How to Price Products for Non-Contractual Customers in a B2B Setting?

Analytics at Wharton is announcing a new collaborative research opportunity with Air Liquide, who is seeking researchers interested in developing innovative approaches to dynamically pricing products for different types of B2B customers. Customers in this B2B setting are non-contractual, vary widely in their size, and make both recurring and non-recurring orders.

Air Liquide’s current approach to pricing is based on negotiations and varies from customer to customer. They are open to any research that will help them optimize their sales and pricing strategy and improve their relationships with their non-contractual customers. Specific issues the sponsor is interested in include:

• Study the behavior of non-contractual customers to optimize sales and pricing
• Identify customers’ willingness to pay
• Identify the best structure and approach to dynamic pricing for different types of customers. Determine the best pricing structure for each
• Identify strategies for B2B value-based pricing in the long-term

The available data includes three years of transactions/invoice data for about 65,000 non-contractual customer accounts. Transactions include line items for cylinders. The data also includes about 900,000 price quotes and offers. About half of these price quotes/offers were accepted.

The project sponsor intends to select two research teams and collaborate closely with them. While both teams will be working on an approach to pricing, they will be methodologically distinct. Teams will meet regularly with data scientists from Air Liquide, providing opportunities to share knowledge, clarify the business context, and refine the data.