Thursday, October 31, 2013

Friend or Foe? Making Discount Management Profitable for You

Tim J. Smith, Ph.D., CPP,
Managing Principal of Wiglaf Pricing
Adjunct Professor of Marketing
at DePaul University
“Discount.”  It seems like such a dirty word, like something you would find at a Walmart near you.  Most executives would like to eliminate all discounts from pricing, but if used correctly, discounting in pricing can actually improve profitability. 

By not allowing discounting to wreak havoc and consume resources in an organization, it becomes a useful form of price segmentation.

Tim J. Smith will help you use the discount method differently, by applying quantitative approaches to the datasets of your own company. 

Attendees will need to bring a laptop with Microsoft Excel, and will look at three tools for firm-specific discounting practices, and four commonly used tools executives use to restrain them. 

Attendees will also study:
  • How discounting can simultaneously lower market entrance prices, increase volumes and improve profitability,
  • Quantitative methods for measuring and monitoring discounting policy,
  • Quantitative and managerial tools for restraining discounts,
  • Implications of Prospect Theory and the Nash Equilibrium on discounting policy.

Dr. Tim J. Smith will be leading the workshop Advanced Quantitative Methods in Discount Management at the PPS 9th Annual European & Global Conference and Workshops in Berlin, Germany in December

  

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Human Behavior and The Art of Psychological Pricing: Looking Into the Mind of the Buyer

Peering into the depths of the human psyche can be an enlightening or disturbing path, depending on how you approach it. 

Everyone is trying to crack into the “mind  of the buyer,” to establish habits and decision making processes to enhance bottom line growth.  Dr. Florian Bauer may be closest to figuring it out. 

In his workshop The Art of Psychological Pricing: Applying Behavioral Economics in B2B and B2C Pricing, Dr. Bauer will take you through the science of pricing research and strategy from a psychological standpoint, drawing on a validated and award-winning framework of his design. 

He will move beyond the classical assumptions and educate attendees on real life decision processes, including:

Recent research insights on human decision making for deriving successful pricing strategies,
A conceptual framework that will better leverage behavioral economics in a pricing strategy,
The pros and cons of pricing tools such as Price Sensitivity Meter or Conjoint Analysis and how to modify and complement these methods to avoid risks and pitfalls,
How to convert insights into optimizing price level, structure, dynamics, and communication. 


Dr. Florian Bauer will be teaching the workshop The Art of Psychological Pricing: Applying Behavioral Economics in B2B and B2C Pricing at the PPS 9th Annual European & Global Conference and Workshops in Berlin, Germany in December. 

 

Monday, October 28, 2013

Hitting the Big 3: An Analytical Approach to Revenue Management

Marc Abels, Partner
Deloitte Belgium
 
Revenue management is much like playing the slot machines in Vegas.  You’ve got to hit three of the same: (1) selling the right capacity to (2) The right customer (3) at the right price…to hit the jackpot. 

What’s the big payout?  Driving and funding profitable growth for your business. 

Marc Abels and Ernst Hoffmann will help you take the odds out of the equation at their workshop The Analytical Approach to Revenue Management: From Cost-to-Serve to Price Optimization

Learn how applying analytics and taking Price-Volume trade-offs and price elasticity will help to shape price setting decisions, successful implementations, and further overall profitability. 

Ernst Hoffmann, Partner
Deloitte Germany
This workshop offers a holistic approach to Revenue Management, and attendees will study:
  • The fundamentals of Revenue Management and how to set your price using the difference in customers’ value of your products
  • The importance of cost-to-serve for customer profitability management
  • How to create the necessary price gaps when setting the price and to optimize your discounts and rebates
Marc Abels and Ernst Hoffman will be attending the PPS 9th Annual European & Global Conference and Workshops in Berlin, Germany in December.

 
 

Friday, October 25, 2013

Well done! Conference Success!

