With rising costs, fluid consumer demand, and aggressive competition, manufacturing companies across all sub-industries struggle to protect margins while driving incremental volumes. Traditional approaches to pricing - ranging from static cost-plus formulas to discounting based on gut feel - often fall short, leaving money on the table or forfeiting market share to rivals with greater analytics and pricing insights capabilities.

But what if you didn’t need to purchase an expensive, one-size-fits-all pricing tool to keep pace?

What if you could leverage your existing systems (ERP, external/syndicated data, CRM, BI platforms) to develop an in-house Revenue Growth Management (RGM) capability that not only optimizes your Prices and Promotions but also unifies your commercial teams around near real-time, harmonized insights.

In our latest article, we discuss the common pricing challenges for manufacturers, detail a clear process for creating an in-house RGM analytics ecosystem, highlight real-world impact through anonymized case studies, and outline the next steps for those ready to transform their Pricing and RGM strategies. Along the way, you’ll see how advanced analytics, intuitive dashboards, and thoughtful change management can revolutionize your margins without breaking the bank.

Common Pricing Challenges

Facing Market Turbulence with Antiquated Tools

Manufacturers clinging to outdated cost-plus pricing and basic Price Analytics capabilities are leaving money on the table and exposing themselves to unnecessary risk, especially when most enterprise-level competitors have invested heavily in this capability. This approach fails to capitalize on opportunities and react effectively to changing market conditions. A robust, advanced analytics-driven Revenue Growth Management (RGM) and Analytics capability is the solution, ideally built in-house using existing tech stack, and co-designed with key stakeholders to maximize adoption.

Here's how we can help manufacturers transition to a modern, agile pricing approach:

Insights-Driven Pricing: Implement advanced analytics to track real-time fluctuations in raw material costs, competitor pricing, and market demand. This allows for proactive price adjustments that optimize margins and respond to market dynamics. Moving beyond annual or bi-annual price reviews to a continuous, insights-driven approach (part of monthly Sales and S&OP reviews) is crucial.
Value-Based Pricing: Shift from cost-plus to value-based pricing by understanding the differential value your products deliver to customers. Quantify the benefits, like a specialty chemicals client of ours, to justify premium pricing and capture a greater share of the profit pool. This decoupling from cost fluctuations strengthens pricing power.
Holistic Revenue Management: Revenue Management is much more than just Pricing. Integrate list price management with other levers like promotions, discounts, product mix, churn management and marketing optimization. A holistic RGM approach optimizes the entire revenue ecosystem, not just individual SKUs. This is especially relevant for B2B companies, where pricing and growth strategies are often siloed.
AI/ML-Powered Optimization: Leverage AI/ML to predict demand, optimize pricing across customer segments and product portfolios, and automate price adjustments (or at least automate for long-tail SKUs and automate the recommendations for A/B movers).
Phased Implementation: We'll work with you to implement a phased approach, starting with a pilot program that’s co-designed with internal stakeholders to demonstrate value and then scaling across the organization. This minimizes disruption and ensures much smoother adoption.

Lost Visibility into Promotions and Discounts

Trade promotions or bulk-buy discounts can be powerful levers for boosting volume, but poor visibility often leads to margin leaks. In many cases:

Sales teams grant discounts inconsistently, sometimes well below recommended thresholds. The same set of products across similar customers can receive widely different discounts - depending on who the salesperson is.
Finance teams struggle to see which promotions drove truly incremental volume versus those that merely ate into margins.
Executive leadership can’t tie trade promotion or rebate spending to actual ROI, making it hard to reallocate funds effectively.

Manual, Siloed Processes

It’s not unusual for Pricing and Promotions data (along with competitor data) to live in multiple spreadsheets or various, outdated databases. A siloed view of net margins, channel performance, and competitor activity delays decision-making and reduces confidence in any recommended pricing changes.

The Risk of Inaction

Failing to modernize your pricing capabilities comes at a steep cost:

Weakened Margins: Margin leakage through undisciplined discounts or suboptimal price points.
Market Share Erosion: Competitors with better Pricing Insights and processes can quickly undercut or outmaneuver your legacy approach.
Customer Distrust: Inconsistent pricing policies and promotions risk confusing both retailers and end consumers.

The Path to Transformative Revenue Growth

Why an In-House RGM Approach?

Building advanced pricing capabilities “in-house” may sound daunting, but it offers critical advantages:

Full Customization: Tailor dashboards, elasticity and segmentation models, and discount guardrails to your specific product lines and channels.
Lower Total Cost: Avoid recurring fees from third-party “best pricing software” while scaling pricing analytics at your own pace, ensuring that you drive full adoption and usage (and results!)
Skill Development: Your teams learn advanced analytics and revenue management techniques throughout the RGM Analytics development process, creating a cultural shift toward insights-driven Pricing and RGM decision-making.

