Vikas Pal Boaddh is the Senior Strategic Marketing and Pricing Leader at Honeywell. He started out as a Software Engineer but has switched careers after getting an MBA in Marketing and General Management. His pricing journey in Honeywell was a happy accident for him. His startup in Food Tech wasn’t working in his early years, so he was introduced to Honeywell’s pricing team. Now, he’s been with them for 10 years. 

In this episode, Vikas discusses why value-based pricing is the right thing to do and shares why understanding how your customer thinks is a must in dealing with pricing.

 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Discover how important it is for you to understand the customer’s business first before making them understand how much money they’re going to make once they buy your product;
• Understand the four pillars of pricing frameworks in organization; and
• Find out how you can become more efficient in pricing through tips that will help you avoid repeatedly doing the same thing with progress.

 

“When you have an opportunity to price something, first, go and try to talk to the customers.”

– Vikas Pal Boaddh

 

Topics Covered:

01:44 – The happy accident that led to Vikas joining Honeywell

02:48 – What’s in the cost plus model that made Vikas passionate about it?

04:35 – Two things to take note of when implementing value-based pricing

05:51 – How Honeywell understands customers and their business

09:37 – Where should pricing sit in an organization?

10:53 – The difference in the roles of a pricing person and a product manager

12:32 – The first pillar in pricing frameworks for an organization

14:03 – The three other pillars of pricing organization

16:19 – The competition of having the credit for the price

18:36 – Where does Vikas put the focus when trying to become more efficient?

21:35 – Vikas’ pricing advice for listeners

 

Key Takeaways:

“Know the customers inside out. Understand your customer base. If someone doesn't know [their customers], they will find it difficult to implement value-based [pricing].” – Vikas Pal Boaddh

“It’s the pricing person's job to talk to the customers. Ask them about all the things which goes in their business, understand them, model them, dollarize them, and then set the price.” – Vikas Pal Boaddh

“As a pricing person, I have a key say in what the price should be, but I just said, the people who own the product – for example, operating managers – they are the people who are kind of holding the price for that. They should be doing a final sign off on that. As a pricing person, it's my role to provide all kinds of inputs and guidance to help them reach there.” – Vikas Pal Boaddh

 

People / Resources Mentioned:

• Food Tech:https://www.foodtech.com/
• Honeywell:https://www.honeywell.com/us/en

 

Connect with Vikas Pal Boaddh:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikas-boaddh-673a896/?originalSubdomain=my
• Email: [email protected]

 

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/
• Email: [email protected]