Rakuten Kobo Inc.

Sr. Director Sales Operations (Pricing, Promotions, Channel Strategy)

Lead pricing strategy, trade promotion, and sales channel strategy for Rakuten Kobo.  

Global Pricing Leadership for Kobo devices across 20+ countries, multiple currencies and all major retailers. 

Drove device portfolio decision analysis, rationalization, new product business casing. 

Lead annual strategic pricing exercise to gauge pricing power and recommending suitable action. 

Spearheaded Kobo's Amazon launch, and making it a key revenue channel.

Led ops for new geo expansion and partnerships, adding $$$ incremental revenue and expanding market reach.

Championed data-driven decisions, improving forecasting accuracy and saving $$ through smarter business choices.

Owned the search, implementation and adoption of new tools to upgrade sales and marketing operations.

Director Sales Operations

Iovate Health Sciences International Inc.

At Iovate my role is to lead the pricing practice and develop a data and insight based pricing strategy that positions Iovate and its brands as price leader in the industry. The consumer buying patters is quickly moving from retail to online, and its my focus to make sure our pricing and value prop moves along with it. 

-Move pricing from a cost based focus to more value based
-Responsible for defining pricing strategy, and implementing National/International pricing strategies
-Focus on uncovering market, customer and marketing insights that inform short-term and long term business decisions and strategies in the supplements industry
-Access the effectiveness of existing and proposed promotions in an effort to create a global promotion strategy that coincides with the marketing strategy
-Ensure promotions effectively reflect product strategy and tactics related to pricing, bundling, positioning, product life cycle, and financial targets

Associate Director-Global Pricing

Yellow Pages / Pages Jaunes – Canada

Yellow Pages Group is $800M digital media company that makes print, web, and mobile based products for small and medium businesses. My role is to lead the pricing strategy team to ensure we fully monetize all our platforms and to make sure that we leverage our data to make profitable pricing decisions. I was brought onboard when the company was just starting to gain an online foothold with 10% of its revenue coming from online products and today with compelling products and aggressive pricing strategies that number stands at 60%. Consistent high ranking and successfully implementing these strategies led to a promotion to a Senior Manager role in 2013

•	Created and launched an aggressive legacy revenue migration strategy that saw over $200M in revenue being migrated from legacy products to newer digital products through use of pricing and promotions
•	When our phone based sales force found pitching multiple products increasingly difficult on the phone; I created a new bundling strategy that went on to become a $50M a year product.
•	Led a return to value based pricing strategy initiative at YPG to drive revenue growth through claw back of $60M in annual discount using a value based pricing strategy that ties pricing to product performance
•	Launched an entirely new offer and promotion strategy to cut down promotions from 200 down to 20, effectively making it easier for sales reps to stop relying on discount. 
•	Provided the foundation for a data insight based product recommendation engine that uses multiple data points to provide individual product recommendations for customer, effectively acting as a bot sales person
•	Launched several new campaigns/promotions to help increase customer acquisition from 9,000 in 2013 to 40K in 2016. New promotions programs were custom tailored for potential and current customers. 
•	Received YP’s exceptional employee award in 2015 for outstanding performance and consistently received very high performance ranking 6 years in a row

Senior Manager Pricing and Offer Strategy

Manager, Pricing and Offer Strategy

Mitsubishi Motor Sales of Canada Inc.

Mitsubishi Motors is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world primarily known for its Lancer, evolution and Pajero line of cars. I was bought on board in 2010 when Mitsubishi was trying to setup its Parts Distribution Centre in Canada and needed a pricing expert in the auto parts and accessories domain to setup pricing, negotiate contracts, and setup pricing systems.   I led the pricing operation and successfully helped open the distribution center in 2011. My role was not only to come up with pricing, but create a long term pricing philosophy which I termed ‘Mitsubishi Parts Lifecycle Program’. 

•	Setup pricing division of the distribution center within project timeline of 12 months and within budget
•	Secured long term deals with key big part suppliers like Denso and Goodyear 
•	Completed annual competitive pricing analysis to ensure pricing is in line with competition for readily available competitive parts like oil filters, brake pads, fluids and wipers
•	Led the transition from US led cost based pricing to Canadian based parts pricing lifecycle policy
•	Setup parts margin monitoring reporting process at Mitsubishi Canada to assist in making rapid price changes

Pricing Analyst

General Motors of Canada Ltd.

At GM my work involved pricing all spare parts and accessories for GM vehicles. I was bought on at a time when GM was facing trouble with pricing for its Pontiac Vibe parts as they seemed out of line with market. I successfully implemented a new strategy that not only bought prices in line but also improved part sales for that line by over 30%. 