***Main stages of a robust, in-house RGM Analytics capability.***

Step 1: Data Collection & Integration

The first step is to unify all relevant data in one place. This typically includes:

ERP Orders & Invoices: For each SKU and customer account, capturing list prices, invoice prices, and discounts.
CRM Records: Detailing customer segments, contract terms, or channel partner relationships.
External Feeds: Syndicated scanner data (common in CPG), competitor price scraping (industrial or e-commerce channels), or retailer portals.

Key Outcome: A single source of truth—often in a cloud data warehouse (e.g., Azure or AWS)—so that all stakeholders reference the same updated figures for anything Pricing and Revenue Management related.

***Core RGM Analytics Modules for Manufacturers***

Step 2: Analytics & Modeling

Once data is clean and consolidated, you can incorporate Machine Learning models to uncover elasticity, forecast demand, and group customers by price sensitivity, transactional behavior, and firmographic data. For example:

Elasticity Models: Predict the volume, sales and profit impact if you raise the price X% (or increase discounts by Y%) on a certain SKU.
Promotional ROI Algorithms: Estimate incremental lifts for various promotion types (BOGO, price discount, display promotions), at various investment levels and at different time frames.
Competitor Scenario Analyses: Estimate the impact of competitor moves across list price or discount changes, increased merchandising support, or new product introductions.

Key Outcome: Advanced RGM insights that replace guesswork with a robust quantitative basis for all pricing and promotional decisions.

Step 3: Dynamic Dashboard Build

An intuitive, role-based RGM Analytics dashboard is the linchpin of a successful RGM capability. Tools like Microsoft Power BI or Tableau can nowadays integrate ML models with harmonized data from various sources, and present user-friendly, dynamic dashboards that can do a substantially better job at Pricing/RGM Analytics than most turnkey software.

Below is a detailed table summarizing key RGM modules, the questions they answer, and the metrics each uses:

***Foundational RGM Analytics modules***

By rolling out these modules, each department outside of Pricing can focus on its top concerns—Finance can watch margin signals and go-get opportunities, Sales can see recommended discounts and competitive prices, Marketing can fine-tune promotions, and executives can keep an eye on big-picture performance.

Step 4: Continuous Monitoring & Optimization

RGM is not a one-and-done project. Once your dashboards go live, the real transformation begins:

Monthly or Weekly RGM Reviews: Leadership and cross-functional teams dissect the latest analytics.
Scenario Testing: Before finalizing a promotional plan or adjusting price levels, run a scenario analysis to predict potential volume or margin outcomes.
Feedback Loops: Refine elasticity models and discount guardrails based on real-world results, making them more accurate over time.

Tangible Gains from In-Sourced RGM Analytics Capabilities

Case Study 1: Optimizing Medical Device Gross Profits with Dynamic B2B Margin Analytics

A leading med-tech company aimed to strengthen its pricing discipline and achieve a 5% net price realization across two large business units in North America and Europe. Initially, the organization struggled with minimal visibility into margin leakage: Sales teams frequently deviated from target discounts, while freight and rebate policies were inconsistently applied.

Key Challenges

Lack of Transparent Pricing Metrics: Executives couldn’t pinpoint which products, customers, or countries drove margin erosion.
Significant Discount Dispersion: Similar customer segments received widely different discounts, further undermining profit.
Fragmented Freight & Rebate Policies: Freight fees were often waived without any oversight, and rebates were granted ad hoc.

Action Taken

Built an in-house Margin Analytics & Optimization platform, featuring an executive dashboard, net revenue and profit driver modules, and discount analysis tools.
Introduced a standardized pocket price waterfall to identify each point of margin leakage, from list price through discounts, freight charges, and rebates.
Recalibrated freight guidelines, requiring managerial approval before waiving fees, and revamped rebate structures toward volume-based incentives.
Developed training modules to encourage global adoption and ensure sales teams used the new discount matrix effectively.

***Margin Analytics Dashboard Designs co-created with End Users***

Results

5% Increase in Net Price Realization in the first year, thanks to newly identified leakage points and stricter discount governance.
Greater focus on targeted customer and product group pricing, improving overall sales quoting effectiveness.
Established the groundwork for a value-based pricing journey, helping the company align price points more closely with product value propositions.

