Automation, Flow & Process Control
Are you positioned to capture your share of automation, flow, and process control’s rapid growth?
Automation, flow, and process control manufacturers are navigating one of the most transformative moments in the industrial economy. Demand is exploding across emerging sectors — from AI-driven thermal management and data center cooling systems to life sciences, pharmaceutical processing, medical tubing, and advanced water stewardship solutions. Companies supplying valves, sensors, fittings, pumps, and instrumentation are facing unprecedented opportunity.
Yet rapid growth also introduces complexity. Businesses are grappling with wide price variation, inconsistent discounting, decentralized quoting behaviors, and difficulty aligning high-spec engineering value with commercial decision-making. Many have strong products and strong markets, but limited visibility into where margin is slipping, how demand is shifting, and whether their pricing truly reflects the differentiated value they provide.
INSIGHT2PROFIT helps automation and flow control companies modernize pricing, segment high-growth markets, and build commercial capabilities that match the speed and scale of demand. Through centralized pricing infrastructure, data-driven discount governance, industry-specific segmentation, and improved sales execution, we help companies seize growth while improving realized margin, profitability, and commercial alignment.
Common Challenges
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Surging Demand from High-Growth Industries
Explosive growth in AI cooling, data centers, life sciences, and medical applications is outpacing pricing models and commercial processes.
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Difficulty Capturing Cross-Industry Adoption
Flow control components apply across dozens of markets, yet many companies lack segmentation models that differentiate where value and growth truly reside.
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Legacy Cost-Plus Pricing That Undervalues Engineering Complexity
High-spec valves, sensors, instrumentation, and medical-grade tubing deliver significant performance value that is not reflected in outdated list or cost-plus structures.
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Wide Variation in Discounts and Branch-Level Pricing
Decentralized sales execution causes inconsistent quoting behavior, unpredictable margin outcomes, and challenges in enforcing pricing discipline.
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Slow Response to Cost Volatility
Material prices, machining costs, and freight fluctuate frequently, but list price updates and discount logic often lag behind real conditions.
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Limited Insight into True Cost-to-Serve
Freight, engineering labor, returns, assembly work, rush orders, and rebate programs create hidden margin leakage when not captured accurately.
What Opportunities Exist in Your Business?
Select considerations to identify and act on the profit drivers in your business.
Align Pricing to High-Growth Applications
Different industries value flow-control products uniquely. Pricing should reflect performance, reliability, and regulatory requirements.
- Differentiate pricing for AI cooling, data centers, life sciences, and municipal water
- Recognize higher willingness-to-pay for tolerance, uptime, and compliance-critical components
- Establish margin targets based on application complexity and urgency
- Improve quoting guidance by linking engineering difficulty to pricing
Improve Realized Margin Across Product, Assembly & Service Workflows
Margin leakage frequently occurs between estimate, quote, order, and actuals, especially where assemblies and project work are involved.
- Analyze estimate > quote > order > actuals to expose margin erosion
- Standardize quoting logic across aftermarket, OEM, and engineered solutions
- Identify inconsistent discount behavior across branches or reps
- Tie approval thresholds to complexity and value delivered
Build Insight Into True Cost Drivers Across Channels
Understanding cost drivers helps improve pricing accuracy and reduce silent leakage.
- Measure freight, engineering labor, returns, and setup time at the product and customer level
- Attribute assembly and fabrication labor accurately to account-level profitability
- Establish minimums and fees for small orders or complex work
- Optimize rebate and incentive structures to reward profitable behavior
Strengthen Value Communication & Technical Sales Execution
Commercial teams must defend value by articulating engineering, performance, and system-critical attributes.
- Provide sales with value messaging tied to reliability, tolerance, and compliance
- Embed pricing logic and margin thresholds into quoting tools
- Define discount guardrails by customer type, segment, and application
- Reinforce accountability using margin dashboards and KPIs
Modernize Price Architecture Across Products, Programs & Channels
Legacy pricing often fails to reflect performance value or market demand.
