From Pricing Scientist to VP in Pricing with Stephane Bratu

Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Learn to be directionally correct in your pricing decisions  Find out the important characteristics required to be a pricing expert  Learn how to be creative and do different things in Pricing to know what works and what doesn’t   Stephane Bratu leads the pricing and marketing analytics team for the e-commerce division of one of the largest distributors in the world. He developed advanced decision support systems to improve business performance and spearheaded many engagements to Fortune 500 clients in the transportation, manufacturing, distribution, and retail industries.  He also developed analytics insights to help clients improve their business decisions., as well as conducted opportunity assessments, pre-sale analysis, solution design, and implementations using advanced machine learning and optimization modeling.  In this episode, Stephane talks about the important characteristics of a pricing person, why he has to go beyond the analytics side of things, get expertise in team management, and be knowledgeable to different pricing models in order to contribute to successful pricing decisions.   “There is no silver bullet in pricing. Otherwise, we would all know it.”   - Stephane Bratu   Topics Covered: 01:10 - What led to his Pricing career  02:15 - What makes him stick with Pricing  03:37 - What got him to a VP position in Pricing  06:02 - Is analytical capability a skill necessary for a pricing person  06:44 - The need to learn management skills, and people skills aside from the analytical side of Pricing  07:21 - Why are mentors important  08:15 - What to consider when promoting people  10:20 - The advantage of him coming from a data science side of things  13:15 - People that do analytics and execute on a day-to-day basis versus those who figure out what we should do differently and execute it within the company  15:45 - Is value a key driver in analytics and how do you capture value  17:19 - Keep getting better at creating value  18:06 - His pricing advice that creates an impact in your business  18:34 - The need to get creative in getting optimal pricing   Key Takeaways: “I realized in the past, it is very important to have mentorship that gives you a different perspective, organizes your thoughts, enables you to perform well.” - Stephane Bratu  “Value pricing is hard. It's very hard to implement. And to capture the value is to really, really understand the business.” - Stephane Bratu  “You have to be careful in the way you price your value so that you take into consideration right where the competitor is doing. So, it's very important in the details. You would never get it 100%. But if you move in the right direction, capture the value, that could create a competitive advantage.” - Stephane Bratu  “Value pricing is important because value is expensive. So, you need to reap the benefit of the effort that you make to create value for the customer. And if you don't do that, you miss opportunities.” - Stephane Bratu   People / Resources Mentioned:  Professor Peter Belobaba    Connect with Stephane Bratu: LinkedIn   Connect with Mark Stiving:    Email: [email protected] LinkedIn