Pricing is the fastest profit lever available, and the one most often delegated to people without margin visibility.
Start with the floor
Define a minimum acceptable margin per product family or customer segment, calculated after freight, commission and payment terms. Anything below the floor needs a named approver and a documented reason.
Publish the ladder
Discount authority should be explicit: sales executive, sales head, commercial head, promoter. Each level with a percentage band and a review cadence. Most leakage disappears the first month the ladder is published.
Measure realisation, not list price
Track net realisation — invoice value after discounts, rebates and credit notes, per unit. List price changes are meaningless if realisation drifts.
Review quarterly, not annually
Cost inputs move. A price list reviewed once a year is a margin leak with a schedule.
Discount discipline is not about refusing to discount. It is about knowing what each discount costs and who decided to spend it.
We build the pricing playbook and the approval ladder as part of a profit diagnostic.