Pricing & Profitability Implementation

Effectively implement pricing strategies to realize expected profits and EBITDA growth.
INSIGHT was founded on the idea that a strategy cannot stand alone and that purposeful implementation and change management are the key differentiators for an organization to realize impactful EBITDA growth. However, many businesses fail to fully grasp the complexities and obstacles a commercial organization may face in doing so.
The cornerstone to effective implementation is ensuring the sales team is prepared not just to ‘win’ but to ‘win more, more profitably.’ INSIGHT offers clients a proven methodology to develop and deploy best-in-class processes and tools tailored to unique business needs. We provide:
- A centralized pricing engine that delivers targeted recommendations derived from the combination of institutional knowledge, market intelligence, and data science
- Access to targeted recommendations through elective software integrations, tailor-built applications, and supporting workflows
- In-house design, development, and deployment of tailored technology solutions as needed
- Access to data analytics for decision-support
- KPI development and measurement methodology
However, the key driver of sustainable profit realization is winning the hearts and minds of your commercial organization. INSIGHT is relentless in working shoulder to shoulder with your team to uncover obstacles, lead training such as negotiations or value selling, establish governance and supporting processes, and constantly measure results to ensure sustainable and continuous improvement.
Common Challenges
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Profitable Pricing
INSIGHT’s pricing engines utilize internal data, market data, and AI/ML methods to suggest price recommendations your team can understand and feel confident using as well as a feedback loop for enhanced recommendations.
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System Limitations
Disparate data, confusing systems, and limited functionality all prevent optimal price decisions. Teams need centralized, quality data and the proper technology systems—analytics, quoting, price management—to facilitate and enable smart decisions.
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Change Management
A change in your commercial or pricing strategy requires buy-in and adoption from your organization. INSIGHT’s robust change management programs are critical to bridge the gap between strategy and profit realization.
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Price Governance & Ownership
Unclear or undefined pricing ownership leads to rogue pricing decisions that may or may not be aligned with profit goals. Businesses need to establish clear roles and responsibilities in the pricing organization, including processes and guidelines for all involved parties.
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Sales Communications
Many businesses inadvertently condition customers to expect price changes in the context of a cost-changing environment. The commercial organization should be aligned and trained in the value proposition and appropriate customer communication strategies such that outward messaging aligns with business goals and growth strategies.
Meet Our Experts
With over 250 dedicated pricing strategy experts, our team helps businesses achieve profit and EBITDA growth through our process proven on over 800 engagements since our founding in 2006.
Alex Hagreen
Alex is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT with 10 years of experience as a pricing consultant. He excels in defining pricing strategy, developing pricing excellence roadmaps, enhancing salesforce effectiveness, providing negotiation training, and delivering targeted high-yield price increases with our partners.
Examples of Alex’s experience include:
- Launched pricing process for a protein distributor with revenues exceeding $4B, providing profit-maximizing weekly price recommendations to approximately 80 buyers across 12 branches, resulting in a $7M pricing impact over 18 months
- Developed contract negotiation package, timeline, and best practices for a $700M industrial firm, including terms and conditions, scorecard, competitive scorecard, optimal timeline with stakeholder inclusion, and price scenario calculator
- Created $1M lift on $30M of revenue through a target price incentive program at a mid-size eCommerce company; secured management buy in, leveraged dashboard reporting, and aligned incentives to deliver results
- Identified $4M in discounting leakage leveraging a percentile-based peer benchmark model at a manufacturer with revenues exceeding $250M; built a recommendation engine to capture the price leakage and realign price positioning
Alex earned his MBA in Finance with a focus in Pricing from the University of Rochester, Simon Business School and a B.S. in Finance from Penn State University.
Andy Voelker
Andy is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT bringing over 20 years of strategy consulting experience, specializing in pricing, analytics, strategy and operations. He has led numerous B2C pricing and commercial strategy engagements at INSIGHT and has deep retail experience as an operator.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Andy spent 10 years at Ace Hardware, where he held multiple leadership positions encompassing all aspects of cost/price management and analytics to support the merchandising organization. Prior to joining Ace Hardware, Andy spent 10 years in Accenture’s retail practice focusing on pricing and promotion strategy and operations.
