The 4P’s and pricing data

The 4 P’s (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) are the standard Marketing Mix. This is not just MBA “marketing fluff”, the P’s are where the rubber meets the road in CRM, namely quote generation. There is a bigger but untalked about 5th P (Problems) that haunts pricing and quotes.

Product and pricing data are integrated with ERP systems. This data is updated on a variable frequency rate. I have seen a range from quarterly to every 2 days. More frequently is not necessary better in my experience. Place in the CRM parlance is the here and now. Sales is looking to book revenue today. The revenue pipeline needs to flow so that the company can grow. It is amazing to me that 5th P (problems) still exist with product and pricing. Often the integration does not handle changes in frequency well. A pricing update may run well over a weekend, but not complete overnight. How are customer price lists generated? Most are a combination of fixed pricing and percentage. How do you validate that these are correct? These problems existed in CRM a decade ago and are still around today. They are process problems and involve people. No amount of technology will fix people. Companies have this problem and no one really solves it. Why? Likely the P (price) to fix the P (problem) is way to high and no P (product) or P (promotion) have incentives to fix it in the P (place).