Case Study 2: Driving Manufacturer Gross Profit Through Promotion Effectiveness & Optimization

A $1.5B Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) manufacturer was losing market share to both smaller niche brands and large global competitors. In an attempt to reclaim lost ground, the company boosted promotional spending from 15% to 20% of gross revenues, yet saw no meaningful improvement in volume. Gross margins eroded further, and leadership realized there was no cohesive framework to measure or manage promotional ROI.

Key Challenges

Sub-Optimal Promotion Planning: Limited data prevented targeted promotion strategies, resulting in scattered investments.
Eroding Gross Profit: Promotional budgets climbed, but an empirical view of which events truly delivered incremental volume was lacking.
Category Influence Decline: Without analytics to showcase category growth contributions, the company lost credibility with top retailers.

Action Taken

Partnered with Revology Analytics to develop an in-house Promotion Effectiveness & Optimization platform, starting with a centralized data warehouse in Azure SQL.
Launched a Promotion Analytics module in Tableau, integrating internal shipments, syndicated market data, and distributor details for event-level ROI measurement.
Restructured the rebate program in the convenience channel, moving from generic rebate structures to a growth-oriented, pay-for-performance model.
Built a robust Demand Model (multiplicative regressions, random forests) to forecast how promo events would affect volume.

***Promo Effectiveness module measured ROIs at both the Manufacturer and Retailer levels, with dynamic drill-downs (at event level) and drill-ups (at Retailer / Product level).***

Results

Gross Profit Rose by 8% overall—and by 13% for anchor brands—within a year.
Trade Investment ROI improved from 80% to 92%, a 15% performance jump, thanks to analytics-driven event selection.
Achieved a +6% unit volume increase and +4% dollar share gain in one year, as more precise promotional strategies resonated with retailers and end consumers.
Enhanced buyer engagement in key retail channels, with sales teams using real-time scenario tools to negotiate more effectively.

Practical Steps with Revology for an In-House RGM Analytics Platform

If the above vision of building a robust RGM analytics platform in-house aligns with your goals, consider how a specialized Pricing & RGM partner like Revology Analytics can accelerate the process. Our approach is about meeting you where you are and designing a tailored, end-to-end solution that capitalizes on sales and operating rhythm and builds internal, sustainable RGM capabilities.

How Revology Analytics Drives RGM Success

Rapid Data Assessment: We quickly map out your data sources (ERP, CRM, market intel) and identify gaps or inconsistencies that may impede your progress toward best-in-class Pricing and RGM.

Custom Modeling & Visualization: Our team develops elasticity, forecasting, and promotional ROI models specific to your product lines and channels, then translates these into intuitive dashboards capability of rapid scenario analyses and optimization (e.g., in Power BI or Tableau).
Change Management & Training: We provide hands-on workshops and ongoing support so your Sales, Finance, and Marketing teams (in addition to your core Pricing and RGM teams) can fully embrace the new RGM workflow.
Scalable Solutions: As you grow—expanding into new channels, launching new SKUs, or merging with other entities—our platform evolves. We integrate additional data sources, refine existing models, and help you stay ahead of market disruptions and tech advancements.

Who Benefits Most

While any manufacturer can gain from an insights-driven approach to pricing and promotions, certain segments see a particularly high impact:

***Key Pain Points solved for Industrial Manufacturers.***

Who May Not Be Ready

Organizations that prefer purely intuition-based pricing or have no appetite for data governance.

Teams unwilling to invest time in upskilling staff or modernizing processes.

Seizing the Pricing Advantage

Today, margins, brand loyalty, and market share favor those with a capable Pricing and RGM Analytics capability, and insights-driven revenue management is no longer a nice-to-have…it’s table stakes. By leveraging existing data assets and popular tech stack, and layering on advanced analytics and user-friendly dashboards, you can build an RGM ecosystem that aligns teams around shared metrics, reacts fast to competitor moves, and uncovers specific, overlooked profit pockets.

If you’re ready to modernize your pricing approach—eliminating guesswork, recapturing lost margins, and fueling profitable growth—then now is the time to explore an in-house RGM platform.

Your Next Step

Contact Revology Analytics to schedule a consultation or request a tailored demo. We’ll show you exactly how our frameworks, toolkits, and proven best practices can streamline your data integration, empower advanced pricing analytics, and deliver real, measurable results in Pricing and Revenue Management.

With the right guidance, you can revolutionize your pricing strategy - and transform every discount, promotion, and price point into a strategic advantage.

Pricing Power for Manufacturers: In-Source and Own Your Pricing and RGM Analytics Without Breaking the Bank

Common Pricing Challenges

Facing Market Turbulence with Antiquated Tools