Belden Transforms Pricing into a Strategic Asset Using Conga

Learn how smarter pricing helps Belden stay ahead of market disruptions and global tariffs.

Table of contents

Business Outcomes

12+

fragmented systems consolidated into 1

100K

SKUs managed in 5-6 clicks

Reduced tariff response from weeks to days

Increased productivity with AI and automation

Belden – Customer Conversations

Challenge

As a global manufacturer of connectivity and networking solutions, Belden operates across a vast and intricate product landscape, one where pricing decisions ripple across hundreds of thousands of SKUs, multiple ERP systems, and markets around the world. Before Conga, Belden’s pricing approach was mostly reactionary. Decisions were made using disconnected technology, which prevented the business from realizing its true pricing potential.

Belden knew that future success required breaking down those silos of data and operation to become more connected and agile. Speed and clarity were key to staying ahead of sudden and unpredictable impacts from supply chain disruptions and global tariffs.

The goal: transform pricing into a strategic asset. Leaders realized there were big opportunities that an AI-powered pricing platform could unlock. But the first step was to address strategy.

The Lesson Belden Took to Heart Before Anything Else: Start With Strategy, Not Software

“Most of these implementations fail not because the software is good or bad,” said Tom Hermann, Senior Director of Global Pricing at Belden. “It is because someone started the journey with ‘I want to improve margins by 5%’ instead of understanding the issues contributing to pricing gaps in the first place,” he added.

Pricing, product, and IT teams addressed product structure and price hierarchy, all in parallel with a new ERP upgrade, to prepare for the future-proof, scalable pricing solution the company envisioned.

Solution

After a thorough vendor evaluation process, it was clear that Conga Price Optimization and Management was the best fit to drive real strategy at the company. Starting with the Americas, Belden took a phased regional approach to rollout, building on a proven foundation before expanding to EMEA and APAC.

Centralizing all of Belden’s product information in one dedicated environment was an immediate game-changer. “We came from over a dozen systems to manage pricing, including ERP, Excel, you name it,” said Hermann. Now the pricing team has a single source of truth for every step in revenue creation and cost management. 

Creating product relationships was another big benefit. Rather than managing every SKU in isolation, the team could now group related products into hierarchies, letting a single pricing decision flow intelligently across an entire product family.

You can go from managing thousands of individual SKUs to 5,10, or 20 product families, depending on how you configure it. That enables significantly more strategic thought on how those prices are initially set up and how those relationships can be managed that we didn’t have before.

Tom Hermann

Senior Director of Global Pricing @ Belden

Plus, the AI-powered software adapts to Belden’s own evolving demand data, simplifies complex scenarios, and recommends prices that protect margins and increase win rates. “It’s always important to validate it [the AI], it’s a child that needs training, but we will continue to see more benefit as we deploy this into the other regions,” said Hermann. Because the model is trained exclusively on Belden’s proprietary data, each regional deployment builds on the company’s own pricing history and business rules.

Results

It didn’t take long to see measurable results.

The Conga deployment is probably our biggest, single, most impactful AI deployment within the company. When tariffs hit, normally that's a several week process for us. Now, we can potentially do that in a couple of days.

Tom Hermann

Senior Director of Global Pricing @ Belden

It’s also easier managing the high-SKU environment—what Hermann calls “an instant light bulb” moment for the team.

We can now manage a portfolio of 100,000 items with five or six clicks. It's super powerful. Before Conga, managing a portfolio of this size required thousands of individual price touches.

Tom Hermann

Senior Director of Global Pricing @ Belden

For companies considering an AI-powered pricing solution to address today’s commerce concerns, Hermann offers some advice: “Don't forget price is probably the single most important thing you can do in the organization, after talent, and now you have an AI lever that is driving a whole bunch of efficiency and productivity to your organization. It brings a tremendous amount of value that typically flies under the radar.”

About the client:

Belden Inc.

Manufacturer

St. Louis, MO

Products used:

Conga Price Optimization and Management (POM)

Belden Inc. (NYSE: BDC) is an American, publicly traded manufacturer of end-to-end networking, security, and connectivity products. Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, with over a century of history, the company specializes in IT/OT convergence, providing the vital data infrastructure and cable solutions needed to power modern factories, smart buildings, and broadband networks.

FAQs

What challenges did Belden face before Conga?

Manual pricing processes, limited visibility, and inefficiencies made it difficult to price with precision, while staying ahead of unpredictable supply chain disruptions and global tariffs.
How did Conga transform Belden’s operations?

Conga transformed Belden’s reactive, spreadsheet-driven pricing process into a strategic company asset, consolidating a dozen fragmented systems into one.
Belden can manage a portfolio of 100,000 items with just five or six clicks. Before Conga, managing a portfolio of this size required thousands of individual price touches.
How does Conga help Belden react quicker to global tariffs?

Conga enables Belden to price with agility and confidence. When tariffs hit, Belden normally spent several weeks responding to the price change. Now, the pricing team can potentially do that in a couple of days.