Mastering Customer Value Management

Paolo De Angeli is currently leading the Customer Experience and Customer Value Management teams at Borealis AG. He has a strong background and passion for Customer Value, from Value Creation to Value Based Pricing.

In this episode, Paolo shares the importance of persistence for pricing practitioners, encouraging them to confidently share their insights even when facing resistance. He highlights that pricing is not just about numbers but also about effective change management and influencing senior leaders. By staying committed and focusing on both soft skills and strategy, pricing professionals can drive impactful results.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Gain actionable strategies for understanding customer needs, framing value propositions, and making data-driven pricing decisions.
• Dive into valuable lessons on building strong supplier-customer relationships.
• Learn how pricing is as much about effective communication and influencing as it is about numbers, with tips on navigating resistance.

“If you are a pricing practitioner, you spend time learning, investing. Maybe like I did, taking some certification like the Professional Pricing Society, or you've been involved in the network. You are entitled to share your opinions.”

- Paolo De Angeli

Topics Covered:

01:47 - How he found himself in pricing and what made him embrace it

03:45 - Reflecting on the evolution of the pricing profession

05:32 - Articulating the strategic reasoning behind his role as Head of Customer Experience and Customer Value Management

09:09 - Explaining how customer experience and customer value management are interconnected within a continuous commercial operations cycle

14:28 - Emphasizing the importance of having more customer value conversations, highlighting that customers are generally receptive to it

15:33 - Explaining how companies often fear customer value conversations due to the risk of their assumptions being challenged

20:08 - What process he employs when customers suggest improvements

22:05 - The importance of leading value discussions and identifying and addressing specific KPIs that matter to the customer to demonstrate value

25:20 - Highlighting the need to understand the customer's needs before discussing KPIs

27:11 - Why you need to look beyond customer feature requests to uncover the underlying problems

28:56 - How effective value management benefits both the supplier and the customer, creating a win-win scenario

30:13 - Paolo's best pricing advice

Key Takeaways:

“Everything that we do internally, when we challenge our value proposition, and we try to understand where our differential value is, comes not only from our internal perception but also and above all from what our customers are telling us.” - Paolo De Angeli

“Companies are afraid that customers will not talk, will not share, and will destroy these hypotheses and negotiate on price. And the solution for this is to build a relationship that is more going in the direction of partnership than a transaction with your customers.” - Paolo De Angeli

“If we want to simplify two main applications for customer value management, one is when you launch a new solution in the market, you need to have a differential value, a compelling value proposition, so that you need to be convincing both internally and externally and explain why anyone in the world should be interested in buying from you this new solution and not an existing one.” - Paolo De Angeli

“Managing expectations is the most important thing, it's not because they ask for something that they will get it, but it's, I think that what we owe our customers is to listen to them. Have a conversation on why certain things are possible and others are not, and then have a joint collaboration on what's possible.” - Paolo De Angeli

“Before understanding the KPIs, we need to understand their [customers] needs. We need to understand what their problems are.” - Paolo De Angeli

“It's important to agree on the KPIs, but what matters is, to understand what their[customers] problems are and help them understand the profit equation.” - Paolo De Angeli

People/Resources Mentioned:

• Professional Pricing Society: https://www.pricingsociety.com/
• European Pricing Platform: https://www.pricingplatform.com/about-epp
• Syngenta: https://www.syngenta.com/

Connect with Paolo De Angeli:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paolo-de-angeli-cpp-b232b85/

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/
• Email: mark@impactpricing.com