•	Created pricing strategy for all Pontiac, GMC, Chevrolet and SAAB Brand in Canada
•	Developed and implemented Market Basket Program to measure price competitiveness of Pontiac Vibe Vs Toyota Matrix and successfully bought prices in line with Toyota
•	Created parts margin report for 1.4 million auto parts, monitoring and identifying products with margin threat
•	Initiated a new process to timely implement price changes and reduced pricing discrepancies and parts pricing queries by up to 50%.

Most companies make pricing an after thought.

Most companies also are never able to use pricing as the superpower it actually is.  

I have had the privilege of overseeing revenue management for over $6 billion in revenue across a diverse range of industries during the past decade. Throughout this experience, I've gained a deep understanding of the critical role that pricing plays in business success. 

I'm passionate about sharing my expertise and insights to help organizations harness the power of pricing strategies to improve profitability and overall performance.

#PricingTribe
Any Excel People in the house  ?
How many tabs you got open ? Don't lie to me !! 
Is it more than 20 ? 

 
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Building PricingTribe, the best community for pricing professionals. Doors open soon. You can click on the blue link under my name to register for newsletter and any updates related to the community.

Karan Sood

Something pricing. Be a part of PricingTribe.

Pricing isn’t a silo. Can be, but doesn't have to be. 
It’s the glue across every function.

Every function contributes to value creation:

Product    -> creating value
Marketing -> communicating value
Finance     -> defining performance targets
Sales         -> field intelligence/feedback
Analytics   -> value measurement
SCM/OPS  -> can we deliver?
Legal         -> defining terms and risk 
HR             -> enabling competencies
IT               -> enabling infrastructure

Pricing sits at the center — orchestrating all of it.

Where do you see the biggest friction ?
Have a story to share ? 

Comment or DM me(share anonymously). 

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This is also why I’m starting PricingTribe — a space for pricing professionals to connect, swap stories, and learn how others are solving these same cross-functional challenges. None of us need to figure it out alone.
Alpha launch next week to select participants. 

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Building #PricingTribe, the best place for all pricing professionals. Click on blue link under my name to get all updates and access to waitlist via newsletter.

JSESSIONID

li_at

Talks about #pricing, #marketing, #pricingstrategy, #revenuemanagement, and #salesandmarketing

9 KPI's every pricing team should measure. 

Measuring the wrong KPI will mask under lying pricing issue. 

Here are 9 leading indicators of pricing health that you should be tracking:

- Discount Rate Variance (%/$ YOY)
- Competitive Price Index
- ASP Variance
- Discounted Usage (% on discount)
- Win/Loss Rate
- PVM Impact
- ARPU/AMPU
- Elasticity
- Revenue Growth Rate (yes, but as a lagging metric).

Ignore these, and you’ll always be reacting.


Have an industry specific KPI that other may need. Add it to the comment section. 


Inside PricingTribe community (launching this Monday), we’ll go deep into frameworks like this. It’s where pricing pros stop being “Excel Ninja's” and start being the growth driver. Only 30 spots application basis only, I believe 15 have penciled themselves in for consideration.

Struggling to value price ?

Here’s a cheat sheet to quantify value drivers.

Value based strategy has two aspects:

- Value Based Pricing
- Value Based Selling

Both have couple of  things in common.

They both require:

- Deep Understanding of customer’s job
- Knowing what improvement customer wants
- Positioning improvement as the outcome
- Quantifying that outcome to the ‘T’

Often that value runs into millions of $’s. 

You get to capture that quantified value via pricing. 


Struggling to quantify your value.


Use this sheet as an inspiration.

♻️Repost if you find this useful.

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Here are my 5 takeaways from my Value Based Pricing Workshop.

1) Value is still under estimated.

2) Buyers and sellers don’t spend enough time to talk and learn each others priorities.

3) Value isn’t always quantified.

4) When quantified it isn’t communicated enough.

5) When communicated, its not not repeated enough.


Lot of inequity in how its understood and used.


Our buyers and sellers quantified the value using Total Economic Value framework.


The sellers under estimated the value they deliever and gave the buyers a great deal on the price compared to the price they paid.


The value capture ratio was 1%, which is was low.


A lot of money was left on the table !!!

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Building #Pricingtribe the best place for pricing people to hang out with other pricing people. Click on the blue link under my name to get updates and sign up for waitlist.

The smartest Q&A in a pricing meeting.

Knowing the breakeven calculation by heart.


Formula is simple.

- Price decrease need volume
- Price increase needs confidence
- Ironically both need math


Do the secret calc in your head and appear smart on the fly !! It will make you stand out.


