Armin Kakas

Revify Analytics

Revify helps mid-market businesses ($10MM - $2B) move from data overload to profitable action. Our RGM-as-a-Service combines accessible, advanced analytics with expert Pricing & Revenue Growth Management advisory, providing a clear roadmap to unlock hidden margin leaks and drive revenue growth without enterprise-level complexity or cost.

Co-Founder

Revology Analytics

Revology Analytics is at the intersection of Advanced Analytics and Revenue Growth Management and specializes in impact and execution. If profitable growth, EBITDA expansion, and higher valuations are your goals, our strategies can help you achieve them.

We help mid-market companies ($10 million to $1 billion in revenues) overcome hurdles and elevate their business with pragmatic solutions focused on three critical areas:

1. Pricing & Revenue Management

2. Sales & Marketing Enablement

3. Commercial Analytics Transformation

Founder | Managing Partner

Pricing Lever

Consulting Partner for boutique Pricing Strategy advisory firm focused on Industrial Manufacturing and Distribution.

Consulting Partner

EBITDA Catalyst

Consulting partner for a specialized Revenue Management consultancy for middle-market and private equity portfolio companies. My advisory work focuses on three primary areas:

1. Margin Analytics & Optimization: Building 90/10 custom solutions for mid-market firms, primarily Manufacturers and Distributors, who want to augment their decision-making capabilities.

2. Promotion Effectiveness & Optimization: From distributors to retailers, provides crucial expertise to maximize ROI in this critical lever of profitability.

3. Sales & Customer Growth Analytics: Building on all-around analytics chops & deep understanding on the human sales execution factor, enables growth with both insights and Sales teams training & playbook development.

Reliancy

Senior Advisor for leading Sales & Marketing Enablement AI/ML advisory firm.

Senior Advisor - Revenue Growth Analytics

American Tire Distributors

I co-founded, built and scaled ATD’s first ever corporate analytics startup, driving incremental profits, valuation and industry profile for parent company ATD. Reporting to subsidiary CEO, I steered the data monetization strategy and execution of customer-facing ML-enabled SaaS solutions, growing the business from 0 to over 2,500 retail locations and manufacturers as customers. Additionally, drove ATD’s analytics transformation by prioritizing and building internal enterprise analytics solutions that augmented organizational decision-making capabilities, shifting the business to a data-driven culture.

A few key accomplishments in this role include:
• Forged key strategic partnerships with 10 of the 15 largest Point-of-Sale (POS) providers in the automotive aftermarket industry. Opened new revenue streams and paved the way for monetization of syndicated, anonymized POS transactional data.
• Led 15-member commercialization team (data translators, business development and sales ops managers) and influenced 50-member technical team to build innovative SaaS solutions that solved key customer pain points in competitive market and pricing insights, inventory management and optimization and profit / sales mix optimization.
• Realized substantial revenue and EBITDA growth for parent company in 3 years after conceptualizing and launching advanced analytics products across supply chain, revenue management and sales. 
• Represented analytics startup at industry conferences and served as trusted advisor and AI-translator to both ATD senior executive team and key clients within tire industry.

Vice President, Advanced Analytics Commercialization: Chief Customer Officer of Analytics Incubator

I was brought on to transition the revenue management function into a data science-driven department. I shifted the department to a Lean framework and expanded pricing capabilities by creating the company’s first in-house machine learning-enabled pricing solution that improved cash flow and liquidity using R, Python and Google Cloud SQL. 

Key accomplishments in this role include:
• Through architecting and deploying clearance price optimization platform, unlocked $300M in liquidity and $15M in gross profits from unproductive inventory despite difficult market.
• Developed and deployed descriptive and diagnostic price and margin analytics dashboards companywide using Tableau.

Director, Advanced Analytics: Head of Pricing and Margin Analytics of $5B Enterprise

Wells Enterprises

Recruited to transform administratively focused pricing team into strategic revenue growth management (RGM) group with analytics and strategy foundation for top 5 manufacturer of frozen desserts. Built RGM function from ground up, delivering volume and profit growth and providing actionable performance insights that optimized decision making. Shapeshifted business strategy and culture by establishing four key capabilities: 1) pay-for-performance mindset for promotions; 2) value-based pricing for private label business; 3) advanced analytics driven pricing architecture; 4) dynamic scenario analyses and optimization.