Examples of Andy’s experience include:
- Built a team of 16 analytical professionals focused on managing wholesale and retail profitability through analytics and cost/retail management
- Led a complete redesign of cost change management process, technology and reporting, leading to greater efficiency, accuracy and visibility
- Effectively navigated an entire organization through tariffs, pandemic-related pricing and supply challenges, and historic rates of inflation, all while growing profitability and maintaining competitiveness
- Led a team of more than 35 professionals focused on improving productivity of retail model through store planning, space and assortment planning, retail pricing, power aisle, store environment and GNFR
Andy earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Charles Lukkes
Charles is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT, leveraging over 25 years of pricing experience in both industry and consulting services. He has driven price realization and building pricing capabilities across a multitude of clients. Charles has experience in developing and leading price realization strategies across multiple organizations with revenues exceeding $1B during his tenure as a consultant and industry practitioner.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Charles worked for Booz & Co. as a general management consultant developing and implementing pricing strategies and capabilities globally. He also created and led strategic pricing teams for several large consumer packaged goods companies, building capabilities and price strategies from the ground up.
Examples of Charles’ experience include:
- Established pricing teams, processes, analytics and governance for a large food/snack manufacturer in the U.S. and Australia/New Zealand; developed pricing strategies across the portfolio, achieving +3% price realization while mitigating channel conflict
- Provided a price quoting tool for an industrial client in the U.S. and Europe that incorporated key value drivers of new products, enabling the client to capture more value from new offerings driving substantial revenue improvement
- Developed a new pricing strategy for a software provider that resulted in a +30% increase in revenue by capturing true value provided to their client’s versus selling, transitioning from a software license to subscription model
Charles earned his MBA and B.A. in Finance from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.
Danielle Cisler
Danielle is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT. Danielle has more than 15 years of professional experience including 10 years as a pricing consultant. She has served in various capacities in commercial analytics, e-business, and project management roles.
Specializing in B2B pricing for manufacturers, distributors, and service providers, she leads pricing engagements to ensure long-term sustainable impact. Her leadership extends beyond client engagements to include her previous role as the lead of INSIGHT’s Summer Analyst Program.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Danielle spent 7 years at Simonton Windows.
Examples of Danielle’s pricing experiences include:
- Drove a 4% improvement in return on sales (ROS) for an industrial configured products manufacturer by shifting from cost-plus to value-based pricing, introducing an integrated quoting solution, holding the sales organization accountable for driving price, and implementing weekly price monitoring
- Led a 2.5% improvement in return on recurring revenue for a professional services provider through a new pricing strategy and infrastructure, differentiated pricing, and emphasis on price adoption and win rate
- Delivered a 30% margin improvement in Year 1 for a manufacturer of electrical equipment by implementing a pricing algorithm and tool to provide differentiated freight rates; continued success includes increasing freight revenue and margin through identification of leakage such as carrier compliance, additional charges, and process changes
Danielle earned her MBA from The Ohio State University, Fisher School of Business, and a M.S. in Quantitative Psychology, from the University of Notre Dame, specializing in finite factor mixture modeling. She also holds a B.S. in Mathematics and a B.A. in Psychology from Marietta College.
Gary Gebenlian
Gary is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT, bringing over 20 years of experience dedicated to unlocking growth within the consumer, hospitality, retail, and technology sectors. He co-founded a technology start-up in the dining space, played a pivotal role in the growth of an early online-to-offline hospitality commerce business, and led marketing and e-commerce for a Private Equity-backed B2B enterprise.
Gary is passionate about growing businesses by integrating science (data, algorithms) with art (change management, effectiveness) across industries. He excels in pricing strategy, growth strategy, and general management.
