Analyzing Strategic Price Gaps by Customer

As you work to continually evaluate your pricing strategy, use the Customer analysis tools to evaluate your company's pricing usage by customer and identify areas where you are making the most from using the system-calculated strategic prices, or where you might have missed a pricing opportunity.

Analyze the pricing performance for each of your customers using the following views. Each view contains sales information from the date range you selected when you built the analysis file.

Depending on the view you select, Closedspecific columns display with information for that view. For example, if you select the Overall view, the data is for all transactions for a customer for the dates you selected when you built the analysis file. If you change the view to Product Core Status, the data in each column is for all transactions for each customer per core status, and the view contains a Core Status column. Use the different views to refine what you see to better analyze the benefits you are receiving from Strategic Pricing.

Column

Description

Customer

The customer's name as defined in Customer Maintenance.

Category

The customer group to which the customer is assigned. For more information, see Customer Categories Overview.

Customer Size

The size, very tiny to huge, to which the customer belongs. For more information, see Customer Sizes Overview.

Actual Sales

The total extended price of all line items on orders for the customer sold during the selected period.

Actual Cost

The total extended cost of all line items on orders during the selected period. The cost displays only if you select the Include Cost/Profit check box, and if you have the COST.VIEW or the COGS.VIEW authorization key assigned to you.

GP$

The gross profit in dollars of the total sales for the customer during the selected period.

Actual SalesActualCost

GP%

The gross profit as a percentage of the total sales for the customer during the selected period.

((Actual SalesActualCost) / Actual Sales) * 100

Recommended Sales

The total extended price of sales for the customer if the strategic price had been used on each line item sold.

Strategic Unit Price * Quantity Shipped

Gap$

The difference in dollars between what was actually sold and the extended price of sales if the strategic price had been used.

Recommended SalesActual Sales

The gap amount can be a negative amount if you have achieved more than the recommended sales.

Gap%

The difference as a percentage between what was actually sold and the extended price of sales if the strategic price had been used. For example, if 90% displays in this field, you have achieved 90% of the amount in the Recommended Sales column.

(Actual Sales / Recommended Sales) * 100

The gap percentage can be more than 100% if you have achieved more than the recommended sales.

Sell Group

The product sell group to which the product represented for this customer belongs.

This column displays in the Product Sell Group view.

Core Status

The status rank of the product represented for this customer is assigned.

Core statuses are assigned to products at the top of each customers market segment, and are typically the highest in sales amount, highest in visibility, and are products that the customer has a high incentive to shop for price competitors. For more information, see Product Core Statuses Overview.

This column displays in the Product Core Status view.

Vendor

The vendor assigned to the product group to which the product represented for this customer belongs.

This column displays in the Vendor view.

To analyze strategic price gaps by customer:

  1. Build the analysis file, if necessary.

  2. From the Maintenance > Price Maintenance > Strategic Pricing > Strategic Pricing Analysis menu, select Strategic Pricing Analysis to display the Strategic Pricing Analysis window.

  3. In the left pane, select Customer and Closedselect the information you want to see using the following fields and click Update.

    Field

    Description

    Customer

    Select the customer for which you want to analyze Strategic Pricing usage. To enter multiple customers, click the Multiple button next to the field.

    To include all your customers in the analysis, leave this field blank.

    Select View

    Select the view that you want to use to analyze Strategic Pricing usage. The view determines which data within the Customer analysis displays. For a description of each view and what it displays, see the explanations above.

    To change the view at any time, select a new view in this field and click Update to re-populate the table.

    Cost Options

    If you are authorized to view cost or COGS information in the system, select how you want to view cost information in the analysis. If you are not authorized to view cost or COGS information, the cost options are not available.

    • None - Select this option to not display any cost information in the analysis.

    • COGS - Select this option to view the cost of goods sold (COGS) in the analysis. You must have the COGS.VIEW authorization key to view COGS information.

    • Comm-Cost - Select this option to view the cost information as COMM-COST in the analysis. You must have the COST.VIEW authorization key to view the cost information.

    Customer Category

    Select the customer category for which you want to view Strategic Pricing usage. To run the analysis for more than one category at a time, use the Multiple button to enter multiple categories.  

    To include all your categories in the analysis, leave this field blank.

    Customer Size

    Select the size, such as Tiny or Huge, for which you want to view Strategic Pricing usage. To run the analysis for more than one customer size at a time, use the Multiple button to enter multiple sizes.

    To include all customer sizes in the analysis, leave this field blank.

The transaction information that meets your criteria displays. The parameters included in the analysis file display at the bottom of the window.

  1. To save, print, e-mail, or view the information as a report, select File and the corresponding option.

See Also:

Analyzing Strategic Price Gaps by Salesperson

Analyzing Strategic Price Gaps by Branch

Strategic Pricing Gap Analysis Overview