- Redefine list and discount structures to match product complexity
- Address inherited inconsistencies from acquisitions, legacy catalogs, and supplier MSRPs
- Build customer and application-specific discount recommendations
- Create scalable pricing architecture that supports long-term growth
Where Value Is Gained or Lost Across the Commercial Process
Manufacturers and distributors in automation, flow, and process control manage complex product portfolios, varied commercial channels, and highly customized customer requirements. These dynamics often obscure where margin erosion occurs. A structured pricing and cost-to-serve waterfall helps reveal how value moves from initial list price to final realized revenue and highlights where discounts accumulate, programs expand, or service costs outpace expectations. By quantifying leakage at each step, INSIGHT2PROFIT pinpoints the commercial behaviors, pricing structures, and operational processes that must evolve to drive reliable margin improvement and stronger price realization.
Our Pricing & Commercial Experts
INSIGHT2PROFIT brings deep experience in industrial pricing, automation technology, engineered products, and distribution. Our 250+ pricing strategists and analysts help flow-control clients improve margin performance, streamline quoting, and align pricing with the value created through engineering and application expertise.
Andy Voelker
Andy is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT bringing over 20 years of strategy consulting experience, specializing in pricing, analytics, strategy and operations. He has led numerous B2C pricing and commercial strategy engagements at INSIGHT and has deep retail experience as an operator.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Andy spent 10 years at Ace Hardware, where he held multiple leadership positions encompassing all aspects of cost/price management and analytics to support the merchandising organization. Prior to joining Ace Hardware, Andy spent 10 years in Accenture’s retail practice focusing on pricing and promotion strategy and operations.
Examples of Andy’s experience include:
- Built a team of 16 analytical professionals focused on managing wholesale and retail profitability through analytics and cost/retail management
- Led a complete redesign of cost change management process, technology and reporting, leading to greater efficiency, accuracy and visibility
- Effectively navigated an entire organization through tariffs, pandemic-related pricing and supply challenges, and historic rates of inflation, all while growing profitability and maintaining competitiveness
- Led a team of more than 35 professionals focused on improving productivity of retail model through store planning, space and assortment planning, retail pricing, power aisle, store environment and GNFR
Andy earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Bradley Van Hulle
Brad is a Senior Manager at INSIGHT2PROFIT, with over 5 years of consulting experience, specializing in price and profitability strategies, revenue management, and the implementation and execution of quote applications. Brad has led and contributed to over 10 client engagements throughout his time at INSIGHT. His expertise spans more than 10 industries, including home security, medical supplies, life sciences, industrials, food and beverage, automation, energy sustainability, facility services, and global contract manufacturing. He is well-versed in various pricing strategies, such as target pricing, margin targeting, list plus discount, list price setting, among others.
Examples of Brad’s experience include:
- Led a pricing application and strategic price implementation for a flow manufacturing and distribution organization with over $1.6B in revenue and 90+ independent business units, resulting in margin improvement exceeding $25M
- Led a strategic pricing initiative for a flooring company with revenue surpassing $400M, implementing price level setting strategies and increases across three distinct business divisions
Brad earned a B.S. in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan.
Gerry Thomas
Gerry is a Principal at INSIGHT2PROFIT. Gerry has 9 years of experience in pricing and commercial strategy across various roles, including consultant, manager, senior manager, and director. He specializes in B2B pricing, particularly for industrial equipment, heavy machinery, chemicals, and industrial manufacturers and distributors. He has also collaborated with several B2C clients in industries such as leather goods, white goods, face care, and consumer product goods.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Gerry spent 8 years as part of the Accenture Strategy team in the Pricing and Commercial Strategy group. During his tenure at Accenture, Gerry worked in sales enablement, zero-based budgeting, and in pricing and commercial strategy.
Examples of Gerry’s experience include:
- Led a project contributing $80M in EBITDA improvement over 16 months by implementing a value-based pricing methodology across the portfolio for a heavy trucking OEM
- Achieved a 2.5% net price improvement during inflationary headwinds for a B2B valve and industrial equipment portfolio company encompassing over 30 distinct brands, implemented a configurable custom quoting tool and PowerBI KPI dashboard utilized across 15+ brands, providing ongoing support for continuous improvement over multiple years
- Delivered over $50M in EBITDA improvement as the pricing project lead for an industrial equipment manufacturer through value-based pricing strategy and implementation
Gerry earned his MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, M.Ed. in Secondary Education and Teaching from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis, and a BBA in International Business from the University of Georgia.
