B2B Reimagined

“The patient has to survive the procedure. We have to carry on our operations, serve our clients, send invoices, acquire new customers, while changing our pricing in the background. That's why I always say that pricing change is an evolution, not a revolution.”   Maciej Kraus is a pricing guru, author, TED speaker, and frequent lecturer at Stanford University. We were thrilled to have him on to share his perspective on successfully executing a pricing transformation. Maciej explains that while it's a must for B2B companies to modernize pricing processes and the underlying technology that supports them, there's an art to pulling it off.   Hear his prescriptions to pricing excellence, and then register for Zilliant MindShare Europe to see Maciej on stage in Amsterdam in November.    www.zilliant.com   

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 ‘how' and ‘why' 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   

“Behind the term ‘pricing tool' or ‘pricing software' 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 ‘pricing software'?” 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 Malik's unique vantage point.   Download the Guide to Pricing Software www.zilliant.com

“Well, if the other side just did their job better, we'd be in much better shape.” Any B2B sellers or marketers heard this one before? Maybe you've said it? At some point in your career, you've 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 he's learned from years of primary source research on how to bridge the contentious gap. Get Aggregate Insights' free win/loss handbook here.   www.zilliant.com   

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   

“For 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 – pricing,” says Sebastian Wrobel, cofounder and managing director of PricingWorks on today's 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 “transformation” actually means.   “In some companies, what they call ‘transformation' really isn't a transformation,” says Barrett. “It's more like just a technology upgrade, something more like maintenance, and the bigger promise of transformation isn't really achieved…They ought to be doing better things, not just the same practices embodied in a different tool set.”   Find PricingWorks customer success stories here.   www.zilliant.com  

Profitability and customer experience are important. That's about as noncontroversial a statement as you can make in B2B. So, pricing – which is perhaps the biggest driver of both – should be at the heart of every B2B company, right?    “That is quite a controversial statement whenever I make it,” said Karan Sood, pricing expert and today's guest on B2B Reimagined. “When 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, ‘You're smoking something.' But I do believe pricing is at the heart of the organization.”   Karan and host Barrett Thompson examine the distance between pricing's 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 quarter's profitability, what went wrong?). Pricing should lead the organization in data-driven capabilities, but it's usually one of the last adopters. Pricing should have visibility to the C-suite, but it's 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. “When 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, ‘Well, I'm going to implement a tool, but I also have to implement a culture change and implement role changes.' That's the harder stuff, but it's so critical to have those two go hand-in-hand; otherwise you're only doing 50% of what you need to do.” 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 

In the subscription economy, a company's product takes a backseat to its subscriber. What does this mean for a company's 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? “It's about a six-month-old puppy at this point,” says Lou Simon, vice president of Uptima Elevate and our guest on today's 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. Register for MindShare 2023 (June 7-9) to catch Lou's breakout session, “Stitching Technology Together for Industry Innovation.”   www.zilliant.com

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? It's up to you.  This friendly debate between two passionate CX experts – Zilliant Sr. Director of Alliances, North America Karl Helfner and industry expert Frank Borovsky – 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 Borovsky's other appearance on B2B Reimagined: Episode 69 Read Frank's CX-focused blog series on Zilliant's site: Critical Calculations for Customer Experience in 2023   www.zilliant.com   

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 Chris' first B2B Reimagined appearance: How to “Consumerize” B2B Manufacturing www.zilliant.com   

“When people talk about the death of the channel, the death of distribution, I just sit back and go, ‘Hold my beer – give me a whiteboard and I will explain to you how wrong you are.'”   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 “new normal” 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   

“The world is not constant and stable. So why should your pricing strategy be? You have to mimic the working world that you live in,” said Argano Chief Strategy Officer Tim Harris on today's episode. Harris joined Barrett Thompson to continue the show's 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 manufacturers' digital future. Harris and Thompson go deep on the “why” and the “how” behind this critical digitization process. www.zilliant.com   

