Operations & Finance
CRM Plus Commodity-Pricing Automation for a Metals Distributor
Client: Multi-location specialty metals distributor
Situation
A specialty metals distributor had tried to run Pipedrive themselves and stalled on the parts a generic CRM can't do: sales reps priced jobs by hand, open quotes never repriced when aluminum rates moved, and 715 customer organizations sat across regions with no clean taxonomy.
Task
Stand up a CRM that handles square-foot-to-sheet unit conversion and commodity-driven repricing Pipedrive does not support natively, on top of a clean region taxonomy the sales team would actually use.
Action
Implemented Pipedrive with a custom automation layer Palavir built on top: auto-applied the right customer record on each deal, derived square-foot-to-sheet quantities and a tiered pricing model, and exposed an open-quotes repricing endpoint tied to a live aluminum commodity feed. Delivered a region taxonomy and a Stage 1 data audit across 715 customer organizations and 1,969 contacts (77% with email on file).
Results
- The CRM now does the unit-of-measure math and pricing reps used to do by hand
- Open quotes reprice automatically when commodity rates move
- A clean region taxonomy over 715 customer organizations and 1,969 contacts
Transformation
Before: Reps pricing by hand in a half-configured CRM
The team had Pipedrive but no way to convert square footage to sheets, no automated pricing, and open quotes that went stale the moment commodity rates changed.
- Manual square-foot-to-sheet conversion on every quote
- Open quotes never repriced when aluminum rates moved
- No region taxonomy across 715 customer organizations
- Stalled on Pipedrive's Products module solo
After: A CRM that prices itself
A custom automation layer derives quantities and pricing, reprices open quotes against a live commodity feed, and applies the right customer record automatically.
- Automated unit-of-measure conversion and tiered pricing
- Open-quote repricing tied to a live aluminum feed
- Clean region taxonomy across 1,969 contacts
- Stage 1 data audit with 77% email coverage
Key Metrics
Job pricing
Quote repricing
Customer taxonomy
Key metrics
Customer organizations
715
Active contacts
1969
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