With any deal unless you are selling a pure commodity you want to understand why you lost a deal. Customers will sometimes give you price as a reason, it is an easy way out. So if it is genuinely price, fair enough but make sure there are not other factors in the decision and was it an apples for apples comparison. If your offering has more feature/benefits than the competition but the customer does not understand those differences it can look like a price issue. To sum that piece up she needs to fully understand the market, the customer needs, the company offering compared to the competition and what the competition is offering. The report to the Executive team needs to summarize the market and customer requirements where the holes are and a strategy to move the company forward. If the company has not moved its product line forward with market changes it may be getting left behind. Finally, there must be recommendations. Exec's don't need just a bunch of problems presented.

I agree that meeting with customers is a good approach. I also think that if you want to develop a competitive pricing strategy, you need to create some buckets and build the strategy around them. There are customer buckets and product buckets. Customers should be placed into "Maintain, Grow, Target & Modify". Products should be placed into "commodity/price leaders, innovation/profit leaders, product line fillers". Start by putting all your customers and products into these buckets, then develop a strategy for each. Do you have products to fit into each of these categories? if you don't, you need to work on innovation and building your product line. If you don't have customers to fit into these categories you are not going to be able to stay competitive or grow; you are just going to fight for existing market share. If you focus your pricing strategy on the competition, you will be a follower, but if you use these buckets you will be the one setting the pace.

I think there are a few levels of research that can be conducted here. First go meet with customers! The best research you can conduct is to have a dialog with customers about things you can do together to gain new business. Maybe they talk about special price deals they would need go into new markets, or product development that is necessary, packaging changes, lead-times, etc. In the end these discussions with give her a good idea of price and the competitive situation. Second, she should do a formal survey of the sales force, regarding each lost customer (who did they lose it to, at what price) maybe even set up a meeting with lost customers to have a dialog as to what the company would need to do to get the business back. If she can get all of this feedback, I think she can not only present a pricing plan, but a service strategy going forward. It is great if it can be linked to new business from her discussions with key accounts.