MarketQuake2020! What’s coming? What to Do About It?

Thomas J. WinningerFounder
Winninger Resource Companies

Thom Winninger wants opportunity to knock.  And he wants companies to answer the door, not hide behind the curtains and wait for it to leave and go next door.

Snatching these opportunities is critical, but how do you know what to look for?  By identifying trends within the marketplace, businesses can capitalize on them.

Thom has spent 30 years predicting many of the most critical trend forces facing America’s marketplace, from the proliferation of the deep discounter, as in Walmart and Home Depot, to EDLP (Every Day Low Price) and EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). 



Notable trends for 2013 include:

• Fewer names but more competition
• Response not speed will be the need
• E-commerce will be M-commerce
• Vertical and Horizontal Segments Rule

Thom states that “the message today, more than ever before, must be creating distinctive value. Target trends; become more innovative; implement trending strategies; and get closer to shifting markets. Tomorrow will bring more change, faster change, and more volatile change than ever believed possible. In fact, 72% of America’s organizations will have to reinvent the way they do business in the next 8 years!

Thom Winninger will be speaking at the PPS Fall Pricing Conference in Atlanta in October.

The Next Frontier: The B2B Pricing World

According to Forrester Research, B2B e-commerce sales are now more than twice the size of B2C e-commerce and are expected to achieve $559 billion in sales in the US by the end of 2013. Because of the size of the B2B opportunity, an increasing number of companies are exploring how technology and specifically, e-commerce platforms, will impact how buyers will purchase industrial products in the future. Recently Oracle reported some interesting findings (Oracle’s 2012 B2B E-Commerce survey):

• 28% of respondents said that over 50% of their revenues come from the online channel.
• 31% of respondents said direct sales are still driving most revenue, but online is growing in importance.
• 80% of respondents agree that customer expectations have changed due to B2C/retail practices.
• 80% of respondents said that they invested in their commerce platform in 2012.

While it may yet be a few years before B2B supply chain networks are totally disrupted, we can already see the first signs of disruptive changes. Three major players have already made some critical moves. For example, many traditional and standard industrial goods can already be purchased on the Amazon Supply platform. Google is developing a powerful marketplace for B2B companies to search for product alternatives. And Grainger has become a very large B2B sourcing platform, and is well-recognized as one of the most user-friendly B2B sites.

What are the critical implications for B2B and industrial firms?

1. Conduct a deep customer segmentation process based on user needs and what they are looking for through each potential trade channel.
2. Address the role of e-commerce platforms in their current business models. It is inevitable that e-commerce is going to be a prevalent force in the B2B world. Oracle reports that 26% of B2B respondents said that mobile web /apps influence revenue the most.
3. Be ready to solve channel conflicts quickly as B2B buyers have more choices in the market and faster ways to source standard off-the-shelf products.
4. Be equipped with price intelligence technology to be able to respond to price pressure and price matching requests, the importance of which has been underscored by recent acquisitions by The Home Depot and McKinsey (more on these in an upcoming blog post by the authors).
5. Have candid and realistic internal discussions on what might happen when Amazon Supply starts offering a large portion of your products online at a potentially lower price. How do you prepare for it? How do you react? What comes next?

The tidal wave of price transparency is coming to B2B, and it will be disruptive. A wait-and-see position for B2B and industrial companies is not acceptable. B2B companies have a unique opportunity to learn now how brick-and-mortar retail chains are responding to the price transparency challenge created by online competitors, comparison shopping engines and mobile devices. Investments in price intelligence software will not be optional. The real question is whether these firms are prepared to proactively disrupt themselves, or are waiting to be disrupted.

Stephan Liozu (www.stephanliozu.com) is the Founder of Value Innoruption Advisors and specializes in disruptive approaches in innovation, pricing and value management. He earned his PhD in Management from Case Western Reserve University and can be reached at sliozu@case.edu.

Alexander Rink is the CEO of 360pi, the leader in delivering price intelligence to help retailers right-price to increase their revenues and margins. A veteran entrepreneur, technology executive and former management consultant at Bain & Company, Alexander is an INSEAD MBA, with an Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo. He can be reached at a.rink@360pi.com.

3 Critical Ways Pricing Influences the Buyer’s Behavior

Leigh Caldwell is proving that pricing is not just a numbers game, it’s a mind game as well.



