Scott Foster
Founder & CEO, Shape Executive · 5 Apr 2026
When businesses look to improve EBITDA, the instinct is usually to find growth. More revenue, more volume, more customers. It is the more comfortable conversation — one that feels expansive rather than constrictive. But pricing is faster. More controllable. And in most industrial businesses, it is hiding in plain sight — waiting to be captured by anyone willing to treat it as a system rather than a series of individual decisions.
Enterprise Value Chain
Pricing sits at the upstream entry point of the enterprise value chain. Every percentage point of pricing leakage that flows through this point compounds across every subsequent stage — which is why pricing governance is the fastest single lever to move EBITDA.
View System Diagram →Why Pricing Gets Neglected
Pricing is uncomfortable. It requires conversations that sales teams often resist. It exposes discounting practices that have built up over years. It challenges relationships that salespeople have invested in protecting. So instead of reviewing the pricing architecture, most businesses leave it largely intact — adjusting at the margins, applying annual increases where possible, and hoping the product mix takes care of the rest. The result is a pricing structure that reflects decisions made in different market conditions, by different people, under different assumptions. Pricing governance — the operating structure that makes pricing decisions systematic rather than situational — is what converts discomfort into durable margin.
What a Pricing Audit Typically Finds
When you map the full pricing waterfall — from list price to net invoiced price — the leakage becomes visible almost immediately.
- Invoice discounts applied inconsistently across customers with similar profiles
- Rebates that trigger at thresholds customers are no longer reaching
- Freight costs absorbed by the business that should be recovered through pricing
- Special pricing arrangements negotiated for a specific project and never reviewed
- Regional price variations with no commercial rationale
In most industrial businesses, this analysis reveals 300 to 500 basis points of margin available without losing a single customer — if approached correctly.
Pricing as a System
The shift that makes pricing sustainable is treating it as a system rather than a negotiation. This means establishing floor prices by product category. Defining the discount authority at each level of the sales organisation. Building a rebate structure that genuinely rewards the behaviour you want — and removing the ones that reward nothing. It also means installing the commercial cadence to monitor compliance. Pricing disciplines erode without oversight.
The Conversation with the Sales Team
The most important part of a pricing improvement program is not the modelling — it is the conversation with the sales team. Most salespeople believe that price is the primary reason they lose business. In most cases, the data does not support this. When salespeople understand the margin profile of their accounts — not just the revenue — the conversation changes. Defending a 2% discount that costs the business $40,000 in annual margin looks different when you can see the number.
The EBITDA Impact
A 1% improvement in net price across a $50M revenue business is $500,000 of incremental EBITDA. Without adding headcount. Without acquiring a customer. Without changing the product. Most businesses are sitting on two or three times that figure. Pricing is not the only lever available — but it is the fastest one. And unlike cost reduction, it compounds. A structural improvement in pricing architecture improves every transaction that follows.