Let's Talk Pricing Podcast

With inflation, costs are going up, margins are being squeezed, companies need to raise prices, but many are scared.  They may have already had a price increase and are afraid of another.  What should they do? Mark Stiving is an educator at heart and a pricing enthusiast by education and experience. He has led, coached, and taught businesses about value-based pricing for 30 years. Mark has driven company-wide pricing initiatives worth hundreds of millions of dollars in incremental profit. He started and sold three companies and has written three books on pricing and value:  Impact Pricing; Win Keep Grow; and Selling Value. His biggest thrill is helping clients have Aha moments.

As the economic outlook continues to be murky, plenty of companies are making cuts. But you can’t cut your way to prosperity. There are often-overlooked opportunities to grow the top line — a lot and fast, even in the face of a down market. Jason McDannold and Yale Kwon lead the private equity commercial transformation practice at AlixPartners and would like to discuss several key tactical opportunities on how to sustain growth in a downturn economy. AlixPartners is a results-driven global consulting firm that specializes in helping businesses respond quickly and decisively to their most critical challenges—from urgent performance improvement to complex restructuring, from risk mitigation to accelerated transformation.

Beating Inflation explores how inflation affects all aspects of a business. This is not a pricing book, but it dives into all areas of the operations of a business and how they need to respond differently to inflation. Adam Echter is a Partner and Head of the Silicon Valley office at Simon-Kucher. For 17 years, Adam’s career has focused on value-based sales. He gained 12 months of focused sales training at The Timken Company and then worked in outside industrial sales for the next five years. During his time in industry, Adam developed his sales skills from outside sales to restructuring, engaging, and empowering sales teams for industrial companies of various sizes, ranging from 100 million dollars to several billion. He has helped design pricing and sales organizations on three continents, installed enterprise-level pricing software for several Fortune 100 companies, and supported sales engagement for thousands of sales professionals around the World. Adam joined Simon-Kucher in 2012 and his consulting activities have focused on sales excellence, value definition and communication, business model transformation, and pricing. He is a regular speaker at the Professional Pricing Society, industry-specific events and lectures at several universities on the topic of pricing. A native of Upstate New York, Adam earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University at Buffalo and his MBA in finance from the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business.

SaaS companies have historically overlooked pricing as a lever for growth, focusing instead on customer acquisition. But with many customers tightening their belts and investment capital harder to access, the fundamentals are more important than before. New pricing strategies such as Usage Based Pricing are coming into the spotlight. Experimenting with and implementing metering and hybrid pricing strategies in 2023 can not only help SaaS companies retain customers and survive, but an innovative new strategy could even unlock previously untapped avenues for growth.

Per is a thought-leader in all things pricing with a specialization in teaching companies how they can use pricing to drive higher growth, sales volume, and profits. He is a sought-after speaker for major conferences, appears regularly on podcasts and business radio shows, and is regularly quoted in the financial and business press. His new book, “The Price Whisperer - A Holistic Approach to Pricing Power” is available at booksellers nationwide and online.

This episode will be geared towards introducing the audience to the best practices in pricing processes from around the world which can be implemented immediately.  We will conclude this episode with a look ahead on how some of the latest  technologies can be implemented into the pricing frameworks of the future.  We will answer questions like: -Can I use any best practices for quick wins with pricing?  -How does pricing work differently in times of high inflation?   -What is the difference between pricing infrastructure for B2B and B2C?  -What aspects of pricing should be handled in house vs outsourced?  -What aspects of pricing should be handled by personnel vs automated?  And much more! Speaker Info: Kiran Gange is the CEO and founder at RapidPricer, an Artificial Intelligence based  company in Amsterdam that specializes in reducing food waste through real time  pricing for retailers. Previously, he had founded CustoLogix in the year 2008 to help  retailers leverage analytics and mathematical capabilities for pricing and promotions.  Kiran has also founded Global Launch Base, an internationalization consulting firm in  2021 which helps European companies with international go-to-market strategies and  market launches.  He has over 16 years of experience launching innovative technologies around  the world. He has consulted on behalf of large consulting companies such as PwC, IBM  and Kurt Salmon at some of the largest retailers in the world. His entrepreneurial  experiences include successful ventures in the Silicon Valley, Mexico City, Bangalore,  Amsterdam and New Delhi. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering  with honors from the Bangalore Institute of Technology and an MBA from the  Pepperdine University on a full merit scholarship.

Business-to-Business companies are facing an unprecedented number of challenges now including pressure from customers’ purchasing departments, uncertain supply chains, raw materials cost changes, turbulent times, and more. This podcast will discuss best practices that you and your company can use to capitalize on your opportunities. Instead of academic theories, we will review real-life examples where companies used business acumen and the value they provided to the marketplace to thrive despite the obstacles that they faced.

Speakers Matt Johnston, Founder and CEO of EPIC Conjoint, and Robert Ribciuc, Managing Partner of EBITDA Catalyst, provide answers to pressing pricing questions centered around democratizing access to better pricing  methods. They address concerns such as: 1. Why expanding access to better pricing tools and insights to more actors in the economy matters. 2. How Epic Conjoint is creating faster, more accessible solutions for pricing research. 3. How EBITDA Catalyst is using its Mission-Driven Pricing framework to contribute pricing insights to SMBs, start-ups and non-profits. In addition they'll answer questions like: a) What does “democratizing access to better pricing” mean to each of you? b) Why is this something you get excited about? c) Can you give me an example or two from your specific firm’s work? d) Is democratizing access not, at some level, cannibalizing higher value business? e) How does knowing each other and that both of you care about this help you as you balance this against other priorities?

Simon-Kucher consumer and retail expert and Partner, Shikha Jain, discusses the expectations and best practices for this holiday shopping season, including trends in consumer behavior and spending, the impacts of inflation on shopping carts and budgets, where and when you will see shoppers, and the effects of rising inventory glut. Jain answers questions such as: - Discuss the Holiday Shopping study and what it exposes about inflation and other economic trends in 2022. - How can retailers respond to these trends? - Do shoppers value experiences or products more now, considering the pandemic?  - Which promotions should shoppers expect the biggest discounts from this season? - Why is Black Friday, in general, important to a company's bottom line? - Which group of shoppers will be doing the most shopping this season?

Customers expect their vendors to offer them a seamless omnichannel buying experience across all sales channels. Omnichannel selling creates a dilemma for B2B pricing teams due to inherent product and price complexity and the widespread practice of negotiated pricing. How do you offer the right price, accurately and immediately, whether a customer interacts with a visiting sales rep, a service rep at a branch counter, a call center rep or your web shop?