Leigh Caldwell on BBC News

With a background in mathematics, Leigh speaks and writes on the behavior of buyers, and how psychology can affect those decisions, creating maximum consumer demand for products. Creating data out of human behavior?  Absolutely. 

The proof is in the data captured within Leigh’s book, The Psychology of Price, he verifies how pricing tactics can:

1. Modify and influence customers to allocate more money
2. Direct them towards profitable products
3. Ensure that the impression left on the customer is that he is in receipt of great value 

As Leigh states, there is no such thing as value for money.  To convince clients that they are receiving value, learn how to tap into their human emotions by sparking curiosity, creating a desire, and directing them towards your most profitable products. 
  

Leigh is a Partner at The Irrational Agency, and is Chief Executive of Inon Pricing Advisors.  Look for him as a keynote speaker at the upcoming PPS Atlanta Conference.

 

How to Enable Your Firm to Reach Its True Revenue Potential

Mark Burton, co-founder and vice president, Holden Advisors suggests that despite the plethora of solutions and the value we bring to our companies, pricers are falling short impacting both revenue and profit growth. 

There are many reasons for this and many solutions, says Burton. Big Data, software, sales tools, etc. – all devised today to help try to reverse the damage from tough negotiations with price sensitivecustomers or ‘acts of god’ from global commodities markets.
 
However Burton will argue that the answer lies not in with tools in techniques, but rather our ability to change the way the pricing department works within companies.

A big part being more effective, Burton will suggest is moving to an integrated pricing department is to provide more agile solutions to a number of problems. The answer to continued profitability, Burton says, lies in an organizations ability to bring pricing more broadly into the enterprise – pricing leadership – is the path for the future career trajectory of pricers.

This model embeds pricing talent in sales, product management and marketing, as well as in customer facing roles. This leads to teamwork with the sales hierarchy where sales are measured in ways that do not conflict with smart pricing approaches. In omni paratus, we are ready for anything.

Mark Burton kicks off the first Keynote Thursday October 24th at the Fall Conference with “The Trillion Dollar Opportunity: How the ‘Embedded Pricing Organization’ will Enable Your Firm to Reach Its True Revenue Potential.”

Hope to see you there. http://my-pps.com/Mark-Burton

PPS 24th Fall Pricing Conference Delivers Comprehensive Learning Environment to Pricers Nationwide

Atlanta, GA, The Professional Pricing Society (Pricing Society), announces its 24^th Annual Fall Pricing Workshops & Conference on Oct. 22-25, 2013, at Loews Hotel in Atlanta.

The Pricing Society Fall event will feature a total of 11 workshops including nine full-day workshops and two two-day workshops, including a full-day workshop and track dedicated to “Pricing for Life Sciences.” The Conference also contains the 5^th annual “Pricing for Executive’s Summit,” a strategic event targeted to, and lead by, senior executive and senior management-level professionals.

“Atlanta in the fall is an exciting time for us, especially with the unprecedented selection of 11 workshops as well as our growing executive summit and keynote content,” said Kevin Mitchell, president of the Pricing Society. “From mid-level professionals with pricing duties looking to grow their pricing expertise, to C-level executives looking for strategic thought-leadership, this year’s conference is sure deliver a broad swath of knowledge necessary to thrive in today’s marketplace.”

This year’s conference features keynotes from influential global strategic pricing leaders, with keynote topics including:

• “The Trillion Dollar Opportunity: How the ‘Embedded Pricing Organization’ will enable your firm to reach it true revenue potential” from Mark Burton, Co-Founder and Vice President, Holden Advisors
• “Behavioral Pricing – Practical implications of Pricing 3.0,” from Stephan A. Butscher, Chief Talent Officer, Simon-Kucher & Partners
• “The Customer Centricity Imperative: Implications for Pricing,” from Mark Haller, Partner, Strategy, PricewaterhouseCoopers    
• “Psychological Pricing Strategies from Behavioral Economics,” from Leigh Caldwell, Author, Chief Executive, Inon Pricing Advisers, London
• “The Next Pricing Frontier: Business Model Innovation,” from George Muller, Ph.D., Senior Manager, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Additionally, the final keynote of the day will feature ‘America’s Market Strategist,’ Thomas J. Winninger. The Speaker-Hall-of-Famer will discuss the future of business in an evocative presentation titled, “MarketQuake 2020! What’s coming? What to do about it?”

