8:00 - 9:00 a.m. -- Registration/Breakfast

9:00 - 10:00 a.m. --  Power Pricing for Results with Science — A Pricing Excellence Journey across Industries

Speaker: Harold Peck, Vice President of Strategic Pricing, Cardinal Health

Strategic Pricing is the most impactful capability many organizations have yet to create.  While it is well documented that pricing is the most effective lever to increase profitability, most companies have yet to develop an organizational capability to assess the market dynamics within their industry and determine the optimal path to realizing the margin upside. Why? For most companies, pricing discussions are emotionally charged and often times lack facts, let alone scientific customer insights that provide Executive Management the foundational information they need to make the trade off decisions.  In today’s highly competitive environment with a more limited demand pool, leading companies are making the investments they need to optimize their pricing with facts.  This presentation will walk us through the Pricing Excellence journey of a few leading companies and assess the critical capabilities that need to ascend to make your Pricing Excellence initiative a sustained success. 

Attendees will learn:

• The critical nature of pricing in a distribution business
• What a pricing strategy is
• How to enhance your Sales Team’s ability to sell on price
• What is a company’s price image
• Key capabilities to build / enhance to achieve pricing excellence

Harold Peck is a passionate Pricing Executive and is currently the Vice President of Strategic Pricing with Cardinal Health, a company with $100B in revenues.  Harold has 20 years of Fortune 500 management experience with 16 years in leading Pricing management roles at Best Buy, Eaton, FANUC Robotics and General Motors.

Since 2000, Harold’s expertise and passion for performance driven pricing has elevate profitability by over $570M cumulatively.  Harold graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  In 2003, Harold and the Best Buy Pricing Management Team received one of the Professional Pricing Society’s Pricer of the Year Awards for financial results achieved through operational excellence.

10:00 - 10:30 a.m. -- Morning Break

10:30 - 11:15 -- Pricing in the Aftermath of Volatile Economic Times

Speaker: Phillip Yieh, Director of Revenue Management, PepsiCo

The last 4 years have been marked by severe swings in the volatility for PepsiCo. Globally, we have seen hyper food inflation, economic instability, a credit crunch which has resulted in severe pressure on our P&L. But PepsiCo Internationally has been able to thrive in these adverse times through our ability to generate sustainable product and pricing innovation.

Attendees will learn:

• Organizational commitment (people and money) is key
• Shopper/ Consumer Insights drive the actions
• Principles supporting solid business processes will get you results

Phillip Yieh is a 26 year Sales & Marketing Executive for PepsiCo. Currently the Director of Revenue Management for PepsiCo International, Phillip is responsible for the Pricing function for PepsiCo’s international food and beverage business. Phillip spent 13 years in the Pepsi-Cola North America business in various sales and supply chain roles throughout the United States. He entered Pepsi’s international operations in 1994 where he focused on building Pepsi’s entry into the China market. He has been in his current role since 1996 where PepsiCo’s business spans 5 continents and over 200 countries.

11:15 a.m. - Noon -- How to Successfully Implement Pricing Software and Create a Revenue Generation Machine

Speaker: Lydia DiLiello, Director of Strategic Pricing for Automated Packaging Systems, Cleveland Ohio

Will implementing Revenue Management software really deliver on the promises to generate significant revenue and profit? Will it address all of your pricing woes or just add to them while breaking your budget? During this discussion we will explore what pricing software can realistically accomplish: How to control processes, achieve time savings and generate profits. Additionally we will focus on the one key area that can guarantee a successful software project... Change Management… and why it is so critical to your project’s success.  We will review little known tips regarding vendor selection and ROI that are unique to the Pricing discipline as well as provide take away check lists for future easy reference.

Lydia DiLiello is the Director of Strategic Pricing for Automated Packaging Systems in Cleveland Ohio. She has more than 15 years experience as a pricing expert in the United States, Europe & Asia with a focus on the manufacturing sector. As an active member of PPS throughout her career, Lydia is CPP Eligible and has written several articles on strategic Pricing issues for The Pricing Advisor. She successfully implemented Revenue Management software at both a Fortune 500 company and at her current midmarket firm.  She is a regular presenter at PPS conferences participating both in practitioner panels and individual speaking events. Lydia holds a BA and an MBA from The Youngstown State University.

12 Noon -- Lunch

1:00 - 1:45 p.m. -- Sustaining the Customer Value Proposition by Integrating Sales, Marketing, and Pricing

Speaker: Murray Deal, Vice President of Sales, Marketing, & Pricing, Eastman Chemical Company

Murray Deal, Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Pricing at Eastman Chemical, will discuss a successful approach that integrates centers of excellence for sales, marketing, and pricing to help build sustainable and effective customer value propositions.

This session will describe how developing robust customer value propositions takes more than simply pricing at premium levels.  The task requires comprehensive processes that enable deep customer insight, development of appropriate segmentation, careful crafting of the value proposition, and defense of the value proposition with effective pricing.

Attendees will learn:  

• Real life examples on how to integrate sales, marketing, and pricing centers of excellence
• How to set, support and nurture the value proposition through effective pricing.
• Processes that need to be in place to materialize these objectives

Murray R. Deal joined Eastman in 1980 and was appointed Vice President of Corporate Marketing, Sales & Pricing for Eastman Chemical Company, in 2009. He was previously the Vice President of Sales & Innovation, Chemicals & Fibers Group. While at Eastman, he has held many positions of increasing responsibility in the company’s global chemicals and plastics businesses in the U.S. and Europe.  He received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry from the University of Tennessee in 1978 and an MBA from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia in 1980.  Deal serves on the Board of Directors and Audit Committee of the University of Tennessee Research Foundation.

1:45 - 2:30 p.m. -- Driving Marketing Innovation through Disciplined Experimentation

Speaker: Professor Hitendra Wadhwa, Associate Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Business School

The future of markets — and marketing — is becoming increasingly challenging to predict.  And yet, the need for marketers to adapt and respond to these shifts has never been stronger.  How can you make sure you’re positioned for success in the rapidly evolving marketplace even while you’re no longer able to accurately forecast and predict the future?  Our study of best practice marketers reveals a common theme in how they tackle this dual challenge — the use of a Disciplined Experimentation approach in the way they design products, take them to market, and engage with customers.  In this talk, we will describe 5 Principles of Disciplined Experimentation, illustrate through examples from best practice companies, and discuss our experience in developing Disciplined Experimentation capabilities in large organizations. 

Attendees will learn:

• How Disciplined Experimentation offers a practical path to innovation
• 5 Principles of Disciplined Experimentation
• Best practice examples from leading marketers
• Typical challenges and opportunities in building a Disciplined Experimentation capability

Professor Wadhwa has thirteen years of professional experience in strategy, quantitative marketing and technology entrepreneurship. Professor Wadhwa teaches elective MBA and executive-MBA courses on Strategy Consulting Skills, Personal Leadership, Pricing Strategies, Customer Centricity and Marketing Channels.

Professor Wadhwa is the recipient of the 2007 Lear Award for distinguished service to students and the 2007 Most Engaging and Dynamic Professor Award by the Marketing Association of Columbia. Prior to Columbia, Professor Wadhwa worked with McKinsey & Company, where he counseled senior executives on a range of strategy issues. Professor Wadhwa received his MBA and Ph.D. from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and his B.A. (Honors in Mathematics) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.