Pricing Strategy Development in High Tech with Anton Malygin

Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Find out the three pillars that a great pricing professional should be skilled in to enrich the pricing function of the company and ensure its success on a larger scale  Find out how the Finance department complements Pricing people in terms of achieving a company’s overall pricing strategy  Learn about what encompasses pricing strategy to meet a company’s long-term goal   Anton Malygin is a seasoned executive with years of experience building new capabilities and driving enterprise transformation in Fortune 1000 companies, focusing on revenue growth, new business models, pricing strategies, price and revenue management, commercial excellence, profitability improvement, market intelligence, customer experience, and business transformation.   In this episode, Anton shares how knowledge of different industries helps you become an effective pricing person as you are exposed to different pricing strategies and issues. As pricing is important to the company, so is the pricing team, thus, he also talks about what important skill sets one should possess to fill in the crucial role in pricing.   “Stay relevant to the organization. If you will stop being relevant in your organization that's going to be the end of pricing discipline in the company.”   - Anton Malygin   Topics Covered: 01:13 - What led Anton into Pricing  02:32 - Two types of pricing projects he does which contrasts the impact it has on customers  03:20 - Why is he staying in Pricing and what does he love about it?  04:27 - How is it working with product management or sales or marketing as a VP of Pricing and Licensing  06:01 - How do he and his team help in making people understand the value of a product  07:29 - Does he have a team of Pricing people working with him  07:57 - The three important pillars that are required of a great pricing professional  10:45 - What his team is building out at Palo Alto - in terms of being a pricing consultant or one that sets the price  12:37 - Why the Finance department is valuable and at the same time challenging  13:47 - What do Finance people focus on and what do they miss out  18:28 - Why it is important to be  a thought leader  19:30 - The advantage of understanding different industry pricing issues and techniques  20:49 - What Anton’s role like in Palo Alto  21:40 - Does he have a mentor  23:24 - What important pricing lesson he likes people to know more about  24:58 - What is a pricing strategy  27:29 - Anton’s pricing advice that can impact your business   Key Takeaways: “I see myself developing, and pricing also leads to a lot of other different opportunities, being part of the pricing organization in the company. You become one of those important centers in the organization. And it feels like you're impacting a lot from the standpoint of the performance of the company.” - Anton Malygin   “When we engage with a product organization, we work with them side by side on development of the strategy, and the pieces that we're bringing to the table as a pricing methodology, one of them is a value-based pricing focus.”  - Anton Malygin  “The pricing person has to have good relationships and has to be a very good communicator and relationship builder with corporate management, marketing, sales, finance, etc.” - Anton Malygin  “The pricing person has to be perceived as a leader, as someone who's knowledgeable about pricing, and that is extremely important because if a pricing professional is just average and has an average knowledge of pricing, well, she’s/he’s probably not very different from any other product manager or finance person that sometimes does the pricing or marketing.” - Anton Malygin   Connect with Anton Malygin: LinkedIn    Connect with Mark Stiving:    Email: [email protected] LinkedIn