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Listen to our first-ever live episode of the podcast, recorded at Zilliant MindShare 2024, featuring a panel of leading pricing professionals.
Pressure on pricing teams is greater than ever. But in times of great pressure, new ideas and ways of doing things emerge. Mo Beshir (Accenture), Rob Pedigo (Dawn Foods) and Lydia DiLiello (Capital Pricing Consultants) explore the âhowâ and âwhyâ behind pricing transformation, how to elevate pricing within a company, how to manage organizational change, and the tangible impacts of pricing success.
www.zilliant.com
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âBehind the term âpricing toolâ or âpricing softwareâ you can actually have very different things in mind. A competition monitoring tool, a margin improvement tool, an AI price optimization tool, a sales interface. So the first thing was, can we categorize the use cases that people have in mind behind âpricing softwareâ?â
Malik Rajan is the founder of The Pricing Club. His mission is to foster a dynamic community of pricing professionals helping each other grow through best practices and thought leadership. As such, his team recently released its first ever Guide to Pricing Software.
Hear the fascinating story of how the Pricing Club came to be and the most pressing trends, topics, challenges and opportunities that are top of mind for pricing professionals, from Malikâs unique vantage point.
Download the Guide to Pricing Software
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âWell, if the other side just did their job better, weâd be in much better shape.â
Any B2B sellers or marketers heard this one before? Maybe youâve said it? At some point in your career, youâve likely experienced the tension between sales and marketing, two departments that in theory should always be on the same team.
Our guest today, Aggregate Insights CEO Brady Jensen, explains how the two sides become misaligned, how to prevent or stop the blame game, and what sales-marketing harmony looks like in practice. Brady shared what heâs learned from years of primary source research on how to bridge the contentious gap.
Get Aggregate Insightsâ free win/loss handbook here.
www.zilliant.com
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Dr. Rainer Schlamp, partner at EbelHofer Consultants, joins us to dissect an industry that often flies under the radar, but is essential to our everyday lives. The sanitary products industry is a complex and vibrant ecosystem weaving together producers, wholesalers, retail stores, contractors, and web shop consumers.
Often products are bundled and sold together as a total solution to fit architectural design specifications and must be priced as such. Rainer and host Barrett Thompson discuss why value-based pricing is essential in this industry, how to factor value into a solution sale, and the challenges facing commercial leaders charged with setting and updating price in an evolving digital commerce landscape.
Learn more about EbelHofer Consultants here
www.zilliant.com
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âFor me, the strange thing is companies are investing in transformation in all dimensions of their business, but barely in the one that has the biggest profit impact â pricing,â says Sebastian Wrobel, cofounder and managing director of PricingWorks on todayâs episode.
Sebastian and host Barrett Thompson explore how smart B2B organizations include pricing transformation in their digital transformation journeys and have a frank discussion on what âtransformationâ actually means.
âIn some companies, what they call âtransformationâ really isn't a transformation,â says Barrett. âIt's more like just a technology upgrade, something more like maintenance, and the bigger promise of transformation isn't really achievedâŠThey ought to be doing better things, not just the same practices embodied in a different tool set.â
Find PricingWorks customer success stories here.
www.zilliant.com
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Profitability and customer experience are important. Thatâs about as noncontroversial a statement as you can make in B2B. So, pricing â which is perhaps the biggest driver of both â should be at the heart of every B2B company, right?
âThat is quite a controversial statement whenever I make it,â said Karan Sood, pricing expert and todayâs guest on B2B Reimagined. âWhen I show people my spider chart of how pricing is the heart of the organization, some people are very supportive and some people are like, âYou're smoking something.â But I do believe pricing is at the heart of the organization.â
Karan and host Barrett Thompson examine the distance between pricingâs theoretical strategic value and the reality - its common lack of organizational influence - through the lens of four pricing paradoxes:
Pricing should be considered first in a new campaign or product launch, but it often comes last.
Pricing teams should be forward-looking, but most toil in the past (last quarterâs profitability, what went wrong?).
Pricing should lead the organization in data-driven capabilities, but itâs usually one of the last adopters.
Pricing should have visibility to the C-suite, but itâs relegated to the back office.
Listen as we diagnose the reasons behind these disconnects and prescribe immediate actions pricing leaders can take to expand their influence, based on real-world examples.
www.zilliant.com -
What should come first: pricing technology or pricing strategy? Our guest today, PwC Partner Ron Otocki, makes a strong case for why the two should go hand-in-hand. Ron leans on his vast experience guiding companies through digital transformations to explain how pricing fits into larger transformative projects, and how the most successful pricing initiatives mix strategy and the right tools from the very start.