Examples of Gary’s experience include:
- Led discovery for an environmental services business, identifying and implementing opportunities to drive a 10% incremental profit, actions included addressing peer-price-index outliers, improving fee/surcharge realization, enforcing list-prices in advantaged areas, establishing analytics capability, and implementing governance/cadence for sustained gains
- Led assessment and implementation of customer-specific repricing of lists and discounts and pricing quick-wins for a multinational transportation and logistics services company, targeting $45M of incremental profit
- Led assessment and implementation of target inflationary price adjustments, margin floor implementation, measurement and reporting structure and capability for an industrial equipment manufacturer, generating mid-single-digit impact for core products and double-digit impact for parts.
- Led design and implementation of a segmented margin-target model for a transportation services business with nationwide operation, generating 8% revenue impact to the bottom-line during the pilot phase
Gary earned his MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management and a B.S. in Engineering and Computer Engineering from McGill University.
Gerry Thomas
Gerry is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT. Gerry has 9 years of experience in pricing and commercial strategy across various roles, including consultant, manager, senior manager, and director. He specializes in B2B pricing, particularly for industrial equipment, heavy machinery, chemicals, and industrial manufacturers and distributors. He has also collaborated with several B2C clients in industries such as leather goods, white goods, face care, and consumer product goods.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Gerry spent 8 years as part of the Accenture Strategy team in the Pricing and Commercial Strategy group. During his tenure at Accenture, Gerry worked in sales enablement, zero-based budgeting, and in pricing and commercial strategy.
Examples of Gerry’s experience include:
- Led a project contributing $80M in EBITDA improvement over 16 months by implementing a value-based pricing methodology across the portfolio for a heavy trucking OEM
- Achieved a 2.5% net price improvement during inflationary headwinds for a B2B valve and industrial equipment portfolio company encompassing over 30 distinct brands, implemented a configurable custom quoting tool and PowerBI KPI dashboard utilized across 15+ brands, providing ongoing support for continuous improvement over multiple years
- Delivered over $50M in EBITDA improvement as the pricing project lead for an industrial equipment manufacturer through value-based pricing strategy and implementation
Gerry earned his MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, M.Ed. in Secondary Education and Teaching from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis, and a BBA in International Business from the University of Georgia.
Justin Seefeldt
Justin is a Managing Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT and brings 15 years of experience as a management consultant focused on pricing, sales and marketing strategy. Over the past decade, Justin has spearheaded over 70 engagements across various industries concentrating on pricing and profit strategy, resulting in delivering clients more than $1B of value creation.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, he spent several years at a Fortune 500 wholesale distributor, focusing on strategic pricing, private brand management, and commercial analytics.
Examples of Justin’s experience include:
- Collaborated with an industrial holding company to develop a scalable pricing structure and process across more than 40 individual businesses, yielding over $30M of EBITDA impact and 500 basis points margin improvement
- Achieved over $10M of EBITDA impact for an omni-channel building products manufacturer by developing a gross-to-net waterfall that identified key areas of profit leakage and creating corresponding strategies to mitigate them
- Served as a centralized pricing function for a Fortune 500 multinational specialty manufacturer to coordinate pricing strategy and action plans across businesses, executing a $400M pricing action against downward margin pressures
Justin earned his MBA in Corporate Finance and Marketing Strategy & Planning from DePaul Driehaus College of Business, Kellstadt Graduate School of Business and a B.S. in Consumer Economics & Finance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Lucian Morar
Luci is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT, bringing over 20 years of specialized B2C and B2B pricing experience, with 17 years dedicated to leading pricing teams. Serving as a trusted advisor to C-suite executives and Private Equity Managing Directors, Luci focuses on pricing excellence within the manufacturing, distribution, and service provider sectors.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Luci spent 11 years in Accenture’s Pricing and Commercial Strategy practice, managing engagements in pricing strategy, analytics, execution, governance, and software configuration. His B2B pricing experience covers industries such as appliances, automotive, construction equipment, medical devices, chemicals, and professional services. He also spent 3 years in B2C at Jewel Osco managing pricing from general merchandise, health & beauty to grocery, deli, produce &bakery.