Friday, October 25th, 18 session in 4 tracks, Conference Closing

We have had a fantastic time at our 24th Annual Fall Pricing Workshops and Conference. I know from all the pleased faces that our attendees learned a lot but also had a good time.
Many are surely eager to get to work and implement all the pricing insights, tools and methodologies learned during these 4 days. We are sure most of you are going back with a higher level of energy and purpose for your jobs and what that means for your corresponding companies.

We certainly hope you take advantage of Georgia’s beautiful fall colors and enjoy all our great city has to offer.

Thank you for attending, and a shout of gratitude and good feelings to all our attendees, speakers, sponsors and staff.

It truly was a meeting of minds – a time of energized learning and opportunity, delivering the skills and knowledge that will take you to the next level.

For those of you reading along from distant countries, perhaps we shall see you soon in Berlin on December 3rd at our 9th Annual European & Global Pricing Conference and Workshops.

Surely, next year looks exciting for the world of pricing, with conferences in Chicago in the spring, Singapore in April and Brazil in the summer, we have plenty to look forward to and much to learn to expand our pricing knowledge and skills.

Safe travels everyone!

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Atlanta Pricing Conference Recap - Day 3

Thursday, October 24th, Day Three, Keynotes

Our keynote speakers were the perfect way to continue our four pricing-filled days in Atlanta.  The leading keynote, by Mark Burton, Co-Founder and Vice President of Holden Advisors, shared his vision of the ‘Embedded Pricing Organization’ demonstrating the importance of evolving the way pricing departments integrate within enterprises.

Stephan A. Butscher took the audience to a new level with his keynote “Behavioral Pricing — Practical Implications of Pricing 3.0” a true orientation on how to advance the practice we all share.

Tim Smith, Ph.D. and CPP explored the ups and downs of managing prices across borders, and shared tips on how to frame the challenges and avoid the headaches.

Leigh Caldwell’s session was excellent in content and delivery, he illustrated how to use the powerful psychological weapon of pricing to make your customers feel inclined to buy your most profitable products and feel like they got a great deal.

Georg Müller, Ph.D. impressed the audience with his remarkable experience, detailing his participation in historical pricing moments with some of the largest companies in the world.

And what can we say, Thomas J. Winninger wasn’t only relevant, engaging, entertaining and fun, he left the audience with the challenge of creating purpose for their careers, for the value they bring to their companies, and  he insisted that pricers redefine themselves to elevate their position and importance for the enterprise. 

Thomas dared pricers to ask bigger questions, questions that the C-Suite doesn’t have answers for. Thom demanded from pricers “Emphasize on the problem you solve not on the process you do it with”. This was a remarkable hour with one of the most dynamic and compelling speakers in the world.

We thank all our speakers for sharing such incredible and valuable pricing knowledge on this Keynote Day.

Now, we all celebrate together during a pleasant reception sponsored by our friends from PROS.

You will hear from us tomorrow when we will tell you more about another day in pricing land!

Getting Back to the Basics: Core Pricing Skills 101

Dimitris Hiotis, Director
Simon-Kucher & Partners
Whether you’re new to pricing, and or a seasoned professional, getting back to the basics to refresh your skills is always a good idea.  It is often the fundamentals that we first learn that are frequently overlooked and underutilized.

In Core Pricing Skills, Dimitris Hiotis and Bjoern Dahmen are bringing back the basics, and will help you master the essentials of pricing performance.  

Sharpen your pencils and take note: this ‘full interactivity’ workshop will be emphasizing dozens of cases and industries for studious minds.  Questions and participation is highly encouraged, and attendees will focus on the key areas of pricing 101, value pricing, differentiation, and implementation.  You will also learn:

 
Bjoern Dahmen, Director
Simon-Kucher & Partner

1- Why pricing is the key profit lever

2- The fundamentals of value pricing, and the key tools and methodologies to quantify product value

3- Effective segmentation to drive price differentiation
Making pricing changes stick through better price implementation
 
Dimitris Hiotis and Bjoern Dahmen will be leading the workshop Core Pricing Skills  at the PPS 9th Annual European & Global Conference and Workshops in December in Berlin, Germany. 
 