It amazed me how many people still don’t have it handy.


Keep it saved ! Print it stick it !! Share it !!



If you like to elevate your pricing skills then you’ll love what I am building inside PricingTribe, a community for pricing pros who want to go from tactical to strategic through peer to peer interactions.


Applications are now open. Apply if you want to be part of the PricingTribe.

No alternative text description for this image

Over 15 years in pricing. Here are things that never changed and what's constantly changing. 

Never Changing: 

- The Value Equation: Customers always weigh perceived value vs. price paid. Learn to read both.   

- P&L Management: Like it or not, P&L management and cost management is core part of the job. Get better at it if you want a meaningful career. 

- Framing & Anchoring: How you presented it will make the difference internally or externally. 
 
- Cross-Functional Alignment: Get better at it period. Pricing needs influence. 

- Segmentation: Segmentation, Segmentation, segmentation people. 

- Know thy customer, but don't follow them down a cliff. 


What will keep changing: 

- Pricing is elevating, but the rise will be slow and steady. No will wake up and give you 3 extra people and a $100K experimentation budget.

- Pricing as a iterative thing. We are no longer static. We are experimental and dynamic. Get tools that help with that.

- Recurring revenue will come into all sorts of business, explore it. I just signed up for a Bestbuy subscription service.

- Pricing teams are now expected to build AI-driven toolkits, not just Excel models. Get that loveable/claude subscription. 

- Outcome based pricing will keep steadily rising in certain industries where value capturing and quantification will be the cleanest and easiest. 

- 15 years ago we were isolated, now we are connecting with each other. Knowledge sharing has never been easier. Hence why I am setting up PricingTribe.


What do you think ? What is evergreen and what's changing according to you ?

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Building PricingTribe, the best community for pricing professionals. Doors open soon. You can click on the blue link under my name to register for newsletter and any updates related to the community.

#PricingSummit sharestream.

Pricing people should focus on the 3C’s by Stephan !

Don’t just focus on the cost.

Focus on all 3 C’s.

- Cost
- Competition
- Consumers.

Make that the focal point of your strategy…

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Stay here for more updates. Click on the bell icon on the profile to get all updates today from the summit.

Pricing Evangelist - Pricing Transformations - Value-based pricing

Out with the old, in with the new. 
Just saying ! 

Plenty for areas for pricing people to focus on ! 
It's no longer just about price setting. 

I may even be missing key items. 

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Building PricingTribe, the best community for pricing professionals. Gates opening soon. Click on blue link under my name to register for newsletter for PricingTribe updates and waitlist.

Common misconception in pricing. 

Discount Ask= Lower WTP. 

Most often its buyers knowing there is discount on the table. 

There always is.. They know. 

I reviewed thousands of these over the years, and looked at various flags that differentiate the two: 

The rule of thumb I use:

- If they’re challenging your value story, it’s a pricing insight.
- If they’re challenging your backbone, it’s a negotiation.

The signs are not always obvious. 

How do you identify the discount red flags ?



♻️ Repost this is to amplify voice of pricing
🖨️ Print it to stick it to on your desk
💾 Save it for your next presentation
📧 Send it to your coworker

Applications for the PricingTribe community are open — link in comments/or the blue link under my name.

Do you know where your pricing team sits on this matrix ? 

I reimagined HBR's innovation matrix for pricing professionals. 

Of all the time/effort you have: 

70% should be on core activities
20% should be on on adjacent 
10% should be on transformative

That time+effort needs to focus on: 

- Getting better at where to play
- Getting better at how to win

Where to  to play: 
- Product
- Customer
- Segment
- Enterprise

You work your way from bottom to top. You go from line level pricing to deal level to customer to customer segment to portfolio to enterprise architecture. It's a journey.

How to win: 

-Optimize:  That's the operational Discipline. This is your price realization, P&L management, structured discounting, doing analytics right. 

- Expand: This takes a step further. Better governance of pricing and discounting. Better segmentation. More value and commercial enablement. 

- Reinvent: This is getting into best in sector territory. Building data and decision framework for adaptive pricing. Pricing becomes the vehicle for growth.


What is the one thing you would add to the framework ? 


These are the kind of discussions I want to have inside PricingTribe community. Doors are open for applications. Limited Spots. Click on blue link under my name to submit application. We will build the best home for pricing professionals. DM me for questions. 

♻️ Repost this is to amplify voice of pricing
🖨️ Print it to stick it to on your desk
💾 Save it for your next presentation
📧 Send it to your coworker

Will be sending this framework with more details in newsletter soon.

