Not every discount is leakage
The question is never simply how large a concession was. It is whether that concession was commercially justified.
A concession may be entirely sound
- It retains a commercially important customer
- It supports volume that carries fixed cost
- It enables a strategically valuable deal
- It reflects legitimate channel economics
- It responds to inventory or market circumstances
What we are actually looking for
Concessions granted without a rationale anyone can articulate. Comparable customers treated inconsistently for no evident reason. Promotion spend with no observable contribution effect. Products carrying high revenue and weak economics that management has not seen separated out.
The role here is to improve the decision, not to reduce the discount.
How AI is used — and where it stops
AI and analytics may assist
- Pattern detection
- Transaction segmentation
- Exception detection
- Mix analysis
- Contribution analysis
- Summaries
- Scenario support
- Recommendation drafting
Humans remain accountable for
- Price changes
- Discounts
- Promotions
- Customer-specific concessions
- Negotiation
- Approval exceptions
- Product positioning
- Commercial commitments
AI assists. Humans remain accountable.
Your independent commercial judgement, preserved
Pricing work carries obligations. We hold to them, and we expect to be held to them.
We will not create or recommend
- Competitor price coordination
- Price fixing
- Market allocation
- Coordinated discount behaviour
- Exchange of non-public competitor pricing
- Automated pricing behaviour that could create prohibited coordination
- Live autonomous customer-specific pricing
Where competitor information appears
Any competitor information used must be lawfully obtained and public, kept clearly separate from anything resembling coordinated behaviour, and used only to support the client’s own independent commercial decisions.
Is this the right starting point?
A good starting point when
- Meaningful transaction history exists
- Management sees margin pressure or pricing inconsistency
- Discount or concession discretion exists in the business
- Product, channel or customer contribution differs materially
- Leadership wants better commercial visibility before changing prices
- Sufficient commercial data can reasonably be assembled
Not the right starting point when
- The primary problem is insufficient marketing demand
- The primary problem is sales follow-up or pipeline conversion
- The main issue is inventory ageing or stock allocation rather than price economics
- The requirement is accounting, audit, tax or transfer pricing
- The client wants an automated dynamic-pricing engine
- The client wants us to negotiate customer prices
- There is insufficient reliable transaction or economic data
If the evidence points somewhere else, we will say so before the engagement starts rather than after it.
What it costs
India · 21-day engagement
- On confirmation
- 50%
- At the Day-21 Readout
- 50%
- Review checkpoint
- Included where applicable, and not a payment trigger
This public engagement is currently available for India-based engagements. GCC pricing will be published only after the relevant country variant is cleared and locally price-anchored.
What one engagement covers
- One business or defined category unit
- Up to approximately 4 material channels
- Up to 5 customer or segment cohorts
- Up to 40 priority pricing or margin exceptions
- Conditional review of up to 12 material promotion or markdown events
- Up to 6 analysable source exports
- Transaction data within the approved delivery unit
- One management Readout, plus an agreed review checkpoint where applicable
Likely inputs from you
- Price list or reference-price data
- Transaction export
- Realised selling price
- Discounts
- Coupons, concessions and rebates where applicable
- Product or service identifier
- Channel
- Customer or segment category
- Cost or contribution data where available
- Promotion history
- Management commercial rules
- Stakeholder interviews
We do not collect personal information the analysis does not need.
Included
- Pricing baseline
- Realised-price analysis
- Discount and concession analysis
- Contribution and mix analysis
- Material exception identification
- Management action register
- Pricing and margin operating playbook
- Management Readout
Not included
- Accounting or audit
- Taxation
- Transfer pricing
- Treasury
- FP&A replacement
- Autonomous pricing
- Live price execution
- Customer negotiation
- Competitor coordination
- Assortment-wide stock optimisation
- Ongoing managed pricing service unless separately scoped
What this engagement owns — and what it does not
Pricing & Margin Intelligence owns price, discount, concession, mix and contribution decisions. If your situation sits elsewhere on the commercial chain, the honest answer is a different starting point.
We do not blur these boundaries to increase scope.
Start focused. Transform where the evidence leads.
Pricing & Margin Intelligence must create standalone value. After the engagement, the choice is yours.
Continue internally
Use the management views and commercial decision rules. They are yours and they run without us.
Run a periodic review
Repeat when the pricing economics materially change — a new channel, a cost shift, a competitive move.
Test selected actions
Management may independently test approved changes, on its own terms and its own timing.
Address another evidenced problem
Only where the evidence establishes a separate issue — not because a second engagement exists.
Scope wider transformation
Where pricing issues turn out to be symptoms of something broader across the operating model, channel strategy, data, governance, commercial systems or management intelligence.
Protect contribution, not just revenue.
Bring us the pricing or margin problem, the available data and the commercial outcome management wants to improve. We will determine whether Pricing & Margin Intelligence is the right starting point.