“You need to combine the pricing brain and the pricing muscles…the bruscles of pricing.” What does this mean? According to our guests from Accenture – Strategy Principal Director Daniel Lindner and Managing Director, Pricing and Commercial Strategy Daniel Antolin – 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   

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 – 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 

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 hosts' recommendations on the must-listen episodes from 2022. www.zilliant.com 

“It 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 don't apply anymore.” 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 

“We 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.” SAP's Global VP of Wholesale Distribution Magnus Meier shared this sentiment and much more with us on today's 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 

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 

“I'm a strong believer that pricing should be first before CPQ,” says Accenture Managing Director Mo Beshir. “Everyone 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?” 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

Senior Vice President of Products & Science Pete Eppele is back to go in depth on the chronic undermanagement of customer price agreements. Although often more than 50% of a B2B company's revenue is transacted via customer price agreements, this important price type tends to lack the attention it deserves.    When using manual tools to manage agreement prices and legacy ERPs to house agreement records, companies fall prey to “set-and-forget” pricing and, usually, preventable margin loss. Zilliant's newest Quick Start package – Quick Start for Agreement Management – empowers sales reps to proactively manage agreements in as few as four weeks.   www.zilliant.com 

Get to know recently-appointed Zilliant Chief Executive Officer Pascal Yammine, who marks 60 days leading the company with his first appearance on the podcast. The former senior vice president and general manager of Salesforce Revenue Cloud brings a customer-focused background and 20 years of enterprise software leadership to Zilliant.   In this episode, Pascal joins Chief Marketing Officer Lindsay Duran for a wide-ranging interview on what attracted him to Zilliant, what he's learned in his first two months, his perspective on the pricing and revenue optimization and management market, and much more. Check out our upcoming events around the world! www.zilliant.com

The newest addition to Zilliant's Quick Start Program, Quick Start for Revenue Operations & Intelligence, is now available. The purpose-built solution is designed to intelligently derive and deliver revenue-driving, account-specific actions to sales reps, eCommerce and marketing automation tools in as few as three weeks.   Returning guest Brian Hirt joins Barrett Thompson to answer questions on how the solution works, why a better approach to revenue operations and intelligence is critical today, who is an ideal candidate for the Quick Start, and much more. Links: Press Release | Video | Blog Post www.zilliant.com

“There is no magic wand to digest all of the information that you have. The only way to actually have true control is by having data-driven platforms.”   So says Gonzalo Benitez, pricing and data analytics manager at Rush Enterprises, on our latest episode. The heavy-duty truck parts industry has not been spared from the economic upheaval of the last two-plus years. Supply chain issues have caused Gonzalo's team to work creatively to source alternative products, while inflation has led to sometimes more than triple the number of supplier cost increases per year.    Gonzalo spoke with us about how data-driven tools have been critical to executing cost pass-through and enabling transparent communication with Rush Enterprise's customers.   Read the article mentioned in the episode: Navigating the Broken Supply Chain www.zilliant.com

Gene Metheny, partner at Carlisle and Company, stops by the show to talk about the myriad macroeconomic problems facing B2B companies and what must be done to get ready for the next shift in supply and demand.    He and Barrett Thompson then drill into some examples of how pricing data and analytical measurement are being used to improve visibility throughout the value chain in the trucking industry. They also explore the potential for executing value-based pricing in trucking and beyond – by interpolating between the market data that you have and the data you don't have to derive a value hypothesis.   Read the auto parts roundtable mentioned in the episode. www.zilliant.com

Kevin Mitchell has been a champion of pricing for most of his life. As the president of the Professional Pricing Society (PPS) tells it, “I remember as a child carrying boxes of canary yellow pricing newsletters uphill, both ways, through the snow in Phoenix, Arizona.”   This walk down memory lane set the tone for a lively and enlightening conversation between Kevin and Zilliant CMO Lindsay Duran. Kevin shared the three biggest hot button issues that are keeping PPS members up at night and his insights into today's macroeconomic landscape. After acknowledging the present challenges – inflation and otherwise – Kevin and Lindsay spent the bulk of the episode on why it's an exciting time to be in pricing: pricing professionals are more essential than ever to their organizations and, with the right tools and training, they can drive business strategy at the highest levels.   Read our recap of PPS Spring 2022 here.   www.zilliant.com 

