In B2B, the big lever for reaching financial targets through agreement prices isn’t found in pricing the net new deals you sign each year; it’s in updating the prices on the existing agreements B2B companies already have in play. Yet many businesses treat their agreements like static documents. Set it and forget it. Move on.
It’s time for a wake-up call.
In reality, 95% of agreement revenue comes from existing agreements. Yet many organizations lack a strategic approach to manage them effectively. Some take a set-it-and-forget-it approach, letting agreements go untouched for years. Others try to stay on top of them, but rely on manual, fragmented processes that are time-consuming and difficult to scale. In both cases, the result is the same: revenue leakage, margin erosion, and customer defection that could have been prevented
Most B2B companies are leaving money on the table by mismanaging their agreement strategy. Taking our 5-minute Negotiated Price Management Assessment can help uncover gaps and spot opportunities to boost revenue and margin. Why does it matter? Read on to see why agreement management is often overlooked and how B2B companies can turn it into a real competitive advantage.
The B2B Agreement Lifecycle You’re Likely Ignoring
Every agreement follows a predictable arc through key lifecycle stages: Assess → Design → Deliver → Monitor. Think of it as a continuous loop driven by periodic renewal activities, not a straight line. Each stage holds strategic opportunities to improve margin, grow share, retain customers, and enhance efficiency. But only if you manage it with intention.
Here's what a proactive lifecycle looks like:
- Assess: Are renewals queued up in time? Are you learning from past KPIs and volume trends?
- Design: Are you leveraging templates, auto-approvals, and predictive analytics to build smarter agreements? Are price updates calibrated to keep good business and win greater share of wallet?
- Deliver: Are prices automatically flowing into ERP and eCommerce platforms? Are you enabling efficient ordering and accurate pricing through all order channels?
- Monitor: Are you tracking customer performance against volume commitments? Catching early signs of churn or competitive intrusion?
It’s not about more work. It’s about smarter orchestration and focused intelligence across pricing, sales, and operations for each stage within this cycle.
Eliminate the Set-and-Forget Approach to Customer Agreements
The biggest enemy of profitable agreements is benign neglect. When pricing isn’t revisited or updated based on real-time market changes, customer buying behavior, and updated business objectives you’re leaving money on the table. Without active management, the same prices often carry forward year after year, even as costs rise or customer value changes. Customer volume commitments are missed without intervention. Pricing in agreements can easily fall out of sync with ERP or list prices, leading to confusion at the order stage. And by the time a customer starts defecting, it’s often too late to react.
Now contrast that with an active management approach. Automated alerts surface expiring terms or signal when customers fall behind on volume commitments. Purchase behavior reveals early signs of churn or competitive intrusion. And agreement price updates are made proactively and efficiently, based on strategic price guidance rather than reactive cost shifts.
Smarter Agreement Strategy Starts with the Right Pricing Structure
Not all customers or SKUs deserve custom pricing through an agreement. A well-designed price architecture ensures that pricing efforts are focused where they deliver the most value. In most cases, only the top 20% of customers by revenue or strategic importance should receive custom price agreements, while the remainder are priced via discount matrices and other non-negotiated price types. Where the use of agreements is justified, pricing should typically be focused on covering products which capture the top 80% of that customer’s actual spend. There is no need to include every SKU they might buy, nor every SKU in the catalog, which only bloats agreements and complicates maintenance.
To streamline agreement creation and updates, pricing should be defined using product hierarchy levels that exist above the SKU. Instead of assigning fixed net prices for thousands of individual SKUs, define a manageable number of product categories which contain those SKUs, each with a relative price point such as a discount from list. The customer can then purchase any SKU within those categories at the agreed discount. This approach simplifies pricing administration, ensures alignment across systems, and allows prices to adjust more easily as market conditions change.
Category-based pricing also encourages broader customer commitment. Rather than limiting agreements to a narrow set of SKUs, you position yourself as the preferred supplier for entire product categories. When customer needs evolve, they can purchase alternate items in the same category without waiting for a contract update or price renegotiation. This reduces friction and removes the ongoing burden of adding new SKUs to agreements. In many organizations, a significant portion of agreement maintenance time is spent manually adding products to enable customers to purchase closely related SKUs. Shifting to category-level pricing frees teams to focus on more strategic pricing decisions and customer value capture.
A critical part of effective agreement pricing is knowing when to use Customer-Specific Pricing (CSP) versus Segment Pricing. CSP is not always the right tool. Highly granular pricing can add complexity unless it is justified by the nature of the customer relationship. Segment pricing is often the better fit for quoting new customers, introducing new products, or when flexibility is needed. CSP is more effective for frequent repeat purchases, re-pricing existing agreements, or gradually transitioning a customer toward segment-based pricing. CSP works best in cases where customer loyalty, purchase volume, and predictability are high.
Your B2B Agreements Are a Gold Mine of Pricing Power
Too often, agreements are managed in a reactive mode, where teams are constantly responding to urgent changes with manual workarounds. This approach leads to revenue loss, pricing inconsistencies, and customer frustration. Even when changes are made, they are often broad, rushed, and disconnected from deeper pricing strategy. It doesn’t have to be that way.
By shifting to proactive agreement management, businesses can anticipate changes, apply pricing updates with precision, and maintain control over margin and customer experience. Moving from reactive maintenance to strategic execution is what transforms agreements from a liability into a competitive advantage.
Zilliant makes the shift from reactive to proactive possible by transforming how B2B companies create, manage, and optimize customer agreements. With Zilliant Sales Agreements, sales and pricing teams replace manual, spreadsheet-driven processes with a centralized, ERP-connected solution. Sellers can quickly negotiate, update, and finalize agreements that stay aligned with pricing strategy and volume goals. Real-time pricing insights are embedded in the workflow to support faster decisions and stronger margin control.
What Zilliant Sales Agreements Delivers:
- Real-time access to AI-powered pricing guidance during price negotiations
- Fast, auditable workflows that increase efficiency and reduce risk
- Automated customer-specific pricing for future orders and renewals
- Easy updates to pricing terms based on changing market or customer conditions
- Seamless integration with SAP VC, ECC, SSC, and S/4HANA
You already did the hard work of acquiring the customer. Now it’s time to make every agreement a smarter, more profitable part of your business with each renewal.
Most B2B companies are leaving money on the table by mismanaging their agreement strategy. Take our Negotiated Price Management Assessment to uncover gaps and identify opportunities to boost revenue and margin.