Atlanta Pricing Conference Recap - Day 2

Wednesday, October 23rd, Day Two: CPP Workshops and Executive Summit

Day two went extremely well, all 2-day workshop participants finished their second day of hands-on pricing training. We then welcome a larger group of attendees that were eager to learn and benchmark with fellow pricers.

Andreas Hinterhuber, Ph.D. made this very complicated subject seem easy with his many real-life examples and practical instruction during his workshop Quantifying and Documenting Value in Business Markets.

Chris Provines conducted a timely and particularly relevant session on a subject that affects a powerful industry and potentially all of us. The workshop was entitled The Perfect Storm: Selling and Pricing in the Age of Healthcare Reform, and participants from the largest Healthcare, Pharmaceutical and Medical Device companies were captivated with the many subjects discussed.

Nelson Hyde covered all the aspects of successful negotiations, with emphasis on how to pause during the process and gain some insights about the game of the customer.

The workshop Making Pricing Work in B2B Industries was well received; expert presenters Deepak Sharma and Adam Echter delivered a well-orchestrated process on how to accomplish this evasive task.

All professional pricers are good with numbers, but this workshop is one notch above when it comes to that. During this workshop Pricing Research: Advanced Quantitative Techniques for Big Data and Surveys, Walter Paczkowski, Ph.D. handles complicated equations and makes look easy for the rest of us.

Value Pricing is a big subject during this conference, Robert Marvin and Anton Malygin delivered a captivating workshop entitled Effective Transaction Price Management:  Unlocking Pricing Value for Your Organization.

Our Executive Summit is always energizing, and this year was no exception. Such a pleasure seeing scores of pricing executives gather together and share industry knowledge and lessons learned. At today’s Summit participants walked away with practical, practitioner-proven examples of improved pricing strategies, like:

What is a ‘Pricing Paradox’ and how to deal with one when you have it
How to turn issue resolution into significant revenue opportunities
Why changing the pricing conversation with customers improves value propositions

Check back with us later on today to read about the five great keynotes we have lined up for Day Three of our conference.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Atlanta Pricing Conference Recap – Day 1

Tuesday, October 22nd, Day one, first day of conference, workshops

We kicked off the first day of our Atlanta conference with five information-packed workshops led by senior pricing experts from across the nation – a terrific way to celebrate the opening of the Pricing Society’s 24th Annual Fall Conference.

The full-day workshops were well attended and our expert presenters are all very good at getting the group engaged, participating in real life exercises that bring the theory into practice, and answering the key questions that come from the large variety of industries represented in the sessions.

Dr. Kent B. Monroe and Lilian Cheng walked new pricers through the first day of Core Pricing Skills, always a preferred program for those getting into pricing or trying to organize their ideas and approach to new challenges.

Paul Hunt and Greg Thomas led a highly interactive workshop on how to Measure & Manage Pricing Effectiveness, the tools and methods alone are worth the time and investment!

Vernon Lennon and Alain Meloche from Pricing Cloud shared their knowledge on how companies of all information asset sizes use the same concepts, ideas, approaches, and models to price more efficiently in smaller data environments.

Jeff Collins, Ph.D. and Doug Fuehne with PROS Pricing conducted a workshop titled “Measuring Value and Reporting Performance” where participants learned to communicate performance in a way that instills confidence in the results of their pricing actions.

Deloitte’s senior managers, Manish Prabhu and Omar Hoda, shared tips employed by effective pricers assisting their sales teams’ negotiations.  In this ‘Practitioner’s Guide’ session these pricing pros shared important defensive pricing and revenue management strategies for communicating value over price.

We’re looking forward to Day Two; the continuation of the 2-day workshops, the new 1-day workshops being presented and especially the presentations that will be shared during our Pricing for Executives Summit.