Many wholesale distributors have been running SAP for decades. While most of them started simple, over time they've introduced new requirements (read: complexities) into their order system. At the same time, many are behind the curve on modern approaches to price optimization and management. In an industry with such thin margins, this is a troubling combination, especially in our new age of inflation and supply constraints.   Three-time guest Pete Eppele makes his hosting debut, interviewing DataXstream CEO Tim Yates about how the company's transformative OMS+ platform streamlines order management for wholesale distributors in today's consumer-driven economy, and why the industry leaders are pairing OMS+ with AI-driven price optimization and a real-time pricing engine.   Watch the Zilliant-DataXstream integration demo discussed in the episode here. www.zilliant.com

In December of 2021, Madison Dearborn Partners acquired Zilliant as a strategic growth investment. John Lewis, an executive partner at Madison Dearborn, became Zilliant's executive chairman following the closure of the deal.     We were excited to welcome John for his first appearance on B2B Reimagined to discuss everything from his prolific professional background to his enthusiasm for Zilliant's value proposition (“You will not find any CEO in the world for whom this is not a top three issue…how to price effectively, how to optimize revenue, profitability, margin and volume”) to his thoughts on what will define the winners of this unprecedented era.  www.zilliant.com

Chris Shutts has spent the 21st century at the forefront of the evolution of sales in the manufacturing space. He co-founded Big Machines in 2000 and sold the business to Oracle in 2013.    Now he leads Logik.io, a strategic Zilliant partner that delivers next-generation technology to manufacturers of complex products. Logik.io helps these companies consumerize the way they sell by enabling faster, self-service product configuration for their customers. He joined Barrett Thompson for an in-depth conversation about how Logik.io and Zilliant work together to lead the next evolution of sales and customer experience for manufacturers. www.zilliant.com

To get you ready for Zilliant MindShare 2022 (June 13-15) in Austin, TX, we bring you a very special episode of B2B Reimagined. Barrett Thompson emcees the show and brings on voices from around the company to share what to expect at the biggest annual event on the B2B pricing and sales calendar, and how to get the most out of it. The episode features:   CEO Greg Peters on what he's most anticipating in our first in-person event in North America since 2019. SVP, Customer Success & Support Nathan Rabold on why Zilliant customers need to attend. Sales Director Lance Golinghorst on why folks evaluating a solution should attend. Director, Product Experience Sam Leung on the innovations and exclusive product demos attendees will see. Director, Product Management Brian Hirt & Engagement Manager Matthew Knaggs on their interactive breakout session centered around creative use cases for revenue intelligence solutions.   REGISTER FOR MINDSHARE 2022   www.zilliant.com/podcasts

The average time for global companies to update pricing when costs change is between six weeks and four months, which is much too slow in today's economy. It's a process which unfortunately results in significant margin loss. The Zilliant Quick Start program was created with this in mind, delivering industry-leading pricing and sales software deployment times of 3 to 8 weeks. Zilliant Senior Director of Product Management Dave Kurak makes his first appearance on the show to give listeners an overview of the Quick Start program and our first package for Global and Country Price Lists. Listen to gain an edge on how you manage pricing in response to inflation. Click to learn more www.zilliant.com/podcasts

Senior Vice President of Products & Science Pete Eppele is back to address an issue that is dogging the pricing ambitions for B2B companies. Namely, he's here to discuss legacy pricing systems of record and pricing systems of management – what they are, how they work, and ultimately, how they tend to fall short in practice.   Listeners will learn about an advanced, yet attainable vision for real-time pricing capabilities and an immediate opportunity to drive more value from their pricing practices. Read the whitepaper discussed in the episode here:   Legacy Pricing is Harming B2B: Do This Instead www.zilliant.com