âWhen you're in an enterprise environment, it's easy to essentially ask for investment in a tool and say that's going to be the solution. It's much harder to say, âWell, I'm going to implement a tool, but I also have to implement a culture change and implement role changes.â That's the harder stuff, but itâs so critical to have those two go hand-in-hand; otherwise you're only doing 50% of what you need to do.â
Listen to learn how to marry strategy with technology in your pricing and digital transformation initiatives.
Past PwC episodes: Pricing in Times of Inflation | Revenue Growth Management in B2B
www.zilliant.com
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In the subscription economy, a companyâs product takes a backseat to its subscriber. What does this mean for a companyâs go-to-market strategy? For starters, value-added services and customer support become paramount.
In your everyday life, you most likely subscribe to various streaming services or office software tools. But subscription and usage-based models are expanding far beyond the consumer realm, becoming more and more popular in traditional B2B spaces.
Dan Balcauski, founder and chief pricing officer of Product Tranquility, joins the show to explain why this shift is happening, the ramifications for the B2B world, benefits versus risks, best practices, and much more.
Visit: https://www.producttranquility.com/
www.zilliant.com -
Read enough headlines about generative AI and you will start to mull some big questions: Is it the next big paradigm shift? Is it a grave threat to the modern workforce? Can it be smarter than me?
âItâs about a six-month-old puppy at this point,â says Lou Simon, vice president of Uptima Elevate and our guest on todayâs show.
However, like a puppy, Lou expects generative AI tools like ChatGPT to learn and grow very quickly. He and host Barrett Thompson share ideas on what that evolution will look like for B2B companies, and how generative AI can combine with purpose-built AI platforms like Zilliant and other best-of-breed technologies to create something even bigger.
Attend MindShare 2023 on June 7-9 to catch Louâs breakout session, âStitching Technology Together for Industry Innovation.â
www.zilliant.com
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Price changes and churn threats occur throughout the customer journey. How your organization handles them determines how your customers will react: either positively or negatively. Do they stick with you and buy now? Or go elsewhere without a word? Itâs up to you.
This friendly debate between two passionate CX experts â Zilliant Sr. Director of Alliances, North America Karl Helfner and industry expert Frank Borovsky â is a must-listen for commercial leaders looking to enhance the customer experience. Hear how pricing and sales leaders can team with their CX counterparts to improve customer attitudes and behavior with real-time pricing optimization and revenue operations and intelligence.
Listen to Frank Borovskyâs other appearance on B2B Reimagined: Episode 69
Read Frankâs CX-focused blog series on Zilliantâs site: Critical Calculations for Customer Experience in 2023
www.zilliant.com
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Logik.io CEO Chris Shutts returns to the show, this time to connect with Pascal Yammine, chief executive officer of Zilliant. They discuss the transformational digital shift occurring in industries like traditional manufacturing, high-tech, software, and business services, driven by customer demand for self-service product discovery and buying.
Drawing on recent conversations with customers and prospects, Chris and Pascal paint a vision for a headless, end-to-end commerce and pricing solution that goes far beyond traditional CPQ: bringing flexible, frictionless, and profitable sales motions to life.
Listen to Chrisâ first B2B Reimagined appearance: How to âConsumerizeâ B2B Manufacturing
www.zilliant.com
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âWhen people talk about the death of the channel, the death of distribution, I just sit back and go, âHold my beer â give me a whiteboard and I will explain to you how wrong you are.ââ
Channelnomics CEO Larry Walsh is our guest today for a wide-ranging discussion on what the channel is and why it matters for B2B companies.
He shared how the pandemic exposed both the vitality of the channel and the perils of neglecting it, how the channel serves as a salve to a recession, why talk of a ânew normalâ may be misleading, and much, much more.
Read the Channelnomics whitepapers discussed in the episode here: Recession Survival Guide | Distribution as a Recession Countermeasure
www.zilliant.com
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âThe world is not constant and stable. So why should your pricing strategy be? You have to mimic the working world that you live in,â said Argano Chief Strategy Officer Tim Harris on todayâs episode.
Harris joined Barrett Thompson to continue the showâs ongoing examination on how manufacturers are digitizing their commercial platforms in response to ongoing volatility and unpredictability. Argano specializes in designing modern digital foundations and partners with Zilliant to infuse agile, intelligent pricing into manufacturersâ digital future.