Pricing can be very lonely ! Very ! 

I have always learned this the hard way. 

And it hits peak a day before major price change. When you mentally remap all your work and alignment sessions. What if Dave from sales was right, and I was indeed too bullish.. What if I over promised the execs ? 


And that sinking feeling: 


Did I do it right ? What if sales sales fall higher  than expected ? What if a major customer revolted ? What if there was an error in a cell that I didn't catch.. 

Only pricing people will know that feeling ! Will I be blamed if it falls flat ? 

Will I have to resign if it went wrong ? Should I update my resume ? 

Behind every price change is a thousand decisions, trade-offs, and stories that no one outside pricing ever sees.

Let me know if you felt this loneliness in the comments. Share it with a pricing person who would understand this feeling. 


Pricing does not have to be lonely. This is the reason I am creating the PricingTribe community. So that we can have a place where we belong and have meaningful exchanges and solve everyday pricing problems. 30 spots and almost a 100+ applications. So I will open more spots.

#pricingsummit learning#3
Levers to capture and retain value.

- Architecture Optimization
- Deal Structuring: Scenario planning
- Smart Negitiation: Articulating Value

Pricing Polymath: Understand entire ecosystem.


From Deovrat Kajwadkar from Google cloud ! 


You can take the philosphy across other industries.


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Director of Strategic Deal Pricing & Monetization | Google Cloud

#PricingTribe should have 0 worries about AI eliminating pricing roles. 

Here is my unfiltered opinion: 

AI will crunch analysis, but not change mind. 

Changing minds is where pricing people excel ! 

The real work starts after the analysis.

That’s when you have to:

- Convince a product team to change their roadmap.
- Explain to sales why discounting isn’t “strategic.”
- Make the hard decision to say no to a $1M deal
- Frame a price increase so customers don’t walk.
- Frame an increase internally as well (hard stuff)
- Align executives who all believe their view is the right one.


Unless AI can walk into that meeting and handle the politics, psychology, persuasion behind every price then it's not ready to take your job.  

Executives are terrible at green lighting pricing changes, even when presented with data. The fear of loss aversion is very very real.


We haven't even talked about the 100LB Gorilla in the room. 

DATA ! 


Has anyone seen the state of data pipeline ? Pricing people will know the wounds from knife fights asking for data they need. 


Fixing that and getting AI ready is a multi year project. 


Assuming that is fixed. It’ll make data analysis faster, simulations smarter, and forecasting sharper. But turning those insights into actions that are aligned is still a where pricing people shine.

That time saved opens up more opportunity to: 

- create more future forward pricing
- create ways to increase revenue
- create ways to save cost
- create time for more hypothesis building


Use AI to enrich your judgment, not replace it.


I hope PricingTribe community plays a meaningful part in filtering the noise- a community built for pricing professionals who want to stay ahead, learn faster, and transform their pricing capabilities. I really do ! 

Applications are now live, and only 30 spots available. I think we are over 70 applications on Day 1. The application helps me bring a good mix of professionals that will enrich the learning for everyone. 

Click on blue link under my name to access the application. 
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#PricingTribe applications are open. The best community for pricing professionals.

Don't disconnect your price from value. 

Measure the relationship with a 'Value Capture Ratio'. 

Value capture is the % of Price/Total Value i.e. what % of the value are you are capturing with your price. 

The best VC ratio's are around 30%, but most are around 5%-10%. 

A high VC ratio could mean a high price compared to value or not enough value delivered. Either is not great for business. So ideally it should be closely assessed. 

The hallmark of a great value capture ratio are: 

- Quantified and Aligned value
- Trackable and defendable value
- Value that's baked in reality
- Value that is delivered fast
- Value that is differentiated

This is a simplification of a complex topic, that I will cover over time.. 

But in essence, calculate  that value capture ratio. Your job is to increase the price by increasing the denominator AKA Value.. 

♻️ Repost if you find it useful or send it to a teammate or save it. 


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Building PricingTribe, the best community for pricing professionals. Doors open soon. You can click on the blue link under my name to register for newsletter and any updates related to the community.

How big should be your pricing team ?

Pricing teams are under staffed, and under funded.


The under staffing is a concern because that throttles overall ROI.



How big should the team be ?


Typical ROI from pricing: 12X

Assume fully loaded HC cost: $120k

Typical ROI/HC: 12*$120K=$1.44M

Assuming that’s: 1%-2% of topline.

Top line revenue impacted: $72M-$144M

Average: $108M in revenue per HC


Give or take it’s 1 HC for every $100M, which means a billion dollar revenue company should ideally have 7-10 pricing people


Now few things can skew it:

- How many products. Is it one product or many small sku’s.

