Optimización de precios
Pricing is the highest-leverage variable in most commercial models, and the one most likely to be set by reflex rather than evidence. A point of price flows almost entirely to the bottom line. A bad model leaks margin for the full hold.
Matters Graph developed its pricing methodologies using Voice of Customer expertise, Commercial Diligence, and value creation strategy approach. We employ segmentation, a deep understanding of buyers, and the analysis needed to the careful exercise that pricing opportunities often require.
Our pricing methodology sizes all three and names which one is doing the work in each segment:
- Winning the right (segments of) customers (noting that it’s most often behavioral segmentation, not demographic, that uncovers the best opportunities) …
- …with the right product and services mix…
- …and pricing to maximize customer lifetime value
Beneath the methodology, three sources of pricing power drive each factor. Willingness to pay: what the customer would pay if asked today, by segment, for the configuration on offer. Switching economics: what it would cost the customer to leave, in money, time, risk, and political capital, and whether those costs are rising or eroding. Reference-price anchoring: what the customer believes the product should cost, set by competitive list prices, prior procurement cycles, and adjacent-category benchmarks. A pricing recommendation that moves on only one of these gets reversed the first time a sales leader pushes back. We size all three, name which is binding in each segment, and build the recommendation on the combination that actually holds.
Pricing power is rarely the price itself. It is whether the customers who set the ceiling are the ones you are selling to.
At Matters Graph, our methodology is flexible to the case; typically, the right place to start on this list depends on a company’s place in its industry lifecycle:
- Empresas de industrias maduras En su negocio principal, se benefician más de la combinación de productos y el precio, ya que suelen tener una base de clientes potenciales saturada.
- Empresas de industrias de alto crecimiento often achieve the best results when they evaluate whether they are targeting the right customers and position themselves to capture the maximum account potential (share of wallet) over time
Read more about the origins of our methodology in our Pricing Journey Best Practice Brief (here).
Our pricing optimization approach to pricing as a topic is multi-functional, and actions tie together what are multiple silos, using a:
- Controles de precios en las ventas
- Estrategia de precios y posicionamiento en marketing
- Recomendaciones sobre productos y envases para respaldar el posicionamiento y buscar las evoluciones de mayor valor en la gestión de productos.
- Evolución de la mezcla a través de esfuerzos multifuncionales, a menudo liderados por Estrategia.
Our view is that much of the language and frameworks surrounding pricing are built in and reflect these typical silos. Our approach is a method, a framework, and a language for coordinating across these silos to proactively tackle larger pricing improvements.
Nuestros proyectos de optimización de precios culminan en un manual práctico que aborda los siguientes temas:
- Ciclos: la frecuencia y el método mediante el cual se ajustan los precios
- Indexación o “acoplamiento de precios”: el grado de acoplamiento contractual o de facto del precio de su producto con respecto al precio de otro bien, a menudo tomado como referencia un insumo, un sustituto o un competidor de la industria.
- Realización: el porcentaje del precio de lista realizado como precio de bolsillo (es decir, capturado) después descuentos, costo de capital, etc.)
- Premiumización: un aumento en el margen de beneficio o margen bruto
- Intervalos de facturaciónFinanciación, suscripciones, reparto de beneficios u otros medios para distribuir los costes de los clientes.
- Ofrecer construcción: agrupación o desagrupación de artículos en una venta
- mejora de la mezcla de productos: un cambio en los productos y servicios ofrecidos/impulsados
Nuestro trabajo suele implicar numerosas consideraciones específicas para cada caso. Por ejemplo, las empresas de software y servicios pueden incorporar consideraciones más específicas, como la disponibilidad de funciones, las garantías de fiabilidad y el rendimiento.
Taking price in B2B and B2B2C is never as simple as updating terms or list prices. We treat the process as a customer journey that varies by segment, and trace each segment’s journey from trigger event through decision criteria, comparison set, and the procurement process that actually clears the purchase. The output is a segmented view of where price can move up, where packaging or bundling unlocks margin without touching list, and where the right answer is to walk away from the segment rather than discount to retain it. In businesses with concentrated revenue, the analysis goes down to the individual customer level.
What this means for your work
For Private Equity. In diligence, we test whether the pricing in the model is supported by the customer evidence, and whether the value creation plan’s pricing assumptions stand up to the segmentation the customer base actually has. Post-close, we move from the diligence finding to the operating decision: which segments to lead with, which to package differently, and where the price-realization gap between list and pocket is recoverable.
For Private Credit. Pricing risk for a lender is the part of the model that breaks first when growth slows. We give independent visibility into how durable the pricing power actually is: whether it rests on switching costs that hold, on contracts that renew, or on conditions that won’t survive the next cycle. Where the position is set, the same work supports watch-list reviews and the questions that come before a covenant decision.
For Corporate Development. Pricing in a permanent commitment is harder than pricing in a hold-period thesis: the buyer is asking the organization to do something new at scale, and the proposal has to clear the approval chain and survive integration. We build the pricing case for both — the chain that has to approve it and the organization that has to execute it — naming the segments where pricing power is real versus reported, and flagging the integration assumptions (channel conflict, cross-portfolio cannibalization, list-price collisions) that pricing models tend to underweight.
For Value Creation Teams. Mid-hold, pricing is where the perceived operational risk of a move — customer reaction, sales-force disruption, channel pushback — stalls the action the value-creation plan calls for. Management teams have legitimate going-in concerns about each of those, and the way to resolve them is not more internal debate but outside evidence. We give the management team the outside customer evidence that reducperception of risk and provides a strong basis for immediate action: which segments will pay more, which moves will trigger churn, which packaging changes are realizable inside the cycle the operating plan is on, and which assumptions in the original investment case have aged out.
What We Deliver
Every Pricing engagement is scoped to the question, but the typical deliverable set is consistent:
segmented Willingness-to-pay curves
Built from primary customer research at sample levels that support proper segmentation.
three-factor pricing diagnostic
For each segment, which of willingness to pay, switching economics, or reference-price anchoring is the binding constraint, and how durable that constraint is.
pricing-realization gap analysis
The spread between list and pocket, and the operational moves required to close it.
Prioritized pricing roadmap
The moves the business should make first, the ones to stage, and the ones the evidence does not support.
pricing-risk view
Pricing-risk view for lenders and watch-list reviews. Where the engagement scope warrants.
Materials for Management
Working-session materials for management, the deal team, and (where relevant) the value creation team. Designed to be used in operating cadence rather than filed.
Pricing work sits inside our Commercial Due Diligence and Commercial Value Creation mandates as well, either as a pre-transaction diagnostic or as a post-close lever.
Para capital privado
The evidence that gives the deal team conviction the other bidders cannot match, from thesis development through the hold.
Para crédito privado
Independent work written for the lender, scoped to the commitment decision and stress-tested for the downside.
Para el desarrollo corporativo.
The depth of commercial analysis a permanent commitment requires, calibrated for the approval chain and built to inform the integration.
Para la creación de valor
Outside-in commercial insight that closes the gap internal reporting cannot, informing the moves that compound over the hold.