Justin Johnson
Justin Johnson is a Senior Manager at INSIGHT2PROFIT, bringing over 16 years of leadership experience in Operations, Sales, Aftermarket, and Consulting within the building technology and consumer packaging industries. His expertise lies in developing streamlined processes and establishing world-class customer experiences to formulate value-based differentiation strategies. Justin currently leads client projects integrating elite pricing strategies with best-in-class customer experiences.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Justin served as Vice President of Operations at Foodmate US, a leading poultry processing equipment manufacturer. He also led Customer Operations for Bosch Packaging Services and managed Inside Sales for Bosch Building Technology.
Examples of Justin’s experience include:
- Established an inside sales organization that achieved a 36% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) while the industry grew at 6.5% CAGR
- Successfully turned around a struggling service organization within the consumer packaging sector, transforming it from a minus 15% gross margin to record profitability
- Created a new sales engineering department that generated $4M in new revenue within two years at a remarkable 62% profitability while maintaining headcount neutrality
Justin earned his MBA from the University of Rochester, Simon Business School, his M.S. in Strategic Leadership from Roberts Wesleyan University, his B.S. in History from SUNY Brockport, his A.A. in General Studies at Monroe Community college and a Certificate in Business Analytics from Harvard Business School Online.
Max Corman Penzel
Max is a Director at INSIGHT2PROFIT, with more than 8 years of consulting experience, leading and supporting clients in B2B and B2C pricing and margin management strategies and implementation. Max is known for bringing a strategic and creative approach to commercial challenges and prioritizes building strong and lasting client relationships. His client experience spans across more than 5 industries, including route-based service (sanitation, garment, construction), professional services, consumer products, and industrial manufacturing and distribution. Max has successfully driven over $250 million of margin improvement during his time at INSIGHT.
Examples of Max’s experience include:
- Designed a pricing engine with full Salesforce integration for a leading portable sanitation provider, resulting in pricing standardization, structural improvements, and 36-month top-line revenue growth of $120M
- Delivered a gross margin improvement exceeding 10% for a construction materials reprocessor through the development of a market-based pricing model paired with Voice of Customer market research
- Developed and integrated a machine-learning pricing engine for the used gear division of the world’s largest B2C musical instrument retailer, leveraging competitor data and inventory management to optimize acquisition and retail pricing, resulting in a 3% margin improvement
Max earned his B.A. in Business from the University of Rochester.
Mike Brenner
Mike is a Vice President of Private Equity at INSIGHT2PROFIT, where he has over 15 years of pricing experience across multiple industries and within the consulting field. He specializes in B2B pricing strategy & implementation for distribution, manufacturing, and service providers. Mike has led more than 3 dozen engagements at INSIGHT, excelling in identifying profitability improvement opportunities and offering pragmatic solutions to change management to ensure tangible financial benefits are achieved.
Prior to joining INSIGHT, Mike managed a pricing team at GOJO Industries, focusing on establishing market-based pricing for its PURELL line and heavy-duty cleaning products. During this period, Mike lead the launch of the pricing function within Salesforce.com, along with additional data & systems integrations within the pricing domain.
Examples of Mike’s pricing experiences include:
- Drove over $100M in price improvement for a national sanitation services provider through the launch of an optimized pricing engine, differentiated price increases, and enhanced leakage management
- Led a $20M margin improvement initiative for a primary supplier of packaging solutions by identifying and correcting profitability outliers, implementing a process for strategically addressing cost increase events, and launching price management tools to support optimization of freight recovery and surcharge capture
- Delivered over $20M in margin improvement for a leader in lubricant sales & distribution services through the establishment of a value-based pricing strategy, development of integrated pricing tools, and robust change management program
Mike earned his MBA in Finance and a B.A. in International Business from the University of Akron, College of Business. He has also studied at the Rennes International School of Business in France.
Waterfall Insights to Revenue Growth: Turning Data into Dollars
Utilized cost-to-serve waterfall to identify low margin customers and products driving 8% bottom-line revenue growth
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Implemented Uniform Pricing Structure to Enhance Profitability
Uniform pricing structure and differentiated price adjustments delivered $125M in price impact over 3 years
Scaling Success: A Data-Driven Approach to Pricing and Profitability
Centralized pricing strategy and quoting solution across multiple locations unlocking $40M EBITDA growth
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Built a tailored quoting engine and supporting processes resulting in $100M price impact over 4 years
Calculating the cost to serve your customers reveals the impact of price leaks and where margin shifts can be remedied through targeted pricing actions.

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