Guiding Your Way Through the Haze Around Pricing Effectiveness

Fernando Ventureira,
Partner – VP Europe
Pricing Solutions
Do you ever wonder how your pricing methods measure up against the competition’s methods? 

What if you had the opportunity to find out, in real-time? 

Clear away the haze and find clarity at Measuring & Managing Pricing Effectiveness.

Fernando Ventureira and Christian Winter will be your guides to benchmarking your methods by six critical areas: Process Effectiveness, Infrastructure, Strategy, Value and Elasticity, Key Performance Indicators, and Pricing Guidelines. 


Christian Winter
Director Germany
Pricing Solutions
Attendees will be enlightened with the ability to apply their new skills immediately, including:

1- Whether their pricing strategy is appropriate, and how it stacks up against others,

2- If their sales people are executing the pricing strategy, and if they are leaving money on the table, and

3- Whether they captured what they expected.

Ventureira and Winter have adapted this workshop to the specifics of the European Market, and will be at the PPS 9th Annual European & Global Conference and Workshops in December in Berlin, Germany


Thursday, October 17, 2013

Under the Magnifying Glass: The Power of Transaction Price Management

Anton Malygin, Director, PwC
How many companies can truly say they analyze their day-to-day operations?  How much yield is regularly lost every day in revenue leakage, unjustified discounts, and underpriced transactions?

That’s not just numbers, that’s leaking profit. Robert Marvin and Anton Malygin are getting out the magnifying glass and giving you the “single source of truth view” in their workshop Effective Transaction Price Management: Unlocking Pricing Value for Your Organization. 




Robert Marvin, Director, PwC
Come prepared to learn the analysis of transactions and their revealing nature, including:

1. The value of transaction price management, key benefits and opportunity areas for transaction price management initiatives,
2. How analytics can be leveraged to provide transparency and generate one consistent “single source of truth” view, using information about customers and products at the transaction level,
3. Requirements to effectively execute transaction price management and make it sustainable. 

Marvin and Malygin will also be identifying areas of up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, ultimately helping attendees to boost their bottom line.  They will be at the PPS Conference in Next Week in Atlanta

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Hit the Pause Button While Navigating Through Procurement

Learning how to hit the pause button while navigating through the procurement department is one of the best ways to building bridges with procurement. Today, more and more customers are setting the rules of this new social economy.  What once was the wind at our back has become the wind in our faces.  It is necessary to revisit how we do business. 

Nelson Hyde, Director
Holden Advisors
Assessing the game of the customer is important; no one likes the ladder kicked out from under them.  Nelson Hyde will revolutionize the way you negotiate and price in the same way penicillin transformed medicine.  It’s going to ensure your survival. 
 
He teaches you how to hammer out your differences.  You’ll learn:
  • How to effectively pause during a negotiation,
  • Being prepared to mend fences,
  • Price matters – if you were having a pace maker put in, would you want the $2,000 model or the $6,000 model?  Clearly the latter!
 Nelson Hyde will be hosting the workshop Negotiating With Backbone at the PPS Conference in October.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

New Tools for Your Pricing Toolbox

Andreas Hinterhuber, Ph.D
 Partner
Hinterhuber & Partners GmbH
Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.~William Pollard
 
If innovation is necessary for achieving competitive price levels, what tools do you have at your disposal?  Innovation in pricing tactics deals with tools to measure and increase customer willingness to pay and to communicate value to B2B and B2C customers.  Andreas Hinterhuber wants to help you to amp up your toolbox. 
Specifically, Andreas will look at value calculators, pricing ROI calculations and other tools leading B2B companies from around the world use to quantify and document customer value.  


In his workshop, Quantifying and Documenting Value in Business Markets, Andreas will be exploring these topics: 
  1. Methods and tools to quantify and document customer value,
  2. Best practices for aligning prices with value, not costs or competitive price levels,
  3. To justify price premiums versus competitors, withstanding price pressure from professional B2B purchasers.
Andreas Hinterhuber will be speaking about innovation in pricing and driving profits at the PPS Conference in Atlanta.
 