Zilliant Price IQ® is the only B2B price optimization solution that can measure price elasticity, enforce rational price relationships, and conduct goal-seeking what-if scenarios. And now it's gotten even better.   Vice President of Science & Analytics Lee Rehwinkel joins the show to introduce the next evolution of Zilliant's market-leading price optimization – Next-Generation Price IQ. Learn about the advances in performance, visibility into the science, faster implementation times and more intuitive user experience that Lee and his team have brought into the market.   Read part one of our Next-Gen Price IQ blog series   www.zilliant.com 

Greg Peters has led Zilliant for nearly 20 years as president and chief executive officer. He makes his long-awaited debut on the podcast to tell us why right now is “the most exciting time since I've been in the company.”   In these 20 years, Greg has helped navigate Zilliant and its customers through economic ups and downs and seismic go-to-market shifts. Most critically, Zilliant was the first price optimization software provider to transition to 100% cloud-native SaaS nearly a decade ago. In this episode, Greg has a candid conversation with Chief Marketing Office Lindsay Duran on the thinking behind that fruitful decision, Zilliant's recent acquisition by Madison Dearborn Partners, his take on the future of intelligent commerce in B2B, and much more.   Register for MindShare 2022 www.zilliant.com

Volatility is the new normal state-of-play in B2B. To unpack the best pricing response to protracted economic volatility, we spoke to the man writing the book on it: Holden Advisors Vice President of Pricing Jeet Mukherjee.   Jeet has over two decades worth of global experience in management consulting, strategy, analytics, marketing and pricing. He goes back a long way with our host, Barrett Thompson, from his time using Zilliant pricing solutions as a practitioner. In this episode, Jeet and Barrett emphasize the importance of making faster decisions and not being afraid to fail in the short term to capture long-term stability. Jeet also shares insights from interviews he conducted with pricing leaders and C-suite executives for his upcoming book.   Register for PPS: Pricing Strategy Connected (April 26-29) to hear keynotes from Zilliant and Holden Advisors!  www.zilliant.com

We celebrate our 50th episode of B2B Reimagined with special guest Ian Altman, one of the foremost experts on B2B sales and a keynote speaker at our upcoming MindShare 2022 conference. Ian joined host Barrett Thompson to help us get to the bottom of why it's so difficult, yet essential, to continuously train, mentor and coach sales reps.    Ian has conducted research with more than 10,000 leaders on how they make and approve decisions. Given his background, he has no shortage of enlightening and entertaining stories to tell, several of which he lays out for our listeners. Zilliant's platform delivers AI-driven customer insights to sales reps to help them sell more and execute corporate strategies more effectively. Ian and Barrett discuss how combining data-driven technology with proven coaching methods can further accelerate performance.     Don't miss Ian's keynote! Register for MindShare 2022  www.zilliant.com

CEO and Founder of Capital Pricing Consultants Lydia DiLiello returns for her third appearance on the show, this time to tackle perhaps the biggest B2B issue of the day – supply chain disruption.    Why is it happening? Why have so many companies been caught flat-footed? What is the bottom-line impact of apathy in the face of supply issues? How long will it last? Lydia and host Lindsay Duran address these questions and walk through real-world examples of companies who are responding the right and wrong way to this global challenge. Tune in for advice on both short- and long-term pricing strategies to adopt today.   Read the blog mentioned in the episode here: How To Approach Pricing Amid Supply Chain Turmoil www.zilliant.com

Today we tackle the common misconception that price elasticity is a B2C-only occurrence. “I empathize a lot with the B2B practitioners that believe that B2C pricing is the only real price elasticity phenomena, just because it's more observable in B2C. And that's a certainty,” said Sanguk Han, Zilliant senior data scientist, and our guest for this episode. While it's harder to measure in B2B, due to a number of complicating factors discussed in the show, it's also inarguable that the consequences of price changes ultimately play out in the B2B market. Sanguk and host Barrett Thompson go deep on the science and talk real-world examples that uncover how companies can predict what those consequences will be prior to making a price change. Read the blog mentioned in the episode here: What Works When Traditional Price Elasticity Fails www.zilliant.com

