Smart Pricing Assistant: how dynamic pricing is revolutionizing packaging pricing?
In a market where pricing is becoming a major strategic issue, companies capable of adjusting their prices at the right time, based on their customer-cost-history data, are gaining a significant lead. Pressure on margins, increased competition and changing customer behavior make it essential to adopt solutions that are more intelligent than fixed pricing, which is often based on an unsophisticated strategy and, above all, on intuition.
It's against this backdrop that Packitoo unveils the Smart Pricing Assistant, an AI-based module perfectly integrated with the HIPE CPQ (Configure-Price-Quote). Designed specifically for converters of folding carton and corrugated packaging, it enables reliable dynamic pricing, fed by real-time data, capable of anticipating the chances of winning a deal, optimizing the margin level for each quotation and sustainably boosting the profitability of manufacturers.
What is Smart Pricing Assistant?
Smart Pricing Assistant is an artificial intelligence module dedicated to optimizing sales prices.
While estimating production costs is virtually standard practice, defining margins is still, to date, an artisanal affair.
Smart Pricing Assistant automatically analyzes :
- quotations and orders,
- actual production costs,
- customer behavior and segmentation,
- historical margins,
- market fluctuations,
- geographical competition...
Its role: to recommend the best price for each business opportunity, striking the ideal balance between competitiveness and margin performance.
During the research and development program, and based on a real data set, "around 10% of the quotes analyzed can support a margin increase of at least five points without affecting the quote/order transformation rate." - Arnaud, Senior Engineer at Packitoo
The Smart Pricing Assistant works both to optimize margins when workshops are overloaded and during off-peak periods when it's imperative to fill them.
How does dynamic pricing work?
Unlike traditional models where rates remain fixed, modern pricing is based on :
- advanced algorithms,
- real-time analysis systems,
- predictive models built on past data, with self-learning capabilities,
- management rules defined by the company.
The Smart Pricing Assistant combines this data to calculate the price for each quote that maximizes margin and the probability of closing.
Each price recommendation is an objective function, based on measurable criteria. A confidence index is evaluated prior to implementation.
"Our initial results have reached levels of reliability comparable to those used in actuarial science - an indispensable threshold for correctly assessing risks and defining the resulting insurance premiums," explains Packitoo CEO Thomas Othax.
What Smart Pricing Assistant means for your business
1. Data-driven pricing
In many companies, rates are still set manually, creating :
- inconsistencies,
- lost margins,
- a risk of error,
- difficulty keeping up with the competition.
With Smart Pricing Assistant, every price is based on :
- robust statistical models,
- automated analyses,
- multiple scenarios,
- consistent internal rules.
2. Real-time price management
When conditions change - demand, costs, seasonality, quiet periods - the module immediately proposes :
- dynamic price adjustment,
- personalized recommendations,
- alerts when a margin increase is possible,
- or, on the contrary, a strategic drop to secure an important deal.
The price quoted always reflects optimized management of the sales portfolio.
"It's impossible to know how many margin points you're leaving on the table with each quotation. With Smart Pricing Assistant, the right price is calculated mathematically," explains Baptiste, the data scientist behind the model.
3. Enhanced sales performance
The Smart Pricing Assistant enables your teams to :
- better defend their prices,
- decide faster,
- align pricing with corporate objectives,
- keep pricing consistent between sales representatives.
It creates a clear framework, without preventing adaptation to the terrain.
Why is it important to switch to dynamic pricing now?
Because today :
- costs are constantly changing,
- raw materials vary widely,
- customers negotiate more,
- competition is stronger,
- shorter decision-making cycles.
Companies need a tool that can handle all these variables instantly.
A tool designed for packaging converters
Unlike e-commerce or airline solutions, the Smart Pricing Assistant is designed for the industrial reality of carton converters:
- parameters adapted to production lines, billing practices (production, tooling, delivery),
- rules that can be adjusted according to internal practices,
- clear display,
- native integration with HIPE (CPQ + CRM).
It's not intended to replace salespeople. On the contrary, it accompanies them, clarifies them, and secures their decisions.
The Smart Pricing Assistant is not just another tool: it's a major evolution in the way companies build their prices.
Thanks to its intelligent data processing, automated models and real-time analysis capabilities, it enables :
- improve their margins,
- reduce the risk of error,
- to save time,
- to make more coherent decisions,
- adopt a modern, efficient and sustainable pricing strategy.
Dynamic pricing is no longer reserved for airline tickets or e-commerce: it will profoundly change the yield management strategy of manufacturers.
Yield management is a revenue optimization method that involves adjusting prices according to anticipated demand, available capacity levels and customer purchasing behavior, in order to maximize companies' overall profitability.
In a separate article, we'll look at the common questions asked by manufacturers who want to move to dynamic pricing with the support of artificial intelligence, connecting HIPE to ERP in particular, and the steps involved in doing so.