Price is a portfolio and customer-mix question before it is a market one.
Rationalise product and SKU complexity. Pricing analysis against value capture. Dynamic pricing where the operating reality permits. The capability where revenue is unlocked from inside the existing operation.
Most pricing engagements arrive framed as a market question. The market does not pay enough; the customer is too price-sensitive; the competitor is undercutting the offer. The honest answer is rarely the market. Pricing leaks from inside the portfolio (too many SKUs, too many discount routes, too many segment-blind list prices) and inside the customer mix (the wrong customers buying the wrong product at the wrong price). Proudfoot's pricing work installs the operating cadence that makes price a managed lever, not a market acceptance.
Where price leaks.
Price leaks at 3 points. The portfolio carries SKUs that earn margin in aggregate but lose margin per unit, where rationalisation would lift the average. The discount and list-price discipline is held informally; the field rolls back the price the head office set, and the realized price drifts below the value-capture target. The customer mix is not actively managed; the wrong customers buy the wrong products at the wrong prices and the operating leadership does not see the leak until quarterly review.
The lever is structural: the portfolio, the discount discipline, and the customer mix. The discipline is operational as much as commercial. The supervisor of the commercial cadence is the lever in each.
Three sub-capabilities. One pricing discipline.
Rationalise product and SKU
The portfolio cleaned of SKUs that distract the operation without earning their place. Cost-to-serve sized per SKU; long-tail rationalised; the portfolio simplified to the SKUs that carry the operating result.
Pricing analysis
Realised price against list price, discount waterfall analysis, segment-and-channel pricing analytics, value-capture evaluation against the customer offer. The analysis is the basis for the operating intervention, not a stand-alone study.
Dynamic pricing
Where the operating reality permits, dynamic pricing run as a structured capability rather than a one-off project. Inputs sized continuously, the pricing engine integrated into the operating cadence, the field discipline aligned to the dynamic structure.
Where price discipline runs.
Most visible across:
- Manufacturing: discrete manufacturing portfolio rationalisation, channel pricing discipline.
- Food and Beverage: CPG pricing, channel and trade-spend discipline, segment pricing.
- Chemicals: specialty versus commodity pricing, customer-mix management.
- Paper and Packaging: converter pricing across customer segments.
- Cement and Building Materials: building products portfolio pricing, ready-mix dynamic pricing in regional markets.
Cross-commercial, with Production interfacing.
Optimize Price is structurally a commercial discipline that interfaces with the operating function through the portfolio and customer mix.
The Production function carries the manufacturing reality of the SKU portfolio; rationalisation lands at production complexity reduction.
The methodology backbone.
The Proudfoot System runs the engagement across 5 phases and 86 steps. The Proudfoot MOS (the 6+4 Element Framework) holds the operating cadence on the commercial side; the 8 Active Management Behaviours (8AMBs) hold the field discipline; Aerial Mapping structures the executive interview across the commercial cohort; MOS Critic scores the commercial operating system.
The full methodology lives on the methodology page.
What it looks like when it lands.
SKU portfolio rationalised across a multi-site CPG operation.
Pricing waterfall tightened; channel discount discipline installed; realized price lifted against list.
Pricing analytics installed across the customer base of a specialty chemicals operator.
Customer-mix repositioned; channel pricing aligned to value capture.
Dynamic pricing capability installed in a regional ready-mix concrete operation.
Field discipline aligned to the dynamic structure; realized price held against the engine output.
Talk to our pricing team.
Manufacturing portfolio and pricing discipline.
Pricing engagements across complex commercial structures.
CPG and channel pricing discipline.
Five days on the pricing question.
Two senior Proudfoot operators on the priority site for five working days. Proudfoot AI reading the pricing data, the SKU portfolio, the customer mix, and the corpus first, remotely. MOS Critic on the commercial operating cadence; structured executive interviews across commercial leadership; quantified opportunity hypothesis sized to the price lever.