PRICING DECISIONS
A concession rarely arrives labelled as margin erosion.
Judge what discounts, concessions and new commitments do to the commercial shape of a deal before momentum turns them into the price of winning.
Commercial pressure rarely arrives as one dramatic request.
It arrives piece by piece.
- A discount to get through procurement.
- Longer payment terms.
- An implementation activity included at no additional charge.
- More users.
- Extra support.
- A service commitment added during negotiation.
A little movement here. Another concession there.
Each request may look manageable in isolation.
The danger is what they do together.
The problem
The deal you priced can become a different deal before it is signed.
Negotiation creates pressure to look at each concession as the thing standing between the business and the win.
That makes it easy to ask:
Can we give them this?
and harder to ask:
What does the deal become if we do?
Protecting margin doesn't mean refusing to negotiate.
It means knowing what you're trading.
What the decision should make visible
What has changed since the original price?
Which concessions cost once and which repeat?
What are we receiving in return?
Which commitments create delivery cost as well as commercial cost?
What is still negotiable?
At what point does winning stop being commercially attractive?
Where the Deal Desk is going
Price to Win
Price to Win is planned around the decision between competitiveness and commercial value.
It is intended to help teams judge pricing in the context of the opportunity rather than treating price as an isolated number.
It will sit within the Deal Desk lifecycle as a decision, not as a promised feature with a public delivery date.
Today
Pursue or Pass can challenge commercial attractiveness earlier in the opportunity.
Sign or Renegotiate addresses the final commercial commitment once terms and obligations become clearer.
Winning at the wrong economics isn't the same as winning.
Know what changed, what you're giving away and what the resulting deal is actually worth to your business.