Pricing consultants can change your business, letting you set prices more effectively and drive higher profits. Or they can bog you down in process and analysis paralysis. When should you hire a pricing consultant? How should you make your choice? This post gives the essential guidance.

Pricing expertise has a direct impact on enterprise value. Private equity firms are looking at pricing as one of the first areas to improve when the take over a company. Analysts are paying more and more attention to pricing as they evaluate public companies and make buy/sell recommendations. What are the five questions boards need to be asking leadership teams about pricing?

The growing demand for pricing experts, changes to revenue models (especially the rise of the subscription economy) and the introduction of new technologies (AI and specifically machine learning) was changing the skills needed for pricing expertise and opening new job opportunities and career paths. Our research resulted in a competency model to help train and develop pricing experts.

Pricing is a critical part of business success and it cannot be left to chance. What role should the CEO play in pricing? It comes down to setting strategy, ensuring alignment, monitoring execution, and taking leadership on pricing ethics and fairness.

The Professional Pricing Society annual Spring Conference and Workshops was held in Chicago May 2 to 4 of 2018. Ibbaka presented the preliminary results of its research with TeamFit on the skills of pricing experts. We also introduced our pricing Self Assessment tool. Both were well received. Tim Smith of Wiglaf Pricing presented a well thought out way to structure the Pocket Price Waterfall and connect to pricing governance. Simon Kucher Partners had a good talk on connecting pricing to digital transformation.

Tom Nagle basically defined strategic pricing, developing the core ideas and frameworks used today to understand differentiation value, construct a pricing strategy and execute on pricing in the field. Ibbaka spoke with him about the skills needed for pricing expertise.

Pricing thought leader Tim Smith share his insights into the skills required for pricing expertise and how he trains people to move freshly minted MBAs to pricing analysts to pricing consultants. He also speculates on how pricing software will need to evolve to meet market needs.