In the manufacturing industry, nothing stays the same for too long. You must cope with shifting markets, regulations, and threats. To survive, prosper, thrive, and eventually grow to scale your business, you need to be nimble and savvy with your manufacturing pricing. If you are not leveraging data and automation to optimize your prices and boost your earnings, the time has arrived to rethink your approach.

Moving beyond simply recognizing the need for innovative pricing software, many manufacturing companies are looking towards more granular, tailored solutions to unlock their true profit potential. At Pricefx, we have spent more than a decade partnering with manufacturing industry leaders, helping them establish automated, real-time, and customer-specific pricing processes. Our goal – to help businesses optimize pricing strategies, empower their organizations to maximize profitability, and solidify their foundation for future success.

This article explains four key ways Pricefx can assist in automating pricing for the manufacturing industry. We'll show you how these practical use cases can help you in the real world (via some hypothetical mini case studies that just might apply to your manufacturing business), so your company can begin to make and save more money in the tough discrete manufacturing market.

Let's dive straight in!

The Top 3 Ways Pricefx Assists Manufacturers to Automate Pricing & Scale Their Business

1. Automating List Price Recalculation for Manufacturing Companies

The Challenge
In the competitive landscape of the manufacturing industry, securing profitability through optimized list pricing is crucial for companies navigating market fluctuations. Imagine a manufacturing firm grappling with the complexity of managing diverse pricing strategies across a multitude of products and customer segments.

The Automated Solution
To address this challenge, the manufacturing company adopts Pricefx’s automated list price recalculation, leveraging flexible pricing templates capable of accommodating various pricing strategies. Automation plays a pivotal role, enabling the generation of updated list prices triggered by changes in market dynamics, costs, or competitor prices. By integrating with external market data and internal cost information, the company ensures the accuracy and relevance of its pricing decisions.

A Practical Example
Consider a manufacturing company managing an enourmous price list with a vast number of products in it with many requiring frequent pricing updates. With automated list price recalculation in place, the company implements a unified pricing model across its diverse customer base.

Automated processes swiftly adjust list prices in response to evolving market conditions or cost fluctuations, streamlining pricing operations and enhancing negotiation efficiency. Integration with ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems ensures seamless execution of updated list prices, leading to improved maragins and increased price realization.

The Beneficial Results of Pricing Automation
The success of this strategy is evident in key performance indicators (KPIs), such as reduced time spent on pricing revisions, elimination of manual errors, and enhanced price realization. By automating list price recalculation, manufacturing companies not only optimize profitability but also position themselves for sustained success in the dynamic market landscape.

To dive in deeper and learn more about pricing new products in line with a new product roll out pricing strategy, check out this great article from my colleague, Justin Childs:

2.  Improving Price Differentiation Across Different Segments

The Challenge
For local pricing managers in the manufacturing industry, adjusting regional price lists to align with local conditions and global pricing strategies poses a significant challenge. Imagine a scenario where pricing managers are burdened with manually recalculating regional price lists using error-prone processes, relying on disjointed data sets in spreadsheets without a clear audit trail.

The Automated Solution
To overcome these obstacles, manufacturing companies can implement Pricefx’s automated recalculation of dependent price lists, empowering local pricing managers with efficient tools to manage price differentiation that responds to not only regional conditions and global reference prices, but alsoto aspects of willingness to pay and the value that different market segments will realize. Automation streamlines data gathering and applies pricing strategies to calculate new list prices, while robust simulation capabilities and ERP integration ensure seamless execution.

A Practical Example
Consider a manufacturing company with a diverse customer base across multiple regions, each requiring tailored pricing strategies. With automated recalculation of dependent price lists, in addition to opening the door to more strategic pricing approaches that capture differences in market value, local pricing managers review regional price lists and utilize intuitive wizards to adjust pricing strategies based on local factors. Automated processes swiftly calculate new prices and additional price points, allowing for manual adjustments based on alerts or specific market conditions. Simulation tools provide insights into the impact of price changes, facilitating informed decisions before final approval of country price lists.

The Beneficial Results of Pricing Automation

The adoption of automated dependent price list recalculation yields tangible benefits for manufacturing companies. By reducing the time spent on price revision and eliminating manual errors, companies enhance price realization and align prices across various sales channels.

By enabling automatic updates of related price lists, local pricing managers can not only use more strategic pricing methods that reflect the variations in market value, but also examine regional price lists and apply easy-to-use wizards to modify pricing policies based on local factors.

Ultimately, automation enables manufacturing companies to navigate regional pricing complexities effectively, optimizing profitability, discovering additional pockets of value that they never knew existed or had visibility to and thereby ensures competitiveness in the market and long-term business success.

Learn more in this informative article on how Pricefx can assist with your omnichannel pricing:

3. Improved Accruals and Payouts Administration Revolutionizing Manufacturing Pricing

The Challenge
In the manufacturing industry, finance and controlling teams tasked with managing rebate calculations face a daunting challenge: automating accruals and payouts while upholding rigorous audit standards. Currently, many manufacturing organizations rely on manual, error-prone processes conducted in Excel spreadsheets, lacking transparency and auditability.

The Automated Solution
Pricefx offers a transformative solution for manufacturing finance teams by automating accruals and payouts, seamlessly integrating rebate, payout, and accrual lifecycles into financial systems. This automation eliminates manual errors, enhances transparency, and ensures compliance with audit standards, empowering teams to streamline processes and foster stronger customer relationships.

The Beneficial Results of Pricing Automation

• Accuracy and Consistency: Automated calculation of accruals and payouts ensures precision and consistency, minimizing discrepancies in financial reporting and reducing the risk of costly errors at quarter and year-end.
• Better Rebate Performance: As a result of easier rebate administration and tracking.
• Audit-Proved Processes: Pricefx's automated processes provide audit-proven workflows and comprehensive audit trails, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and internal controls.
• Operational Efficiency: By reducing calculation errors and streamlining processes, automation enhances operational efficiency and customer satisfaction, freeing up valuable time for strategic initiatives.
• Rebate Transformation: Automation enables manufacturing companies to expand the complexity of rebates, shifting incentives towards performance-based rewards rather than upfront concessions, fostering more favorable customer behaviors.

Accurate Calculation of Payouts Based on Actual Performance

Pricefx's Rebates solution leverages historical performance data to automate payout calculations, ensuring timely and fair compensation for customers. By eliminating manual calculations, teams can focus on strategic initiatives, driving profitability and fostering stronger customer relationships.

It is worthwhile to note that in the light of our recent partnership with Enable,  Pricefx together with Enable now form a combined rebate management/pricing double threat – learn more here:

Happy Manufacturing Pricing!