What are industrial B2B companies doing to tackle pricing pressure?
That’s the question we set out to answer in two major studies this year – and the results are both revealing and actionable.

📌 Study 1 – Pricing Pressure & Pricing Power (February 2025)

In our first study, conducted in February with 84 participants from B2B manufacturing industries, we examined the extent and causes of pricing pressure – and how companies are responding.

Key Findings:

• 87% of respondents are navigating significant pricing pressure, which has intensified over the past two years.
• What they think is the primary source of this pressure? Competitor activity.
• Nearly 60% of respondents feel ill-equipped to deal with pricing pressure – particularly mid-sized companies and those in the chemical industry, which – according to the respondents’ feedback – often lack strong value propositions.

What Drives Pricing Power?

According to the feedback from the participating B2B manufacturing companies , the biggest drivers of pricing powerare market position, competitor landscape and value proposition.

What Are Companies Doing?
Most are turning to Value Selling and Value Pricing to differentiate themselves. Surprisingly, however, only a minority have invested in negotiation skills – despite widespread concern that sales teams are not adequately prepared to defend prices under pressure.

Our 9 Recommendations to Increase Pricing Power in a nutshell:

1. Assess and appreciate your pricing power.
2. Strengthen market, competitive, and customer intelligence.
3. Align your pricing strategy with your market position.
4. Optimize your sourcing approach.
5. Prioritize contribution margin over plant utilization.
6. Implement Value Selling and Value Pricing to raise entry barriers.
7. Innovate with new products, services, and business models.
8. Build lasting customer relationships and smart contracts.
9. Invest in negotiation training.

📌 Study 2 – How Companies Put Value Selling into Practice (June 2025)

Following the first study, we took a closer look in June: How are companies actually implementing Value Selling to boost their pricing power? What works? What doesn’t?

Again, more than 80 companies participated – and the feedback was rich.

Key Learnings:

• ✅ Value Selling works – especially when implemented with cross-functional teams involving Sales, Marketing, and Technical experts.
• ⚠️ However, technical functions are often left out of training and project teams.
• ❌ Many companies fail to integrate Value Selling into their CRM/sales enablement tools or innovation processes.
• 🧠 A value-selling mindset is essential – yet common objections still hold teams back.
• 🎓 Ongoing training and coaching are critical to success.

Our 5 Recommendations for your Value Selling initiative:

1. See Value Selling as a long-term journey. Be patient, stay curious, and nurture the right mindset.
2. Make it a cross-functional process. Involve Sales from day one – not after the pricing has been set.
3. Use effective tools like our Value Cards to translate features into customer value and quantify it in your value proposition and value communication. 
4. Be realistic about pricing. Respect price fairness instead of overreaching and getting greedy.
5. Enable your cross-functional Value Selling team and do regular x-functional Value Selling training and coaching. Again and again. This will also help to establish a value-driven mindset in your organization.

Want to Learn More?

If you’re interested in our study results, our practical recommendations, or our hands-on tools and training offers – we’d love to hear from you. Let’s turn Value Selling from a concept into a competitive advantage.

📩 Contact us today – and let’s start the journey.