Streamline supply chain-driven pricing strategies with competitive price monitoring. Leverage real-time data, predictive analytics, and collaboration for success
Today’s global market makes pricing strategies more complicated than ever. The complicated logistical issues involved with modern supply chains, cost structures, and constantly changing demands mean that businesses need to become more creative and dynamic when it comes to pricing.
The result is that competitive price monitoring has become central to many enterprises and their business strategies. If you want to align your pricing decisions with the realities of supply chains, competitors, and the need to stay profitable, that emphasis on price monitoring is absolutely essential.
Here’s everything you need to know to build on your understanding of the role competitive price monitoring can (and should) play in your pricing strategies.
First of all, let’s look at exactly what we mean when we talk about supply chain-driven pricing strategies. At their root, they’re simply pricing models that are deliberately influenced by the accepted realities of supply chain limitations. It’s a way of thinking about your pricing that takes into account a range of factors, from production costs and logistics needs to distribution limitations, market demand, and the actions of your competitors.
By taking on a more holistic view of what influences pricing and profitability, supply chain-driven pricing ensures that your pricing choices aren’t just competitive in the short term but sustainable in the long term. They’re built to reflect the real cost of doing business, and that makes them a powerful tool when used correctly.
Supply chain management and competitive price monitoring should be seen as two sides of the same coin. When you integrate CPM tools, you open yourself to powerful and actionable insights that cover both pricing strategies and your broader operational efficiency. This happens in three key ways:
Inventory Management: Price monitoring identifies products that are experiencing shifting demand. That allows you to adjust your inventory accordingly, so you can avoid the dreaded overstock or lack of stock.
Cost Efficiency: Understanding production costs is important, but that data becomes more valuable when it's benchmarked against competitor pricing. It allows you to identify where you can streamline your operations and lower costs relative to your competition.
Adapting to the market: Real-time data gives you the speed to respond quickly to market changes. Even better, it helps you proactively anticipate supply chain issues without hurting customer satisfaction or your margins.
We’re obviously huge advocates of the role of CPM in pricing strategy development. But it’s not without its challenges. There are some common issues we see when enterprises try to tackle this important process.
The first involves the sheer volume of data relating to pricing and supply chain factors. Collecting, interpreting, analyzing, and responding to that data? It’s a mammoth task. Without a retail analytics platform designed to seamlessly support this process, it quickly becomes time-consuming and risky — a single error can lead to major consequences.
Another challenge involves the nature of the market: it just won’t stand still. Constant competitor pricing changes require constant monitoring and fast adaptation. If you want to stay competitive, it’s essential that you adapt fast without overcorrecting.
Finally, the nature of CPM is that it accounts for a wide range of data points and considerations. When organizations are overly siloed, pricing, supply chain, and sales data may not easily connect. This leads to inefficiencies, delays, and pricing strategies that aren’t based on the realities of various departments and segments of your organization.
So, how does your organization avoid these pitfalls? We have the answer for that, too. We’re one of the most trusted platforms for competitive price monitoring, and this position has given us insights into what works best when battling these challenges.
Effective pricing decisions require tools that can put data to work. An advanced pricing platform that’s also straightforward and automated makes this process easy. Everything from pricing trends to historical data can help you prepare for shifts in the market, manage your inventory effectively, and make sure all of your supply chain-driven pricing decisions are based on your organization’s unique goals.
Alignment between supply chain and pricing requires coordination across teams. Competitive price monitoring should be a sort of “gathering place” where supply chain managers, sales teams, and marketing leaders unite under one banner.
When departments communicate better, pricing decisions aren’t made in isolation and are backed by feasibility and market data.
Pricing that’s perfect for one moment and market may be hopelessly behind the next. Dynamic pricing avoids this issue, responding in real-time through AI-driven tools to track and adjust to competitor moves, supply chain changes, and shifts in demand.
Dynamic pricing also gives you the power to be flexible, so that unexpected disruptions or delays don’t lead to catastrophic setbacks.
Always remember that price monitoring isn’t just about learning from the past and adjusting to the present. It’s also about forecasting the future. Predictive analytics, also powered by the most cutting-edge AI capabilities, can help you prepare for the future from every angle. This empowers you to not only be reactive, but proactive in setting prices and making strategic supply chain decisions.
In another recent article, we discussed how to help organizations set pricing for multi-regional markets. It’s worth noting here that pricing influencers, customer preferences, and operational costs won’t be the same from one region to the next. Automated competitive price monitoring lets you localize your pricing strategy to always be the right tool for the right job, in the right place.
At Profitmind, there’s one question that’s always top of mind: where do we go from here?
We predict that competitive price monitoring will continue to integrate emerging tech like machine learning and the Internet of Things (IoT) to boost accuracy, visibility, and effectiveness.
The question you should be asking? Will your organization be ahead of the curve, or racing to catch up? Set up a free, no-obligation Profitmind demo to explore our machine learning-powered platform for pricing intelligence and find out how you can position yourself at the head of the pack.
“We are in a very different era in respect to the speed in which retail moves, and we must have the ability to have the data and intelligence to make quicker decisions for the merchandising team. We partnered to bring in their expertise, and because they move at the speed our business needs.”
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