With volatile raw material prices and shifting supplier terms, our margins are slipping, but neither our Head of Sales nor our Head of Operations wants to own the Pricing Strategy and Margin Integrity seat. How do we place and staff an essential operational seat that both leaders refuse to touch?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a seat sits at the intersection of two departments and nobody wants it, the default response is finger-pointing. Sales blames Operations for cost overruns, Operations blames Sales for discounting, and margins bleed out. In EOS®, the Accountability Chart requires that every seat has exactly one name and five clear roles. Shared accountability equals zero accountability.

First, define the seat strictly by function, ignoring your current personnel. The Pricing Strategy and Margin Integrity seat typically has five core roles: maintaining standard cost models, auditing job profitability, setting baseline price schedules, approving custom quote exceptions, and leading vendor price negotiations. Look at those roles objectively. Pricing integrity is an analytical, governance function. In ninety percent of businesses, this belongs under Finance or as a direct reporting line to the Integrator, not Sales.

Second, address the staffing problem. If no current leadership team member has the GWC to own it, do not force-feed it to someone who will give it a minus on Want. That guarantees neglected execution. Temporarily, the Integrator must place their name in that seat to stabilize it and establish operating metrics on the Scorecard.

Third, build a long-term staffing plan. Can an analytical estimator or financial analyst below the leadership level step up into this seat? Can you automate price book updates and margin exception alerts using simple algorithmic rules or AI scripts to reduce the manual burden? If the gross margin erosion costs you hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, hiring a dedicated margin analyst or outsourced pricing specialist will pay for itself in one quarter. What you cannot do is leave the box blank or let Sales and Operations co-manage it.