Thursday, December 5, 2013

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!

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Berlin Pricing Conference Recap – Day 2

Wednesday, December 4th, Day Two:
CPP Workshops and Executive Summit

Day two went extremely well, the 2-day workshop participants finished their second day of advanced pricing effectiveness skills. We then welcomed a large group of practitioners that were eager to show their leadership by delivering great questions to their peers and instructors.

During his workshop “Advanced Quantitative Methods in Discount Management” Tim J. Smith, Ph.D., CPP, made the difficult subject of applying quantitative approaches to monitoring discounts, more accessible though his own brand of humor and by working with a series of powerful techniques enabled by the power of the modern spreadsheet.

Around the holiday gifting season, Leigh Caldwell conducted a timely and relevant session
The crowd is beggining to gather at the Post-Workshop
Reception Sponsored by PROS
on a subject of brand value and behavioral economics called “Pricing the Intangible.” In this workshop Leigh illustrated how the powerful psychological weapon of pricing works to support the customer perceptions about leading products. Interestingly for some products and brands price increases are actually the best way to confirm the product’s value to customers most inclined to buy.


This year, our Global Pricing for Executives Summit reached new heights with the largest attendance in its 4 year history and a superb level of speakers and participants. It is 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 are the common barriers to implementing Value Based Pricing
  • How to include pricing in organizational structure and management setup
  • When do brands, products and costs impact pricing in new geographical markets
  • Why most companies that start to focus on pricing excellence fail at the execution stage, and how to avoid the common mistakes
Our sponsors are ready to interact with participants, anyone looking for expert advice or technology solutions will have many options to choose from.

And after all the hard work, the end of the day looks very promising with a Post-Workshop Reception sponsored by PROS, good food and some drinks always go well with networking and meeting new friends in the world of pricing.

Check back with us tomorrow to read about the four great keynotes we have lined up for Day Three of our Conference. It’s going to be a great day!
 

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Berlin Pricing Conference Recap – Day 1

Tuesday, December 3rd, Day One: Workshops

We began the first day of our Berlin Conference with four information-packed workshops led by senior pricing experts. Hailing from Germany, Spain, the United States and United Kingdom, this grouping of world-class talent demonstrates the best way to open our 9th Annual Global Conference.

The full-day sessions covered both the broad fundamentals of pricing strategies, and provided an in-depth study of more advanced topics. Workshops were full of eager-to-learn professionals; and our presenter’s expertise engaged participants with real life examples and actionable knowledge.  

Fernando Ventureira and Christian Winter opened with the two-day advanced interactive workshop on how to ‘Measure & Manage Pricing Effectiveness.’ The benchmarking methods and focus presented in this workshop delivered attendees the tools and techniques to enhance their crucial pricing skills.

At that same time, Dimitris Hiotis and Bjoern Dahmen walked pricers through a full-day Core Pricing Skills workshop. Always a preferred program for those just being exposed to pricing or others taking a back-to-basics to approach to new pricing challenges, the two experts informed and energized a full class of pricing learners.

Marc Abels and Ernst Hoffmann from Deloitte shared their knowledge on how a holistic approach to revenue is essential for successful implementation of the levers that drive and fund profitable growth for businesses.

Florian Bauer, Ph.D., conducted a workshop titled “Applying Behavioural Economics to B2B and B2C Pricing.” In this workshop participants learned how to identify the different buyer behaviors to develop more efficient pricing structures applicable to each group’s specific characteristics.

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

Stay tuned!