Day 4 Recap: Spring Pricing Conference in San Francisco

San Francisco, CA, Friday, May 3nd, 2013

Day 4: 18 Conference Breakout sessions 

Our 18 conference breakout sessions today allowed attendees to hone their pricing skills and learn new tools and techniques. We also explored how the Internet is changing the pricing industry and how pricers can leverage big data to enhance pricing initiatives.

Graeme Ingham VP of Price Management for Schneider Electric described the amazing journey taken by the corporation since the economic crisis in 2009 and how they reacted quickly, implemented a well-orchestrated global pricing initiative, got buy-in and full support from top executives and the CEO declared PRICING the Number 1 priority during 2012. Graeme shared the outstanding process and incredible pay off. 

Finn Hansen, CEO of Stratinis, shared how to gather and use large data sets with minimum effort in his session on “Pricing and Big Data,” and Jean-Manuel Izaret, partner at the Boston Consulting Group, offered tips on how to transform technology into an asset for pricing solutions.

Other highlights from the breakout sessions include learning the best practices to tackle the pricing challenges of emerging markets, how to use training programs to encourage evaluation of pricing strategies, and the common pricing principles that transcend different industries. 

We close this conference with the satisfaction of job well done, attendees are eager to get back to work and put in practice what they learned.

We sincerely thank all and each one of our members, sponsors, speakers and staff. Safe travels home and we will see you soon!

Happy Pricing!

Day 3 Recap: Spring Pricing Conference in San Francisco

San Francisco, CA, Thursday, May 2nd, 2013
Day 3 Recap: Keynotes

We were lucky to hear from six industry leading lights during our keynote sessions. Among the speakers was Dr. Georg Tacke, CEO of Simon-Kucher & Partners, discussing pricing and commercial excellence and Caspar de Bono, managing director B2B of the Financial Times Ltd., who addressed how to price digital products in a weightless word.

During lunch, we had the opportunity to network with global pricing professionals and what has become a tradition in PPS Conferences, The Women in Pricing Luncheon sponsored by Simon-Kucher & Partners. The luncheon serves as an opportunity to discuss the trends that influence the job and important contributions of the ever-growing presence of women in the field of pricing.

Paul Hunt, President of Pricing Solutions; got our attention as he described the inner parts and key aspects of The Journey to World Class Pricing.

Larry Montan from Deloitte Consulting presented The White Elephant in the Room: Sales Compensation, a fascinating session where he shared his experiences and lessons learned in how to get sales compensation aligned with pricing.

Speaking in Tongues was the title for the keynote presented by Steve Haggett, Past Senior Director of Pricing for Philips Healthcare, Steve described how to drive profit performance by getting better at speaking the multiple languages of corporate functions such as finance, marketing, HR, Sales and Product Management.

Ending day three, we heard from Robert D. Smith, director of corporate pricing at Eastman Chemical Company, who covered the key areas of focus for developing a sustainable pricing culture. After Robert’s keynote, we headed over to PROS’ conference reception for some fun and more networking opportunities. Attendees enjoyed great food and drinks, won some prizes and walked out with unique caricature portraits drawn by an artist in the Sponsors Hall.

Day 2 Recap: Spring Pricing Conference in San Francisco

San Francisco, CA, Wednesday, May 1st, 2013

Day 2 Highlights – Seven Workshops & a Celebratory Reception with PricewaterhouseCoopers

It was another exciting day of pricing workshops in San Francisco. The two 2-day workshops concluded successfully and we heard from the managing principal and a senior pricing analyst at Wiglaf Pricing on how to design game theory applications to better recognize competitive pricing pressures. They shared case studies and offered practical, easy-to-use tips on how to model pricing scenarios according to market environment.

Stephan Liozu, Ph.D. and pricing evangelist addressed the need for more innovation and creativity in pricing models. He shared his unique view of the integration of value and pricing in the innovation process and gave us specific examples of how this integration happens. 

Nelson Hyde from Holden Advisors presented Negotiating with Backbone, quite an interactive session with lots of questions and practical tips on how to identify the type of players and how to effectively negotiate with them.

Eugene F. Zelek, Jr. shared his legal expertise in the pricing field giving many tips to improve pricing effectiveness and stay within the legal boundaries.

Another compelling session was The Art of Psychological Pricing: Applying Behavioral Economics in B2B and B2C Pricing with Florian Bauer, Ph.D., lots of happy attendees came out with a new understanding of pricing beyond the numbers.

Jim Geisman show participants hot to Monetize Software IP and the excellent duo Rich Eagles and Joe Morris presented Integrated Pricing and Profitability Management covering both sides of the table, the consulting side (Morris with Deloitte) and the client side (Eagles with DuPont).

And to wrap up day two, we attended a great workshop reception sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers, The Press Club San Francisco served as the venue where we enjoyed the many good wines from this part of the world, of course good conversation and networking with old and new friends in pricing was the most important part of the evening.

Day 1 Recap: Spring Pricing Conference in San Francisco

San Francisco, CA, Tuesday, April 30^h, 2013

Day one: First day of conference, Pricing Training Workshops

Day 1 Recap: Spring Pricing Conference in San Francisco

Our Annual Spring Pricing Workshop & Conference in San Francisco have started and everyone here is eager to learn and apply best practices to achieve pricing excellence.

After the workshops, we are all thrilled about the glorious warm weather and how enjoyable is everything from just walking around this beautiful city to sitting down and enjoying dinner at superb areas like Pier 39 among many others.

With hands-on workshops and high-level speakers from the worlds of business, technology and academia, day 1 built a diverse foundation of pricing professionalism, networking and training.

Yesterday, we kicked off two 2-day workshops and three 1-day workshops, learning about Core Pricing Skills, successful price innovations in the medical device arena, the best practices in strategic pricing process design and the seven types of customer risk and their impact on value.

Today we are going through seven more workshops and looking forward to a Post Workshop reception sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers to celebrate our new pricing skills and relax after 2 days of intense pricing training.