• Achieved 5% and 3% EBITDA growth in FY16 and FY17 despite relatively flat industry. Employed strategic price increases, restructured rebate programs across all channels, implemented rigorous pricing council reviews, and optimized price pack architecture.
• Brought order to chaotic pricing structure process by selecting team of 8 to create and implement standardized pricing strategy and processes and right size price and product positioning based on perceived price-value maps.
• Drove 13% in total Gross Profit $ in FY16 (+11% in unit volume and +2% in GP$ per unit) for anchor brand via tiered pricing strategy and optimized promotion plans that maximized in-store display and advertising support.
• Orchestrated launch of Tableau server and promotional data warehouse migration in MS Azure. Enabled self-serve descriptive and diagnostic price and margin analytics companywide. 
• Harmonized shipment and sellout data to produce macro- and micro-level promotion effectiveness platform that raised ROI from 80% to 92% in 1.5 years.

Director, Revenue Growth Management: Head of RGM and Advanced Analytics of $2B Consumer Goods Co. 

Best Buy

Accelerated dynamic pricing capabilities as lead of data science team in pricing and merchandising strategy analytics. Masterminded strategy and blueprint for pricing strategy across 1K+ stores. Engineered algorithmic framework to implement dynamic pricing for physical and online stores. Led global team to develop innovative solutions that drove business growth.
•	Designed pricing science roadmap, authored descriptive/predictive analytics capabilities, and directly contributed to the evolution and adoption of human capital/resources.
•	Cut 70% of budget by insourcing strategic planning and implementation function enterprise wide. 
•	Produced 30+bps jump in gross margin after introducing adaptive pricing techniques / capabilities.
•	Won Leadership Award for personal impact based on transformational strategies within pricing function.

Head of Price Analytics & Modeling: Building and Implementing Dynamic Pricing for $50B Retailer

MillerCoors

Collaboratively led a talented, tenured team of analytics professionals responsible for all aspects of revenue management for 500+ distributors and approximately 4k Walmart/Sam’s Club stores.

♦ Drafted an organizational roadmap for retail chain revenue management capabilities. Realized category and margin growth with the use of advanced price analytics.
♦ Successfully delivered unique and specific insights through a combination of integrated data and machine learning methods. Improved the quality and sustainability of newly presented insights.

Manager, Pricing Analytics and Strategy: Head of RGM for $700M Walmart / Sam’s Club Business Unit

GE Capital

♦ June 2011 - June 2012: Sales Force Effectiveness (SFE) Leader
♦ June 2008 - June 2011: Experienced Commercial Leadership Program (ECLP) Participant/Graduate
- 3rd ECLP rotation: Marketing Analytics (GE Capital Retail Consumer Finance - now Synchrony Financial)
- 2nd ECLP rotation: Marketing Analytics & Strategy (Vendor Finance - now part of Wells Fargo)
- 1st ECLP rotation: Price Analytics & Strategy (Equipment Finance - now part of Wells Fargo)
- ECLP Internship: Corporate Finance

Commercial and Consumer Finance Analytics and Strategy (various)

Revenue Growth Analytics advisor to executives in charge of growing Net Revenue, Gross Profit, and Sales Productivity | Posts and articles about Revenue Management + Machine Learning insights, methods, and processes.

As the founder of Revology Analytics, I have the privilege of offering mid-market businesses unparalleled expertise in advanced Revenue Growth Analytics & Management, focusing on three core advisory areas: Pricing & Revenue Management, Sales & Marketing Enablement and Commercial Analytics Transformation efforts. 

Beyond my advisory work, I am the creator of the Revology Analytics Insider, a bi-weekly newsletter offering readers unique insights into the world of Revenue Growth Analytics. You can catch the latest issues on LinkedIn and our website, revologyanalytics.com/articles-insights.

To learn more, please visit revologyanalytics.com

Revology Analytics is a Revenue Growth Analytics consultancy for middle-market companies in the Manufacturing, Retail, and Distribution industries.

We are an impact- and execution-oriented advisory firm founded on Outcome-Based Analytics™, with focused specializations in AI/ML-enabled Margin Analytics & Optimization, Sales & Customer Growth Analytics and Promotion Effectiveness & Optimization.

