Buyer · Site 1
3/6- Cost breakdown
- Contract terms
- Price history
- Commodity indices
- Other sites
- Alternatives
Supplier Price Increase Governance
How agents can guide the same investigation every time, with the final pricing decision retained by your team.
Automate the investigation. Not the decision.
Price Adjustment Notice
From: [Supplier name] · Effective next quarter
+8%
“Due to increased raw material and operating costs…”
01 · The consistency gap
When each buyer investigates increases their own way, contracts, cost drivers or alternatives can go unchecked, and it becomes hard to show a consistent process across sites.
Buyer · Site 1
3/6Buyer · Site 2
2/6Buyer · Site 3
2/6Same +8% request, three different investigations. Hard to show anyone a consistent process.
02 · The investigation checklist
A price increase can be justified. It should still be supported. Agents gather the same evidence every time, so each buyer starts from the same picture.
01
Request which cost drivers changed and by how much.
02
Pricing clauses, notice periods and fixed-price commitments.
03
What this supplier charged before, and what changed since.
04
Whether the market data actually moved the way the supplier says.
05
Where data is available: what other sites pay, and how past increases were settled.
06
Where data is available: suppliers already qualified to supply this part.
03 · The decision tree
Choose what happens at each branch. Weak or missing evidence raises an exception. It never means automatic acceptance.
Supplier requests a +8% increase
Request a detailed cost breakdown
Check the evidence: contract, history, indices, other sites
Challenge, negotiate or explore alternatives
Test: have required avenues been exhausted?
Recommendation with clear rationale
Manager approval
Human gateControlled pricing update + audit trail
Hypothetical scenario
Before anyone agrees, the agent opens an investigation and follows the same process your team has defined.
Evidence packet & audit trail
0 ENTRIESEvery step you take is recorded here.
04 · When the evidence is weak
The agent requests it again and flags the gap. The increase is not accepted on the supplier’s word alone.
Resolved by
Category owner decides how to proceed
Indices or price history don’t support the increase. The agent assembles the gap so the buyer can challenge it with facts.
Resolved by
Buyer challenges or negotiates
No contract terms or price history on file. The investigation pauses and routes to whoever owns that data.
Resolved by
Contract or data owner confirms terms
Evidence packet
Price increase · +8%05 · Approval and traceability
The designated manager sees the full evidence packet and rationale before deciding. Pricing updates happen as a controlled change after approval, and every step is recorded, so you can show how each increase was handled.
06 · Controls and success measures
Thresholds
e.g. increases above [your threshold] go to [designated approver].
Ownership
Every request routes to a named buyer, and every recommendation to a named manager.
Exceptions
Missing evidence, unsupported claims and guardrail breaches pause and escalate.
Share of increases investigated against the full checklist.
Time from supplier request to approved decision.
Share of decisions that followed the defined approval path.
Measured against a baseline agreed before launch. No guaranteed savings.
Step 1 · Recommended
Place governance workflows within the move from AI experimentation to agentic procurement.
View the AI Procurement Maturity ModelStep 2 · Optional
In a short working session, we map how price increases are investigated today and who approves the exceptions.
Request a working sessionMESH Works
Automate the investigation. Not the decision.