Today we welcome on Mike Bramble, managing consultant for commercial performance applications at Enigen. Mike introduced himself to our host Lindsay Duran by proclaiming, “CPQ is very much in my blood.”    Which made him the perfect guest for this episode's topics, namely customer and sales rep self-service, elimination of rework, and faster, more accurate quoting in the rapidly changing manufacturing sector. Listen along as Mike and Lindsay discuss recent trends such as inflation and the rise of digital commerce, and how those trends have accelerated the urgency for manufacturers to adopt CPQ and price optimization solutions.   View the demo mentioned in the episode here: Zilliant Oracle CPQ Integration www.zilliant.com

Do you know the true reason “why someone should buy x from you at y price?”    Our first guest of 2022 has made it his business to help B2B companies define, communicate and, ultimately, sell their value proposition for more than 20 years. Jose Palomino, president of Value Prop Interactive, joined host Barrett Thompson for a rollicking conversation about the state of B2B sales. The two go back and forth on what has changed and what hasn't, what separates the A players from the B players, and how software can help sellers meet quota while staying true to their stated value-driven mission.   Barrett was also recently a guest on episode #75 of The Revenue Throughput Podcast. Listen to Jose's show here: The Revenue Throughput Podcast   www.zilliant.com 

Digital commerce and self-service channels may grab all the headlines, but your B2B sales team remains critical to building a satisfying customer experience. Yet it's becoming tougher each year for sales reps to live up to that responsibility. With the so-called ‘great resignation' upon us, how can you ensure continuity despite attrition? How can you best onboard new reps to succeed while providing customers with the service they expect?   Kerry Hudson, vice president of North America sales at Conga, has a unique vantage point on the topic, as she runs a large team of sellers that bring sales and revenue operations products to market. Kerry joined Zilliant Chief Marketing Officer Lindsay Duran for a candid discussion on the people, processes and products that enable a modern B2B sales team to develop mutually beneficial customer relationships in the digital era.    Watch the on-demand webinar that Zilliant and Conga created earlier this year: “Solving for Quoting & Pricing Complexity in Enterprise B2B.” www.zilliant.com

Inflation is the dominant trend in B2B pricing circles as 2021 draws to a close. While costs will continue to rise - by how much and for long is anyone's guess - can you actually use this crisis as an opportunity to bring your pricing practice up a level and become more profitable?   We asked Dick Sobel, director of analytics for PricePoint Partners, this and much more on today's episode. A pricing industry veteran and longtime friend of Zilliant, Dick brought insights to the table gleaned from past inflationary periods and shared the perspective of both the pricer and the pricing consultant. You might be surprised by the potential opportunity hiding behind the specter of inflation.   In addition, host Barrett Thompson quizzed Dick on how to “close the pricing loop” with data-driven analytics and the best way to approach discount management. www.zilliant.com

On today's episode, we bring back Zilliant SVP of Products & Science Pete Eppele to discuss our latest product innovation, Real-Time Pricing Engine™. Pete and host Lindsay Duran describe the history of pricing engines inside B2B companies and explain why they are being overwhelmed by the increased volume of pricing requests and demand for dynamic pricing.   Zilliant Real-Time Pricing Engine is a robust API service that can serve as a company's pricing system of record with the ability to perform complex calculations on demand, including external data lookups and automated negotiation. Listen to hear about how this offering complements a company's existing ERP to deliver dynamic prices and product recommendations to any commercial system.   Read the article mentioned in the episode here:   What is a Real-Time Pricing Engine?   www.zilliant.com 