Harris and Thompson go deep on the âwhyâ and the âhowâ behind this critical digitization process.
www.zilliant.com
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âYou need to combine the pricing brain and the pricing musclesâŠthe bruscles of pricing.â
What does this mean? According to our guests from Accenture â Strategy Principal Director Daniel Lindner and Managing Director, Pricing and Commercial Strategy Daniel Antolin â it means embedding powerful pricing tools into your pricing strategy from the very start. When B2B pricing teams combine the thinking and the doing, so to speak, they earn a seat at the table with company decision-makers and overcome the common obstacles to resiliency. Namely, they can achieve agility, consistency, transparency and differentiated pricing.
Listen to learn how Zilliant and Accenture are busting age-old myths about B2B pricing and how we help our clients find quick wins that serve to fund the rest of their pricing journey.
www.zilliant.com
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Slalom is a global consulting firm and one of the top Salesforce manufacturing partners in the world. Matt Baker and Calvin Chow from Slalom joined the show to help us continue our exploration of current manufacturing trends and commercial solutions.
Learn why a major theme for 2023 is the concept of being nimble â in the areas of pricing, procurement, quoting, and response to macroeconomic changes. We talk through several real-world scenarios and examples of customer success.
www.zilliant.com
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We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to bring together both of our hosts for the first time. Lindsay and Barrett take a long look at the B2B landscape as 2023 is now underway, with considerable macroeconomic uncertainty persisting amid a new normal in B2B buyer expectations.
How should companies adjust their pricing strategies as prices eventually come down? How can sales operations teams retain and take share, even with widespread reduction in salesforce headcount? Why have those who modernized their commercial systems prior to the pandemic gotten so far ahead of the competition, and how can laggards catch up?
Get the answers to these questions and more, then stick around for our hostsâ recommendations on the must-listen episodes from 2022.
www.zilliant.com
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âIt used to be that pricing was the most dangerous thing to change, and that if it were done wrong, customers would head out the door and never come back. As a result of the pandemic and the barrage of supply chain woes, material availability, order management, S&OP and demand planning, all that has changed. Historical supply and demand trends donât apply anymore.â
In this episode, Salesforce Vice President, Industry Sales for Manufacturing, Auto and Energy Frank Borovksy brought us this insight and much more. Listen to Frank and Chief Marketing Officer Lindsay Duran discuss current manufacturing trends, why dynamic pricing is necessary to prevent margin erosion, and what to expect in 2023.
Read about a building products manufacturer that used advanced pricing tools to overcome economic volatility: Strategic Pricing: Thriving in Tumultuous Times
www.zilliant.com
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âWe have seen distributors really catching up as it relates to technology. Digitalization has been a key topic across the entire industry. Cloud seems to be the big equalizer, because the software can be staged at really low setup costs. There's not an innovation tax anymore that companies need to pay.â
SAPâs Global VP of Wholesale Distribution Magnus Meier shared this sentiment and much more with us on todayâs episode. He joined Chief Marketing Officer Lindsay Duran for a deep dive into the current state of wholesale distribution, challenges that distributors are facing, and how technology and value-added services are the key to success in 2023.
Watch our recent webinar with Magnus: Moments of Opportunity: Margin & Revenue Growth in Distribution
www.zilliant.com
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Those working in and observing the building materials and construction industry have been through a rollercoaster ride. In 2020, plants and job sites shut down completely. Then, upon reopening, a surge in demand for new builds and remodels collided with shortages in many of the products necessary to satisfy it. Prices thus soared in 2022 but look to be on their way down as a potential recession lurks.
Few follow the sector closer than Craig Webb, president of Webb Analytics and longtime industry journalist. Craig came on the show to help us make sense of the past three years, his expectations for various construction markets in 2023, and what companies need to be doing now to get ahead of the next economic shift.
Subscribe to the Webb Analytics newsletter
Read the whitepaper mentioned in the episode: Inflation & Beyond: 5 Margin- and Revenue-Driving Strategies for 2023
www.zilliant.com
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âI'm a strong believer that pricing should be first before CPQ,â says Accenture Managing Director Mo Beshir. âEveryone knows if I am doing a CPQ solution, I am looking at selling faster, selling better and selling more. What if I'm selling faster, better and more with the wrong price?â
Mo joined Zilliant General Manager of Commercial Excellence Barrett Thompson for a deep dive into the maturation of price optimization software and how it adds value to any CPQ investment. They explore the downsides of using CPQ without an integrated pricing solution, how Excel-based pricing puts companies behind the volatile economic times, and much more.
Read the explainer mentioned in the episode: A Guide to Smarter, Faster Pricing in CPQ
www.zilliant.com
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