NZK Management, LLC

PRICING STRATEGY, OPTIMIZATION & MARGIN REMEDIATION
•	Partner with product and commercial teams to understand customer value derived from solutions.
•	SKU lifecycle management. Work with all teams to support induction and phase out of SKUs.
•	Product catalog maintenance to increase efficiency in total order management function.
•	Pricing consistency by aligning disparate pricing models. Enhance package and bundle options.
•	Measure customer/product profitability for all channels. Pricing changes integrated into current process.

SALES OPERATIONS, DEAL DESK & PRICING PROCESS
•	Partner and engage with sales, product, revenue recognition and legal.
•	Build-out or maintenance of current deal structuring and approval process.
•	Implementation of CPQ and CLM. Standardization of pricing and contracting items.
•	Assessment of current roles and responsibilities with Sales Ops best practice recommendations.
•	Salesforce opportunity flow and management.
•	Change management training and documentation.

FP&A, DATA ANALYSIS & REPORTING
•	Operational reporting to align teams and goals. Other monthly close and ad hoc reporting.
•	Process standardization and monitoring of KPIs.
•	Sales commission and territory analysis management.

PRIOR CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS
Samsung, UL Solutions, ConnectWise, Chamberlain, Navigate 360, Ironclad, Momentus
Aditi Consulting, Robert Half, Heitmeyer Consulting, La Salle Consulting, DeWinter

Revenue Strategy Consultant

Inovalon

•	Pivoted to SaaS healthcare software and services. (Payer, Provider, Membership, Patient Charts, etc.)
•	Partnered with product management to simplify and standardize pricing metrics across the product suite. Documented changes and with support to all downstream teams to ensure lead to cash alignment.
•	Simplified pricing and contracting operational documents and processes throughout an organization with tremendous resistance and pushback from unaligned departments.
•	Increased time to signature for deals. Drove scale and speed throughout the lead to cash process.

Pricing Strategy & Deal Desk Operations

Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.

•	Brought into the organization to assess pricing process and align disparate data systems.
•	In an organization reluctant to change, utilized relationship management at both the leadership and ground levels to partner and implement positive process change.
•	Drove incremental pricing opportunities (Price floors, Price guidance, Competitive pricing, E&O).
•	Results include record sales growth along with +300 bps aggregate YoY margin increase.

Pricing & Profit Management

MSC Industrial Supply Co.

•	Trusted adviser on pricing, profitability, business terms and solutions.
•	Developed clear discount approvals, profitability guidelines and financial governance for deals.
•	Creation of annual pricing review process for over 400 National Account, State and Government contracts.
•	Constant communication between Contract Administration, Deal Desk, Sales and Customer Admin teams to effectively implement term and pricing changes to our customers.
•	Led the restructure of the company P&L to be inclusive of enhanced metrics enabling our sales team to focus their customer discussions on total cost of ownership vs. only price or volume.
•	Increased workload effectiveness for the team by streamlining reporting and analysis tools.
•	Results include margin expansion from implementing standard workflow processes holding both sales and operations to a higher degree of accountability.

Deal Desk Operations

•	Inception of a new pricing function in the org using data analytics to provide better price points for sales.
•	Successfully demonstrated the ability to influence throughout all levels of the organization.
•	Gained consensus amongst teams and drove pricing strategies from concept to implementation.
•	Defined customer segmentation by utilizing big data tools to aggregate 20 million customer pricing & sku records.
•	Partnered with sales to establish scalable pricing policies and governance for various customer segments.
•	Developed price-cost-volume-mix reporting in order to lead gross margin discussions across the organization.
•	Change agent to help initiate a net profit mindset throughout our teams.

Strategic Pricing & Analytics

•	Managed contract and pricing operations for multiple sales teams.
•	Coached sales management in applying best practice for pricing and negotiation resulting in customer cost savings, increased volume and profitability.
•	Helped dispute and negotiate recurring government audits. Retained cost to serve dollars that otherwise would have been lost due to poor analytics.
•	Implemented a standardized deal creation process. Deal Desk developed around this proof of concept and demonstration of required financial acumen.

National Account & Government Operations

Island Medical Physicians, P.C.

•	FP&A and accounting functions. Financial/statistical analysis of healthcare data.
•	Development of a revenue management cadence throughout the organization.
•	Tightened process in each respective functional area, ultimately uncovering 13% unbilled revenue.

Accounting, Financial Planning & Analysis

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