Zilliant Vice President of Customer Success Nathan Rabold returns for his second guest appearance on the podcast, this time going deep on a topic near and dear to his team's work: effective change management.   Sometimes overlooked, this foundational process makes the difference between success and disappointment for any major B2B commercial transformation. Years of pricing and sales implementations have honed the Zilliant approach to change management, and Nathan explains each of Zilliant's eight drivers of benefit that are crucial to each project.   Listen to learn why getting organizational change right is particularly important given the recent market turmoil caused by tariffs, COVID-19, inflation and supply chain disruption.   Watch Nathan's on-demand webinar: “Accelerating Value with Effective Change Management” Register for MindShare Europe   www.zilliant.com/podcasts 

Ardent Mills is North America's largest flour milling company, feeding approximately 100 million people every day by way of its 40 processing plants and 2,400 essential workers.   Ryan Almos, strategic pricing leader at Ardent Mills, joined us on this episode to discuss the dynamics of the food production industry, his team's role in enabling sales, and how the company has simplified its pricing approach.      Register for MindShare Europe   www.zilliant.com/podcasts 

Register for MindShare Europe!   We are thrilled to be back in person for MindShare Europe, the industry's top B2B pricing and sales conference, on 30 November in Paris, France. In this episode, Zilliant Chief Marketing Officer Lindsay Duran interviews Vice President, EMEA Michel Safi about what attendees can expect from the event.   Hear about the three customers that will be speaking, plus the partner-led sessions and the Zilliant product demonstration that will be featured. There will also be plenty of opportunities for networking face-to-face throughout the conference and at the welcome reception on 29 November.   Limited space is still available so don't hesitate to register!   Register for MindShare Europe   www.zilliant.com/podcasts 

We welcome Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Enterprise Architect Prashant Garg, who specializes in Quote-to-Cash, to the show to talk all things manufacturing and CPQ. Given the recent industry upheavals and the scramble to digitize commercial processes, Garg and host Barrett Thompson describe the urgency of CPQ, how advanced price optimization fits in to a full solution and what advice they give customers on how to navigate future disruptions in the industry.    Learn about how both manufacturers and their customers achieve financial, experiential and process-driven benefits from modern CPQ. www.zilliant.com/podcasts

Returning guest David Moss, partner at pwc, drops by to dispel a common myth about revenue growth management: it's not just applicable in consumer markets. In fact, the concept is widely relevant for B2B companies, who thrive on analytical insights into sales and marketing every bit as much as their B2C counterparts do.    In this episode, David describes the six pillars of successful revenue growth management in B2B, and how each is enhanced by a combination of pricing/rebate management software and business strategy. www.zilliant.com/podcasts

We welcome to the show Mark Stiving, host of the fantastic Impact Pricing podcast, to pick his brain about the B2B subscription pricing model. Mark literally wrote the book on this topic – the upcoming “Win Keep Grow” – so it's a must-listen for anyone looking to shift all or part of their traditional business to subscription.   Mark and host Lindsay Duran discuss why subscription pricing is on the rise in B2B, as well as the many advantages and potential challenges involved in embracing a subscription strategy. Learn why it's such a colossal business model and culture shift, and how those that grow revenues fastest are always actively managing the three revenue buckets (acquisition, retention, expansion).   Pre-order “Win Keep Grow” now.  www.zilliant.com/podcasts

Rebates – every B2B company offers them or other off-invoice credits in some form or fashion. This is because they are a great way to incentivize customer behavior and drive loyalty in your brand. But they also tend to create massive headaches for accounting, sales, pricing and product management teams due to a status quo of manual rebate management.   Today, Zilliant Director of Product Management Brian Hirt joins the show to walk through the challenges and opportunities inherent in rebate management for each of these B2B personas. Brian and host Barrett Thompson share observations and points of view from their extensive work with distributors and manufacturers, before introducing a better way to inject science into rebate creation and automation into tracking and managing off-invoice incentives.    Sign up for our August 19 webinar that goes deeper on the topic and includes a demo of Zilliant's new rebate management capabilities: Streamline Rebate Management across Pricing, Sales and Finance   www.zilliant.com