3. We can’t constrain negotiations without killing the ability of our salesforce to close deals.

Sales incentives often emphasize bookings, not profit margin. That motivates sales representatives to give away too much on price simply to close the deal, without considering the economic value of the final deal. To complicate matters, individual reps often negotiate different discounts for the same product, and the companies have no standardized procedures to assess the appropriateness of a proposed discount.

Vague processes for determining the value of a deal or partnership also result in lost opportunities and even unprofitable commitments. One technology firm was asked by a major customer to offer teleconferencing services based on usage. The sales team quickly agreed before consulting other departments, such as IT, operations and accounting. It turned out the internal systems were not equipped to handle the new venture. That firm now deploys literally hundreds of employees to collect data for billing and to sort out taxes associated with usage in different countries.

Help salespeople help themselves. Equip the salesforce with business intelligence to make smarter pricing decisions, and install a clear, fast process for decisions that need approval. Commissions and other compensation should be redesigned to promote discounting that benefits the company’s long-term economics, not short-term volume gains.

4. We need to maintain channel discounts to motivate our partners, even though those discounts create complexity and obscure our view of profitability.

When discount programs and promotions proliferate, suppliers lose control. Various discounts—volume, minimum level of spending, new account, product and geography-specific, and front-end and back-end—might each make sense in isolation. In aggregate, though, they sometimes allow partners and customers to qualify for a price that’s below cost.

To counteract this complexity, it pays to refresh on a regular basis the portfolio of discounts, focusing on a small number of important incentives with meaningful benefits.

This approach worked for one US-based technology company that had lost control of its channel-discount portfolio. Different units had created different incentives for channel partners, which had meant that these partners sold whatever they could, then used the supplier’s staff to comb through programs to see what partners could qualify for after the fact. A complete redesign of the portfolio cut 70% of the programs and focuses on a small number of high-impact incentives. The result: a simpler portfolio that provides the same net prices but makes it easier for the technology company and its channel partners to do business, and also makes plain where discounts are going and why.

5. It doesn’t matter if our list prices aren’t competitive, because we hit the right price points through heavy, nonstandard discounts.

Customers often conduct an initial supplier screen that factors list price into the mix. If a supplier’s pricing strategy consists of high list prices and high discounts, and that runs counter to the norm for a particular market, the company will get knocked out of consideration early.

Developing a pricing playbook will ensure that prices are set based on the product’s economic value to customers and its life stage. Alongside that playbook should be a process for regularly checking foreign exchange and competitors’ price moves, so that list prices stay locally competitive.

Once tech firms break free from these five shackles, they will regain the pricing flexibility required for profitable growth.

Stephen Mewborn is a Chicago-based partner and Justin Murphy is a San Francisco-based partner of Bain & Company.