Examples of Luci’s experience include:
- Led the development and implementation of a dynamic model optimizing 320,000 weekly prices for an aftermarket auto parts distributor, achieving 400 basis points year-over-year gross margin improvement in the first year, implemented a robust reporting suite to sustain performance
- Generated over $100M in additional revenue for a multinational industrial company by developing a pricing engine that drove regular price increases for contracted and non-contracted customers, and to support a quoting tool integration with clients Salesforce, led the establishment of a Pricing Center of Excellence (CoE) and enhanced client team skills in negotiation best practices during their contract renewals
- Identified 12% in additional revenue for a professional services client through differentiated rate card modelling, price realization measurement, and leveraging cross sell/upsell opportunities; achieved through a swift assessment of existing price variability across personas and peer groups, informed by their purchasing behaviors
Luci earned his MBA in Marketing & Operations Management from Loyola University Chicago, Quinlan School of Business, a B.S. in Economics and a BA in European Studies from Babes-Bolyai University in Romania.
Mike Brenner
Mike is a Vice President of Private Equity at INSIGHT2PROFIT, where he has over 15 years of pricing experience across multiple industries and within the consulting field. He specializes in B2B pricing strategy & implementation for distribution, manufacturing, and service providers. Mike has led more than 3 dozen engagements at INSIGHT, excelling in identifying profitability improvement opportunities and offering pragmatic solutions to change management to ensure tangible financial benefits are achieved.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Mike managed a pricing team at GOJO Industries, focusing on establishing market-based pricing for its PURELL line and heavy-duty cleaning products. During this period, Mike lead the launch of the pricing function within Salesforce.com, along with additional data & systems integrations within the pricing domain.
Examples of Mike’s pricing experiences include:
- Drove over $100M in price improvement for a national sanitation services provider through the launch of an optimized pricing engine, differentiated price increases, and enhanced leakage management
- Led a $20M margin improvement initiative for a primary supplier of packaging solutions by identifying and correcting profitability outliers, implementing a process for strategically addressing cost increase events, and launching price management tools to support optimization of freight recovery and surcharge capture
- Delivered over $20M in margin improvement for a leader in lubricant sales & distribution services through the establishment of a value-based pricing strategy, development of integrated pricing tools, and robust change management program
Mike earned his MBA in Finance and a B.A. in International Business from the University of Akron, College of Business. He has also studied at the Rennes International School of Business in France.
Steven Blanck
Steve is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT, with over 18 years of experience as a strategy and operations leader. His expertise covers various areas including commercial due diligence, financial due diligence, growth strategy, M&A integrations, and pricing. Steve has advised executives, private equity managers, and functional leadership teams in establishing the vision, structure, process, and technology for achieving long-term, sustainable transformations.
Examples of Steve’s experience include:
- Developed a pricing platform for a leading professional services automation SaaS platform, driving a 20% improvement in client renewal rates over multiple years and achieving a 5-6% realized price increase in the first year, implemented a customer success model that analyzed target pricing based on factors like cost to serve, upsell and cross-sell potential
- Achieved a 15% EBIT recurring price improvement for a global client in the medical device parts industry, led the development efforts for the existing customer base, overseeing a full process re-engineering of pricing model and processes, implemented the client’s first quoting tool, facilitating quicker turnaround and more profitable deals
- Delivered over $6M in price impact for a leading North American customs brokerage business, created a complex client outlier to identify target pricing and added a salesforce enablement tool to enhance visibility into customer performance and revenue growth opportunities
Steve earned his MBA in Finance, Strategy, and Managerial Economics from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management and his B.A. in Political Science and Government from Northwestern University.
Our Insights
Ensure your pricing strategy delivers desired results and bottom-line revenue impact through effective price realization methods.
Tools to protect price when customer price concession requests are affecting your ability to manage profitability.
Commercial and price negotiation training that leads to empowered teams and EBITDA growth through mastering your mindset, not memorizing what to say.
5 key traits of a quality CPQ software that enable timely and accurate quotes to potential customers.
Successful data analysis and interpretation delivers clarity and confidence to your pricing decisions, resulting in more profitable and sustainable results.
Can you do your job proficiently with just business intelligence tools? BI and ERP tools can be beneficial to your organization in many ways.
If you are not preparing your team to communicate price changes, the initiative will likely fail. So where do you start?