October 16, 2025 • 32 mins
What happens when the pricing playbook you’ve relied on no longer works? In this episode of Let’s Talk Pricing, PPS President Kevin Mitchell sits down with Christina Wirth, CPP, Managing Director and Head of Pricing & Commercial Enablement at KPMG US, to explore what it really means to “forget what you knew about pricing.”
With over 20 years of experience driving pricing transformation across global professional services firms, Christina shares:
The legacy pricing habits holding companies back—and why they persist
How leaders can dismantle outdated models to unlock new value
The disruptive role of Generative AI and the rise of Outcome-Based Pricing at Scale
Where human judgment still matters in an algorithmic world
Her roadmap for leading successful pricing transformations
Christina also gives a sneak peek into her upcoming profitABLE25 Las Vegas keynote, where she’ll challenge pricing leaders to rethink what’s possible.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You're listening to Let's Talk Pricing, your connection to the
voices, stories, and strategies shaping the pricing world.
Each episode, we go beyond theory into the practical,
timely conversations that help you lead with confidence and
drive results. Let's start the show.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Let's Talk Pricing podcast.
(00:22):
This is the official broadcast of PBS, the Professional Pricing
Society. I'm your host, Kevin Mitchell,
and today I'm very, very excitedthat we are joined by Christina
Worth. Christina is the Executive
Director and Leader of pricing and commercial excellence at
KPMG here in the USA. Christina has more than 20 years
(00:45):
of experience in strategic pricing and commercial
excellence across professional services B to B industries and
she's an expert in a lot of the things that we talk about here
on the Let's Talk Pricing podcast.
Christina has built and LED value based pricing functions at
two of the BIG4 firms. She has driven pricing
(01:06):
transformations for multibilliondollar organizations and she has
lectured globally on the things that are made and dear to our
heart, like pricing strategy andleadership and best practices
and much, much more. And of course, the PPS team.
We are very, very excited that Christina's going to join us at
the Profitable Las Vegas conference coming up here very
(01:29):
soon. And Christina's keynote is
entitled Forget What You knew about pricing.
And today, she's going to give us some best practices, talk
about what's new and what's next, and also give us a quick
preview of the themes behind herkeynote address coming up.
(01:49):
Christina, always good to see you and welcome to the Let's
Talk Pricing podcast. You as well, Kevin.
So happy to be here. Thank you very much.
We appreciate that. And first of all, I did a brief
introduction of your background,but please tell us a little bit
more about your background, about your role at KPMG and
(02:10):
about your team and what they are focusing on, please.
Yeah, absolutely. So I've spent the last, oh boy,
2 decades of my career in pricing strategy and business
transformation. And currently I lead KPMGS
pricing and commercial enablement practice and on paper
(02:31):
that means that my team and I focus on, you know, pricing
strategy, advanced analytics negotiation techniques and
implementing technologies to make our firm more effective
with their pricing strategies. But what that really means is
that we are in the trenches withour business leaders who are
just trying to navigate really the most destructive commercial
(02:52):
environment of our lifetime right now.
And our job is to help them answer the fundamental question,
how do we create and capture value when all the old rules are
breaking? So it's less about optimizing
spreadsheets and much more aboutarchitecting the company's
future based off of client value.
(03:13):
Understood. And I'm certain that your two
decades plus in pricing has absolutely flown by.
And with the new challenges thatwe're facing now, of course, I'm
sure that you and your team havea very full plate.
But some of the things that you mentioned there, we have to deal
with analytics, we have to deal with disruption, but we also
have to keep our focus on the value that our organizations
(03:36):
have created over the decades and also make sure that we focus
on the customer needs there as well.
And of course, I'm very, very much looking forward to your
keynote address with us. Forget what you knew about
pricing. So tell me about what inspired
that title and what's the urgentmessage that we as pricing
(03:59):
leaders, we as revenue managers,what's the message that we need
to hear right now? So the title is really a I call
it a deliberate wake up call. It's inspired by the difficult
truth that I'm seeing every day in our field, which is the
pricing models that built our careers are quietly becoming one
(04:21):
of our biggest liabilities. And the very foundation of our
entire profession that we built it on has simply vanished.
And the urgent message is that this isn't really a gradual
shift. We're not in calm waters.
We are facing these, I call it 2tidal waves hitting us at the
exact same time. And the first is this
(04:44):
unprecedented economic volatility, and the second is
this exponential disruptive force of generative AI.
And the playbooks from the last decade just won't work.
Over the next 18 months, they'llactively be holding us back, and
this is really the moment where we must consciously choose to
(05:05):
either let go of the old rules or become irrelevant.
Understood. And as we know, being human
beings, inertia and change management are really big
obstacles to overcome with us ina lot of ways.
So I think it's interesting how you talk about the fact that the
(05:25):
old playbooks, so to speak, the old best practices, the old
strategies and tactics, given the economic volatility, given
disruption, given the new technology and the new tools
around Gen. AI, a gentic AI and everything
that's new there. Really we are in a position
where we have to get retrained and we have to kind of flip a
(05:47):
switch and be ready for what's new and what's next.
So looking forward to some greatinformation there.
And Christina, one of the thingsthat you talked about are the,
let's call them the legacy habits that we'll probably need
to overcome. So in your opinion, what are
some of the most common outdatedthings that we've seen?
(06:08):
And why do they still exist in companies that otherwise are
very strong at change managementand very strong at managing
people, but still we see some outdated things that have legs,
so to speak. So why do you think that is?