- Digital product vs physical ?

- Is it one time sale (software) or are you always selling (distribution)

- Are you centralized or dustributed ?

- Level of cross functional support.



Most pricing teams are one person stand alone function in pricing, or finance or sales.


That doesn’t meant you have to be alone.



That’s why I am creating PricingTribe community. A place for pricing professionals to hangout and share knowledge, wins, frameworks and just have a good time ! It’s like a party for pricing people !


Aplication only and only 30 spots opening up until 2026. Click on blue link under my name to access updates and register for newsletter. DM me for first in line access to application.

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#PricingSummit Day 2.

Synthetic Research in Pricing.


Buynomics is working on the next generation of pricing research that intertwines into RGM. 


Using their research knowledge and layering in your sales data, you are able to create virtual shoppers that behave like real shoppers. 


These shoppers make decisions based on price, product, competition, size etc and create scenarios you want that either maximise revenue, profit, units etc.



If you have questions, which I do a lot. You can ask the founder Ingo Reinhardt .

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To get day 2 coverage and key lessons, make sure you click on the bell icon on the profile to get all updates else we are mercy of Linkedin gods.

Buynomics

Founder & MD at Buynomics | Make better RGM decisions, faster

#pricingsummit post#2
Create value maps.

Philip Daus talked about using PV maps as a way to combat tariff.

So figure out how to manage value of your product within the confines of the PV consistency corridoor.

PV maps are challenging to create but a great resource in highly competitive industries..

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Click on the bell icon on my profile to get all updates from the Pricing Summit today.

Professional Pricing I Driving Growth through Monetization & Commercial Strategies I Top 99 Pricing Thought Leader I Partner at Simon-Kucher with 20+ years consulting experience I Head of Houston Office

Its coming soon !! 
Exciting event for pricing professionals…

The Pricing Recruiter! Recruit for Pricing, Revenue Management, Deal Desk and More! Founder of SV Pricing Recruiting the top Pricing Recruiting Firm in the US!

🔥 Pricing Week 2025 is coming… and it’s going to be HUGE.
💥 Like and share this so we can show the world that pricing isn’t niche anymore. 💥

✅ 75+ speakers
✅ FREE
✅ 100% Virtual Event
✅ 32+ hours of pricing learning + interaction
✅ Thousands of pricing pros already on board
✅ Global Event - Speakers from over 8+ Countries 

There are over 100,000 pricing professionals globally - how many can we bring together this October?

👉 Like this post
👉 Share with your network 
👉 Register here: https://lnkd.in/gfZ_xFTS

Let’s make history together. 🚀

#PricingTribe you are not a cost center. 
You are a profit center, act like one. 

I see pricing teams struggle with their own value quantification.


Kind of ironic ! 

To quantify your value, answer a few questions: 

What was your impact in the org: 

- in increasing rev/‘margin
- in decreasing cost/opex/capex
- in acquisition of customers
- in retention of customers
- in product creation
- in decreasing risk for the org

You are likely creating value in all of the above ways plus some more. 

If not, here are ways you can start now: 


- Strategic price increases: Setup a formal annual price review process. Start with CPI based increases, and then move on to more strategic increases based on the market, competition and product value. Be more surgical with increases, don't peanut butter spread them, make them targeted. 



- Discount optimization: Cut the non performing promotions, cut the misuse of discretionary discount and decrease the depth and frequency. Bring visibility to bad discounting practices in exec circles. 


- Terms misuse: Audit the commercial terms and close the gap between actual vs reality. How many terms are getting misused. Who is double dipping on rebates. What is that improvement worth ?


- Velocity: Organizations are notorious for moving things along slowly. Pricing teams can help facilitate that by being the cross functional bridge between the different teams. More time saved=more deals done. 


- Technology: Look for pricing system changes that boost profitability compared to status quo. Maybe its a rebate management system or a tool that facilitates price changes. Often system is overlooked as a source of ROI for pricing teams. 

- Risk management: Did you help navigating away from a potential risky deal for the business ? What would have been the cost of that deal. That's value created by risk avoidance. 

We can do way better in articulating our value and in the process create value for the organization.


Transform yourself from a cost to profit center. 


This is the kind of transformation we want to have inside the "PricingTribe" community.  Doors opening soon. 

Remember the doors to the 1st cohort of 'PricingTribe' community will open soon. The foundation will be community knowledge, 1-1's, workshops, webinars, demos, office hours. Strictly invite only with application. Dm me for first of line application for the 30 spots.

Taplio

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