Joshua Bardell, Principal, Global Industries At Conga, On Why Pricing Has Become A Real-Time Business Priority

Organizations can no longer afford to overlook pricing because the market shifts too quickly for static approaches to remain reliable. The economy is constantly changing, and major events such as supply shocks, demand spikes, and regulatory changes are driving how businesses must compete to close deals.

Customers are constantly exposed to alternatives and can easily evaluate value in real time, making pricing a direct driver of both conversion and retention. At the same time, pricing is now one of the most direct drivers of profitability, meaning even small improvements can have an outsized impact on operating margin compared to other levers like cost reduction or volume growth. Because of this financial impact, pricing has moved out of the operational background and into a competitive necessity that must stay flexible as conditions evolve.

We regularly see that the advantage goes to companies that can identify these changes early and translate them into strategic pricing decisions without internal lag. In today’s environment of sustained volatility, pricing also functions as a real-time signal of business performance, with boards and investors increasingly focused on margin stability, revenue quality, and the effectiveness of pricing discipline.

That responsiveness and adaptability is why pricing has become a board-level priority; it now determines how well a business adjusts when the external ecosystem stops behaving predictably and directly influences financial outcomes under heightened executive and investor scrutiny.

Organizations put revenue on the chopping block the moment pricing is not an accessible part of cross-functional team strategies.

Too often, it becomes isolated from the most important conversations and workflows. What should be designed as a coherent concept at the leadership level often gets communicated via one-off judgment calls, further delaying the deal cycle and exacerbating the flow of information within a business.

Visibility is lost between intent and action, where discounts, approvals, and contract structures are decided. This breakdown is often compounded by friction in sales, finance, legal, and IT workflows, as deal approvals slow and inconsistencies arise as pricing moves between systems. This is where fragmented decision-making across sales, finance, and operations causes hidden margin leakage that is challenging to trace back to a single pricing decision. We’re seeing sales teams override market-relevant pricing at scale, leaving pricing teams to manage thousands special-rate contracts or discounts that quietly erode margin, sometimes even pushing thin-margin product into loss-making territory. At that point, execution data becomes scattered across CRM systems, billing tools and finance reports, and an organization looks at revenue results without a clear line back to the pricing choices that produced them.

Over time, this limits visibility across the commerce chain – from awareness and consideration through purchase and post-sale engagement. This makes it difficult to connect pricing decisions to business outcomes in a meaningful and actionable way.

Companies that respond well to global volatility are not the ones reacting quickly off the cuff, but the ones that have pre-built logic for how prices should change when meaningful market shifts happen. This means pricing is treated less like a single number and more like a structured system with defined boundaries. It requires centralized pricing governance, real-time visibility into margin exposure, and established approval structures that eliminate friction without removing discipline. The strongest organizations treat pricing as a continuous operating capability that keeps teams aligned around a single source of truth so the business can move at the pace of the market without appearing chaotic to customers.

Each of these industries faces unique pricing challenges, and with that, there is an opportunity to learn and grow.

For example, distribution businesses must manage and price massive inventories on very tight margins. The takeaway from this sector is that real-time cost visibility and precise incentive tracking are necessary for reducing revenue leakage and scaling effectively.

Meanwhile, retail requires managing a complex mix of channels, SKUs, and discounts; thus, the lesson there is that pricing data must flow from end-to-end in order to maintain consistency across the entire business.

Ultimately, the greater need for those different sectors is visibility. Without systems that surface real-time insights across the deal lifecycle, internal teams will continue to operate in silos, pricing will become outdated and deals slow down. To succeed, businesses need to breakdown these operational silos and connect their data layer so teams can execute with speed and accuracy.

In pricing, AI works well when it’s focused on real-time optimization. It’s about determining the right price for the right customer at the right time. This means adjusting prices across the full SKU range based on demand signals, competitive positioning, customer segments and market conditions. Pricing optimization can continuously analyze large volumes of data to provide strategic guidance that supports business agility and improves0 performance.

I like to think of it as a “pricing assistant” for sales teams to help suggest initial discounts, sharpen deal outcomes, or improve quoting. Automating these tedious tasks will ultimately assist teams by freeing up time so that they can focus on high-level strategy for greater business outcomes.

Human judgement is critical when setting up an initial pricing strategy and GTM approach because it informs the business levers that will drive growth, long-term customer experience, and revenue. AI should be a part of this strategic process and teams should ensure its applied thoughtfully and in alignment with the overarching plan.

Finally, AI is only as good as the data feeding it. If an organization’s tech stack is siloed and data is fragmented, bringing AI into the workflows will result in revenue leakage. Before integrating must get the foundational layer right before any real optimization can happen.

Pricing is quickly becoming central to business success, bringing increased visibility and more meaningful responsibility.

To succeed, pricing leaders will need to shift from managing pricing as an operational function to leading it as a strategic, AI-enabled capability. This includes understanding how to interpret and apply AI-driven insights within pricing workflows. Leaders will also need to become comfortable operating in highly volatile environments where pricing must adapt continuously to changes in cost, demand, and buyer expectations, instead of relying on manual processes.

Additionally, a shift toward lifecycle thinking, where pricing is viewed as a driver of long-term value, margin performance, and commerce predictability rather than individual deal outcomes. This requires stronger alignment across teams and departments as well as direct communication of pricing decisions across the organization.