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Setting Your Sails with the Changing Tides of Healthcare Reform

Christopher Provines, CEO,
Value Vantage Partners
From a pricing standpoint, Healthcare Reform is a looming ocean of uncertainty and challenges that many in the field find daunting.   The “new normal” of healthcare will demand that suppliers and their teams change their sails and aggressively defend value and pricing. 

Those awash in this sea of changing tides can find solace in Christopher Provines’ 23 years of expertise in the healthcare marketplace. 

Christopher will be interacting with attendees on the actions and strategies of competitive pricing, marketing, and sales teams. 

Each attendee will procure a copy of his book, Strategic Pricing for Medical Technologies (2012), and will have the opportunity to discuss in depth:
  1. The drivers of change including ACOs, value-based purchasing, bundled payments, hospital supply chain changes, value analysis committees, physician trends, and payer quality incentives
  2. How to quantify and connect your value proposition to customers’ evolving payment models, risk profile, and quality incentives
  3. Dealing with different customer buying behaviors and negotiation tactics, the importance of adapting and designing your pricing strategy, and models that consider the evolving healthcare marketplace. 
Christopher Provines will be leading the workshop, The Perfect Storm: Selling and Pricing in the Age of Healthcare Reform at the PPS Conference in Atlanta.  www.pricingsociety.com/atl2013

 

 

All the World is a Pricing Stage – Pricing for Executives Summit – October 23rd

Pricing can connect us to a purpose and improve our performance when we are not pricing in troubled waters.  Are you looking for something that is hard to obtain in the world of pricing?  Your pricing ideas finally come to fruition.
Button down the hatches and come discover:

Join us on in Atlanta on October 23rd to help you navigate across troubled waters and into calming seas. www.pricingsociety.com/atl2013  


Thursday, October 3, 2013

The Tipping Point (how pricing combinations make a big difference)


Georg Müller, Ph.D.Director
Deloitte Consulting LLP
Stretch a rubber band too far and it snaps in half.  Often many businesses struggle to leverage their customer value propositions to set better prices. 

How do you reshape your thinking about value exchange to sustain competitive advantage without stretching it too far?  The answer is to critically evaluate your business model. 

Dr. Georg Muller’s expertise in pricing and strategy is like a filter that pulls out the gold nuggets from a ton of rocks.  He helps companies revolutionize their business models, using a particular set of capabilities aka gold nuggets.  This winning combination, while elusive, can be measured and includes:

  • The significance of defining economic value and estimation price elasticity,
  • Understanding consumer behavior and psychology, customer buying process, lifetime value, and segmentation, and
  • Establishing a technology and data analytics infrastructure.

Dr. Muller finds BMI successes in healthcare, banking, telecommunication, consumer packaged goods, and industrial supplier categories.  He will be speaking at the PPS Pricing Conference in Atlanta on October 24th.  

 

  
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Tuesday, October 1, 2013

3 Easy Ways You Can Make Customer Centricity More Imperative to Pricing

Mark Haller
Partner, Strategy
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Asking Mark Haller if “the customer comes first” is like asking him if you need air to breathe!

And when you’re consistently named one of the “World's Leading IP Strategists” by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) magazine, people listen and take note. 

 Mark asks the question:

Is customer centricity a game changer, or a passing fad?
 
Contempating customer centricity is not an easy task. 

3 Questions to Consider:
  • Why is customer centricity absolutely necessary?
  • What are the attributes/capabilities of the new customer centric organization?
  • What new capabilities are essential for pricing to support, engage, or motivate and how
Should pricing operate in the customer centric organization?

To learn about customer centricity, Mark Haller, a sought-after speaker and author of a number of published works, be will sharing his breadth of knowledge on October 24th at the PPS Conference in Atlanta. www.pricingsociety.com/atl2013 


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