For complete information on the 24^th Annual Fall Pricing Workshops & Conference, or for research and resources related to the profession of pricing, visit the Professional Pricing Society at www.pricingsociety.com/atl2013.

Join Pricing Society’s professional community on LinkedIn, and at the Conference broadcast #PPSATL via Twitter, or follow @pricingsociety to connect to leading pricing communicators.  

About the Pricing Society

The Professional Pricing Society is the world's largest professional society dedicated solely to pricing training and education. The Professional Pricing Society provides pricing professionals with current strategies, market trends, analysis, research and resources from today's leading pricing experts and technology. For more information on membership or events visit the organization’s website at www.pricingsociety.com

Press Contact:

Adam Ganz 
Adam@Resonance-PR.com 
(206) 375-0614

Company Contact: 
Fabricio Lopez
Fabricio@PricingSociety.com
(770) 509-9933  

‘Communicating Value and Defending Price’ with Paul Hunt

Paul Hunt,
President, Pricing Solutions

Paul Hunt, President of Pricing Solutions, has a particular career interest in helping companies implement the cultural changes necessary for them to become more effective through a value-based pricing orientation.

Hunt does a great deal of writing and lecturing on pricing strategy, including in-house trainings, industry conferences, and speaks to MBA students. You might have read thought-leadership from him in the Financial Post, Marketing Magazine, and incorporated within association publications from the American Marketing Association and our Pricing Society Blog and member publication, The Journal of Professional Pricing.  

As a pricing strategist, Mr. Hunt has helped companies make significant changes that have led to substantial bottom-line improvements. Hunt teaches that effective businesses must work to focus on ‘Communicating Value and Defending Price.’

Concepts include understanding the customer’s perception of value, empirically delineating variations in value perceived across segments. Basically the process to deliver sales and marketing offerings – like product, services, bundles, promotions – that are aligned with value perception.

Greg Thomas,
VP of Pricing Research
Pricing Solutions

On October 22^nd at our Conference, Mr. Hunt and pricing researcher colleague, Greg Thomas, will lead the two-day course on “Measuring and Managing Pricing Effectiveness.” At this workshop Hunt and Thomas present a comprehensive overview of the key concepts that help pricing practitioners enhance their pricing strategy and skill-set.

The Hunt and Thomas team will teach using strategic pricing approaches, frameworks and models as applied to real-work case examples. This will provide a solid and practical foundation for attendees hungry for additional core teachings. This should be a fit for pricers working to integrate their knowledge within the wider scope of the enterprise.

Please join them. http://pps.pricingsociety.com/LP=342

Their experience is to our benefit!

At Annual Conferences, our “Core Pricing Skills” workshops are at the foundation of a curriculum that is designed to support, educate and elevate the pricing professional’s career path.

This year’s Conference is no exception to the rule. In fact, this fall, we are very proud to have Dr. Kent Monroe, long-time pricing influential and marketing icon on the schedule. Teaming up with pricing researcher Lillian Cheng, Dr. Monroe is leading our two-day interactive workshop providing core skills and fundamentals for the development and management of value-oriented pricing strategies and tactics.

 

Our members love the way Dr. Monroe brings decades of research, academic and practical experience to our training workshops. His warm teaching style won him the AMA’s prestigious ‘Teacher of the Year’ award a few years back and his seminal book, "Pricing: Making Profitable Decisions” remains one of the cornerstone works in the profession.

His experience is to our benefit, as Dr. Monroe has worked throughout his career defining the foundations of behavioral price research. His work has been published in the most reputable business and marketing journals in the world. Monroe is best known for his work on concepts like comparative price advertising, price-quality and value relationship, and price fairness.

The objectives of this two-day workshop are to present the factors that must be considered when setting price and to show how pricing alternatives can be developed and analyzed. The workshop will emphasize the proactive approach to pricing by considering how customers develop value perceptions. 

If you know of Dr. Monroe, attended a workshop with him or benefitted from his academic work, we’d love to hear from you. If you are new to a Dr. Monroe session, you are in for a treat.

For more details on Dr. Monroe and Lillian Chen’s “Core Pricing Skills” two-day workshop visit:

http://pps.pricingsociety.com/LP=340