Berlin Pricing Conference Recap – Day 3

Thursday, December 5th,
Day Three, Keynotes & Breakout Tracks

Our keynote speakers are best way to harness the energy and momentum building on the third conference day in Berlin.

Keynote Session during Pricing Conference in Berlin 2014

In the leading keynote Enrico Trevisan, Partner at Simon-Kucher & Partners, shared his vision of ‘behavioral pricing’ and demonstrated the importance of recognizing the psychological predictability of irrational customer behavior. Always fascinating to hear about what we only sometimes acknowledge are our own human foibles.

The ever-affable Paul Hunt took the audience on a “Journey to World Class Pricing.” An icon of the pricing world, Paul shared some wit, expertise and insights from his new book, as well as his 20-plus-year vision and experience of the evolving pricing landscape.

Ernst-Jan Bouter explored archetypes of successful entrepreneurship that included “the inventor” and “the salesman.” To these types he adds “the pricer” and goes on to posit that the pricing function will never share the same self-interest of sales, marketing and finance. Therefore he concludes pricers in organizations must be held apart from these other functions to be able to remain clear, unbiased and effective. Pricing, thus, is “The Third Business Skill” which was the title of his presentation.

Last, and certainly a real treat for attendees, was Graeme Ingham, Vice President, Price Management for Schneider Electric. Graeme started by demonstrating how to increase testosterone by 20% and decrease the stress inducing hormones by 25% by "power posing" or standing in a posture of confidence; quite an interesting way to start his keynote titled “Pricing and the Overall Marketing Mix: More Opportunities Than Challenges?”

Julie Martin and Kevin Mitchell from PPS and
Sophie Marion from BD the winner of a 2014 PPS Conference Pass.

He explained how digitization (now called the third industrial revolution) is empowering consumers anywhere and everywhere in the world, allowing them to compare prices and demand high levels of service, these new scenarios bring opportunities and challenges to pricing.

Then he described how Curiosity, Agility and Discipline are the 3 core elements needed to capitalize on the opportunities and overcome the challenges faced by pricers when it comes to digitalization. 

The afternoon rolled out smoothly with three concurrent tracks with a total of 12 sessions. This format allows attendees to select the subjects that will cover their interests or challenges they are facing.

We thank all our speakers for sharing such incredible and valuable pricing knowledge during this 3-day event.

We have had a fantastic time in Berlin. It truly was a meeting of minds – a time of energized learning and opportunity, delivering the type skills and knowledge that increase salaries, validate promotions and increases profitability for corporations.

2014 looks like another amazing year in the expanding world of pricing. During the first half of the year we will host conferences in Singapore and Chicago in the Spring, and Brazil in the Summer, we at the Pricing Society have plenty to look forward to and much to be thankful for.

As we move into the New Year we remain amazed, grateful and indebted to our members, speakers, sponsors and staff for making our conferences the successes they are.

Gute Reise! And here’s to our meeting again in 2014!