'Is pricing the new CFO topic?' by Nikolas Beutin - Price Waterhouse Coopers

- The big & global challenges for the pricing directors in companies, worldwide: what are they?

In the “good old days” pricing directors could easily helpt to sell what their company produced: the customers very often had a low price sensitivity.  Pressure of competition was low and only few substitutes and imitations were there. The customer was brand loyal and rational and pricing took place in microcosm marketing between product, place & promotion.
Nowadays, pricing directors face large and global challenges such as much more professional purchasing (central purchasing, price trainings, eProcurement), higher market price transparency (M&As, complex, international distribution), unclear and changing demand (weak economy / recession / crises, weak financial position of customers, stronger price-focus from end-customers) and lastly tremendously higher competitive intensity (high price transparency in internet, aggressive pricing of new competitors, discount wars, price erosion, grey markets etc.).
 
- Can an event like the Profit Leaders Summit contribute to these challenges?

Yes of course! the Profit Leaders Summit will provide answers to many of the most pressing questions.
Two interactive days with leading experts, experienced speakers and leaders in pricing and margin management give thought-provoking impulses and completes participant’s experiences with new innovative approaches and thinking.
 
- What should be the outcome of the summit, what’s in it for all participants?

This event is designed to bring real experts on C-level together.
-> To work together during interactive workshop sessions with actionable outcomes and take home best practices to implement.
-> To expand the personal network and get inspired with new ways of thinking discussions amongst leading decision makers.
-> To take away ideas, thoughts and specific actions that impact your daily pricing approach as well as your long-term pricing strategy.

- What can you give away about your topic?

My topic “Is Pricing the New CFO Topic?” identifies the new role of pricing within an organization.
Due to the above mentioned challenges and developments, pricing tasks shifted over the last years into the area of the CFO.  In addition to the “new days of pricing” further developments like globalization, digital disruption, diversification in marketing and sales as well as internationalization and a lack of qualified sales staff are drivers for this shift.
I am looking forward to talking about these developments in the key note closing session!

Do you want to join? Click here and find out all there is to know about the EPP Profit Leaders Summit. Or contact Els, Summit Manager at els.landuyt@pricingplatform.eu.

The 6th EPP Life Sciences Pricing forum reviewed

We asked our moderator Mike Herepath to give us his feedback and take-aways on the 2 days of networking, sharing, learning and discussing in Montreux.

 

'It was a privilege and a pleasure for me to moderate this year’s EPP Life Science forum, and my sincere thanks to EPP and their partners, to our first class presenters and to all our engaged and enthusiastic participants for making this 6^th forum such a great success. This year’s theme ‘Pricing under Pressure’ obviously resonated very strongly with all who attended, and stimulated lots of high quality discussion, debate and ideas sharing among the participants from both pharma and MedTech.
 

The quality of the plenary presentations, the panel discussions and the breakout sessions this year was consistently excellent, with industry leaders from across the globe tackling some of the most fundamental pricing issues facing life sciences today. These ranged from the growing sophistication and demands of payer systems, through the challenges of pricing innovative technologies and the most effective ways to manage tendering, innovative contracting and using data analytics, right through to optimizing pricing around loss of exclusivity and the usefulness of brain scanning technology in determining perceived value and willingness to pay.

Having been challenged to make the most of this learning opportunity that had been developed by pricing specialists for pricing specialists, it was so rewarding to see how actively everyone got engaged throughout the event, with lots of great probing questions and challengers for the presenters, many thought-provoking comments and points of discussion in the panel discussions and breakout groups, and loads of sharing of information, ideas and experiences during the coffee and lunch breaks and during the very enjoyable evening cruise on lake Geneva. It was also great to see how the forum provided a golden opportunity for old colleagues and professional acquaintances to catch up, and for all the participants to make new contacts and grow their networks.

We began the forum by everyone making a note of what he or she wanted to take away from the event. As we reviewed these towards the end of the two days, it became clear that the vast majority of the participants’ learning needs and expectations for the event had been met and, in many cases, surpassed. Some of those key learning points included:

• The growing need for life sciences companies to be able to demonstrate and communicate the relevant value of their products as solutions to meeting payers’ needs, in order to negotiate optimal prices.
• The limitations of the revenue potential of ‘emerging markets’ and the difficulties of optimizing pricing with systems that are sometimes not transparent or consistent
• The appropriateness and potential usefulness of ‘innovative’ pricing strategies as alternatives to traditional approaches, and how best to price different types of innovation in pharma and MedTech
• The importance of well designed price guidelines and indices in effective payer negotiations
• The usefulness and the limitations of different types of analytics in effective pricing
• The evolving role of the strategic pricing function and how to meet both global and local needs with an effective tendering management system.
• The commercial importance of effectively managing pricing around loss of exclusivity
• The development and potential of neurophysiology and brain scanning techniques in determining optimal prices and willingness to pay.
  
  

At the end of the forum, and in subsequent emails and feedback, the majority of participants declared that the forum had met their needs and been a great success, with many adding that they were looking forward to coming again next year. I share their views, and can’t wait to join them!'