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Most distributors don’t lose deals because of their reps. They lose deals because quoting takes too long, and the data they rely on is scattered across disconnected systems. Jon Ladle has spent over 20 years helping teams untangle that reality. This isn’t another “101 article” that’s all air. It’s an inside look at how a $12B distributor: • Cut quote times in half … • Lifted accuracy above 90% … … and the actual logic behind the transformation. If quoting delays, manual review loops, or data mismatches sound familiar, this article will feel close to home.

Your ERP tracks your margin. But the pricing decisions that shape them still happen in spreadsheets, emails, and manual overrides. Sometimes they live in the head of the one person who knows all the exceptions. Your ERP handles orders, inventory, and financials. But it can’t provide every commercial capability your business needs. Your ERP isn’t broken. And replacing it isn’t the answer. The challenge is closing that gap. For years, that often meant forcing another off-the-shelf platform to fit or committing to a long, expensive custom build. AI is changing that equation. It's becoming faster and more practical to build the specific capabilities your business needs around the systems you already run. That can mean bringing pricing guidance directly into the quoting workflows your reps already use, while keeping your ERP as the system of record. No massive transformation. No unnecessary rip-and-replace. Just a better way to solve the high-value problems your existing systems don't. Dave Anderson has spent 25 years in pricing, including a decade working with hundreds of manufacturers and distributors evaluating pricing technology. He recently joined ProfitOptics as Managing Director, Commercial Excellence Strategy. We talked with Dave about where traditional pricing technology works, where it falls short, and why the economics of building are changing. Read the conversation with Dave Anderson: https://lnkd.in/eivgY-5E

You bought the software. So why are pricing exceptions still in spreadsheets and quotes still waiting on manual approvals? The ERP. The CRM. Maybe the pricing tools, too. Your business depends on these platforms every day. Yet high-value commercial problems remain unsolved. For years, solving those problems meant buying another off-the-shelf software tool. Or committing to a custom build that could take years to get right. Or simply doing nothing because the pain of change outweighed the pain of staying the same. That calculus is changing. AI is making it faster and more practical to build around the systems companies already have, solving specific problems in pricing, rebates, quoting, and margin performance without another rip-and-replace or rigid platform. So maybe the question isn't “build or buy?” anymore. Maybe it's: What do we already have? What are we missing? And what should we build around it? Dave Anderson has spent 25 years in pricing, including a decade working with hundreds of manufacturers and distributors evaluating pricing technology. He recently joined ProfitOptics as Managing Director, Commercial Excellence Strategy. We talked with Dave about what he's learned from 25 years on both sides of the pricing technology decision, where traditional software works, where it falls short, and why the economics of building are changing. Read the conversation with Dave Anderson: https://lnkd.in/eivgY-5E

Most pricing rollouts stall for the same four reasons. We're breaking down all four live, Oct 8 — register without leaving LinkedIn.

Across the pricing rollouts I've advised on, one pattern keeps showing up. Fragmented data nobody trusts. A platform the team works around rather than with. A Pricing team hired to administer the tool rather than own the decision. None of that is a technology problem. It's a sequencing problem. Get the sequence right, and it looks different. Decide what actually differentiates you before you shop for software. Fix the data before you layer a platform on top of it. Build the team to own decisions, not just run the tool. That's the whole difference between compounding and stalling. Not smarter technology. Doing the right things, in the right order, from the start. On October 8, I'm joining a live roundtable on exactly this. Alex Kugler, who's leading pricing transformation right now at Henry Schein. Ryan Walter, who places pricing leaders for a living and wrote the book on getting the staffing sequence right — literally, The Pricing Talent Playbook. Our CEO, Geoff Marlatt, is facilitating. No slides. No pitch. Just what it actually takes to get it right the first time. Oct 8 • 11 AM ET • Virtual Register here: https://lnkd.in/eRRyqNQ6

I've sat on both sides of a pricing rollout, buying the software and watching, across a career inside large, complex operating businesses, why so many stall. Same failure pattern, every time. The technology wasn't the problem. It rarely is. The problem was treating the software, the data underneath it, the people running it, and what actually makes the business different, as four separate decisions instead of one. So on October 8, I'm facilitating a roundtable on exactly this. Not a ProfitOptics pitch. Not a platform demo. A room of people who've lived it: Alex Kugler, who's leading pricing transformation right now at Henry Schein. Ryan Walter, who places pricing leaders for a living and wrote the book on it, literally, The Pricing Talent Playbook. Jon Ladle, our Chief Strategy Officer, who gets called in when a rollout has stalled and has to figure out why, then fix it. We're going to talk about why the transformations that compound treat sequencing as the whole game. And why the ones that stall almost always get the staffing decision wrong — usually last, usually worst. No slides. No pitch. Just the conversation I wish someone had made me sit in on earlier in my career. Oct 8 • 11 AM ET • Virtual Register here: https://lnkd.in/ea5yEdtR