From Executing to Planning: The First and Most Critical Maturity Leap

From Executing to Planning: The First and Most Critical Maturity Leap

Every pricing maturity journey has to start somewhere, and for most organizations, the starting point is Level 1. Pricing is happening. Revenue is being generated. Deals are closing. But the way pricing operates is largely reactive, manual, and dependent on individual judgment rather than structured process.

Moving from Level 1 to Level 2 is often described as the easiest transition because it involves foundational steps: documenting intent, defining basic approval thresholds, standardizing price structures. These are not technically complex activities.

But in practice, this is the hardest and most consequential leap an organization will make. It is hard because it requires changing behaviors that have become deeply embedded. It is consequential because every subsequent improvement depends on the foundation this transition creates.

What Level 1 Actually Looks Like

Level 1 is not chaos. It is informal order.

Organizations at Level 1 have pricing. They have people making pricing decisions every day. They may even have experienced professionals who are quite good at navigating complex deals. What they do not have is a system that operates independently of any individual.

Pricing intent is implicit. Leadership has a general sense of where margins should be and how the company should position against competitors, but this direction has not been translated into documented priorities or guardrails. When two people disagree about the right price for a deal, there is no reference point to resolve the disagreement other than hierarchy or persuasion.

Processes are manual and inconsistent. Each pricing decision follows whatever workflow the person managing it finds most convenient. Some decisions go through email approval chains. Others are handled in conversations. Still others are made unilaterally by sales teams with no oversight.

Systems are fragmented. Pricing logic lives in spreadsheets, ERPs, emails, and the institutional knowledge of long tenured employees. There is no single source of truth. When someone needs to understand current pricing for a product or customer, the answer depends on who they ask and which file they open.

Monitoring is essentially nonexistent as a structured activity. The organization sees financial results and reacts to them, but there is no mechanism for understanding whether those results reflect intentional pricing or accumulated drift.

Why the Transition Is Hard

The challenge of moving from Level 1 to Level 2 is not technical. It is organizational.

The first barrier is acknowledgment. Many organizations at Level 1 do not recognize themselves as Level 1. The informal processes feel like they work because deals are getting done. The pain is distributed across individuals who absorb the friction without escalating it. Leadership sees revenue and margin numbers without visibility into the operational effort and risk that produced them.

The second barrier is ownership. Moving to Level 2 requires someone to own the transition. Pricing ownership at Level 1 is typically diffuse. Sales owns the deal. Finance owns the analysis. Product owns the list price. No single function has the mandate or the incentive to drive cross functional change.

The third barrier is tolerance for imperfection. Level 2 is not polished. It is documented, structured, and intentional, but it still has gaps. Organizations that expect the transition to Level 2 to solve all pricing problems will be disappointed. The purpose of Level 2 is to create a foundation, not a finished product. Organizations that cannot tolerate an imperfect intermediate state often remain at Level 1 because the perfect version of Level 2 never materializes.

What Changes at Level 2

The transition to Level 2 produces several changes that are individually modest but collectively transformative.

Pricing intent moves from implicit to documented. Even if the documentation is imperfect, the act of writing down pricing direction, priorities, and guardrails forces clarity and creates a reference point that did not exist before. Disagreements can now be resolved by referring to documented intent rather than by escalation or negotiation.

Basic structures replace ad hoc practices. Standard price lists, discount limits, and approval thresholds create consistency where none existed. Not every situation is covered, but the most common and highest volume decisions are governed by something other than individual discretion.

Visibility increases. When processes are structured, even at a basic level, the organization begins to see patterns that were previously invisible. Which products generate the most exceptions? Which regions deviate most from intent? Where are the largest gaps between approved and realized pricing? These questions become answerable for the first time.

The organization develops a shared language for pricing. At Level 1, different functions use different terms, make different assumptions, and operate from different mental models. Level 2 begins to create consistency in how the organization talks about pricing, which is a prerequisite for managing it coherently.

Making the Leap

The practical path from Level 1 to Level 2 is less about implementing new tools and more about establishing new habits.

Start with documentation. Write down pricing intent, even if it is incomplete. Define the three or four trade offs that matter most and take a position on each one. Publish this to the teams that need it. This single action removes more ambiguity than most organizations expect.

Define basic governance. Identify who has the authority to approve pricing decisions and under what conditions. Establish thresholds that distinguish between routine decisions and those that require escalation. This does not need to be complex. It needs to exist.

Standardize the most common pricing structures. If 80 percent of transactions follow a small number of patterns, build those patterns into structured price lists or models. This reduces the number of decisions made from scratch and creates a baseline from which improvements can be measured.

Begin tracking. Even simple tracking, a spreadsheet that records exceptions, discount depths, and approval outcomes, provides more visibility than most Level 1 organizations have ever had. Visibility creates accountability, and accountability is the foundation of improvement.

The leap from Level 1 to Level 2 does not require a large budget, a new system, or a dedicated transformation team. It requires organizational will, a commitment to replacing informal pricing habits with deliberate, documented, and repeatable practices. That commitment is the hardest part, and it is the most valuable.

This is the thirteenth in a series exploring how organizations can connect pricing intent to execution through disciplined operating models, clear governance, and scalable workflows.

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Chris Newton is Vice President of Marketing and Sales at IMA360, where he leads brand strategy, market expansion, and customer engagement. With a background spanning commercial strategy and revenue operations, Chris works closely with enterprise teams navigating the complexities of pricing, programs, and profit optimization. Connect with him on LinkedIn: