Today’s chemical companies face extraordinary business challenges, from the massive volatility in raw materials and input costs, to currency fluctuations and a globally competitive marketplace. The selling environment is equally complex. Between the emergence of niche players and increasingly aggressive procurement departments, salespeople can no longer rely on experience and gut instinct to close business…
I have worked with some talented salespeople over the years and learned a great deal about being a good steward of our company to our customers. As a sales and marketing leader at PROS, I often have the privilege of meeting 1-on-1 with each new person we hire into our department. When I meet new…
For many organizations, the price-change process is a time-consuming, unpleasant and imperfect process that everyone knows must be done, and no one wants to tackle. When I was a pricing analyst many years ago, I remember how our annual price-change process felt like the TV show Wipeout® – a never-ending series of obstacles from which…
Profit leakages can happen at every line of the profit and loss statement. Some are easier to identify than others and can easily be captured in a waterfall analysis to derive pocket price levels for a customer, a market segment or a product category. Others are well hidden in the P&L and require a lot…
Most every sale rep has heard that phrase, “Just meet your competitor’s price point and the business is yours.” One could discuss for hours how and why the sale rep has gotten himself in this position but we’ll leave that for another blog post. Clearly the negotiation has broken down at this point, and closing…
The debate of the existence of elasticity in B2B markets is a fun one, for those of us who like to discuss such things. It’s an academic argument that’s far from the reality of life as a salesperson trying to close an individual deal. Those who are elasticity naysayers come armed with demand curves and…
Jacqueline Davis says:
Hi Siva,
Thanks! I couldn’t agree with you more on the...
Jacqueline Davis says:
Hi Rikhath,
The question of why your company needs a pricing team...
Siva Ram Yellapragada says:
Simply awesome !!
We have a strong pricing team in our global...
Rikhath says:
Also in enterprise products world do you think Product operations would...
Rikhath says:
Hi Jacqueline,
We fighting the same battle and I out...