That is a fantastic question. The most common, without a
(06:30):
doubt, I'd say, is the annual price review.
It's this idea that you can carve a price list into a stone
tablet once a year and that the world will just hold still for
you, right? It's it's a complete relic.
And I'd say another is just thisobsession with cost plus
pricing, which anchors your value to your own inefficiencies
(06:52):
or even simple competitor matching, which anchors you to a
competitor who is likely just aslost as you are.
And you know, for why they persist.
Well, I mean, I, I think that it's entirely human.
There's this deep human need forcontrol.
And in a chaotic world, these old familiar processes feel
(07:14):
safe, right? They are this organizational
muscle memory, but it's really this false sense of control, and
we're clinging to a map of the world that just no longer exists
right now. And then we're wondering why
we're lost. Understood.
And I know that we're talking about your, but you accidentally
(07:36):
and maybe, I don't know, maybe you are psychic.
You gave a quick preview, believe it or not, of my opening
speech that I'm going to talk about at our event coming up
here in a couple weeks. And very briefly, I did some
research and I tried to find what was the first written price
list that we could find in history.
(07:58):
And believe it or not, there wassome Indiana Jones guy in the
Tigris Euphrates Valley, where of course, a lot of the first
civilizations and 1st cities kind of sprung up.
And he found a stone tablet thathad what we would consider a
price list, actually what we would consider a manufacturer's
(08:19):
maximum price list, where for a cow, it was written in stone.
You couldn't charge more than this amount and things like
that. So I think it's interesting that
legacy habits like this are partof human nature.
They go back millennia. I mean, this goes back to a
couple thousand years BC when there was actually a carb price
(08:39):
list. And so, yeah, we do have that
resistance to change. We do have that human need for
control and think of as you mentioned an annual price
increase a year ago right now seems that it was almost in the
Middle Ages. Things are changing so quickly
(08:59):
right now and our plans from a year ago, if we think as we're
recording this October 2024, so much has happened since then
that affects us on a daily basis.
But you're absolutely correct. These are relics.
These are suboptimal in a lot ofdifferent dimensions and these
legacy habits are things that wedefinitely need to correct.
(09:21):
And also I like how you talked about the cost plus pricing or
competitive pricing also being abit of a relic there.
And here on the Let's Talk Pricing podcast, we say that
pricing is so important because someone is making a pricing
decision that affects every dollar, euro, yen, yuan,
whatever that comes into your organization.
(09:42):
And that can be a gut reaction. That can be something somebody
did a year or years plural ago. It could be something that
someone etched on a stone tablet2000 BC, or it could be your
competitors. And it's such an important
decision that we need to take advantage of all the tools, all
the training that we have in order to do the best that we can
and making that very important decision.
(10:03):
So I'm very interested in your discussion and I appreciate how
you talk about getting rid of the relics there.
So another question and the nextstep from that is you as a
pricing leader and what would beyour recommendation to other
pricing leaders as we try to dismantle these old these old
(10:24):
habits? What are the internal roadblocks
we have to overcome? Is this a technological problem?
Is it a data problem? Is it a people problem?
What are the elements there thatmake it most difficult for us to
overcome these relics and these old processes?
Yeah, great. Great question.
(10:47):
It's 100% of people problem, butit almost always disguises
itself as I'd say a technology or a data problem because you'll
hear things like our CRM just can't handle dynamic pricing or
we don't have clean enough data to do that.
But what's really happening beneath the surface is I call it
(11:07):
fear. You know, it's the sales team
being afraid that their new model will hurt their Commission
checks or the finance team beingafraid of unpredictable revenue
streams. And the real roadblock is fear
of this, of this unknown. And this means the pricing
leaders job has, I'd say fundamentally changed.
It's no longer about being the best analyst in the room.
(11:31):
It's more about being a diplomat, A storyteller, a
change agent who can build trustacross the entire organization.
Understood. And yeah, I would certainly
agree with that. And really at the crux of it,
there are a lot of cases where we as prices, we as revenue
(11:53):
managers have to influence without direct authority in a
lot of cases. And we have to talk to people.
We have to talk to people, sorry, in a language that they
can understand as well in order to help them grow and overcome
these fears of the unpredictablethings that are next.
So that is a big part of our job.
(12:14):
Sometimes it takes a psychological group hug or a pat
on the back to say, hey, we can do this, we are good.
Our company invests so much to create the value in our goods,
products and services. And it's our job to make sure
that we are all compensated wellfor that because that's where
salaries, bonuses, reinvestment in R&D, reinvestment in our
(12:36):
communities or whatever, all of that comes from those decisions.
So it's very, very important that we do that.
And of course, another thing, another human element that you
mentioned, it's very important there is we do relate to stories
and anecdotes sometimes more than we relate to spreadsheets
and data. Even though spreadsheets and
(12:57):
data are amongst some of our favorite things, they may not
work as well for our compatriotsand for other people in other
departments that we have to workwith.
So you're right, we've got to doboth.
We have to be the artists and the scientists there sometimes.
Yeah, absolutely. All right.
We are overdue for a quick breakhere, but please hold on the
Let's Talk Pricing podcast with Christina Worth.
(13:20):
We'll be right back. Thank you so much.
If you're serious about growing your pricing career, you need to
hear this. We're heading to Las Vegas this
October 21st through 24th for PPS Profitable Pricing's
preeminent conference. Four days of bold strategies,
practical tools and real world solutions to help you boost
(13:40):
margins, lead with confidence and accelerate your career.
Connect with pricing leaders, sharpen your skills and leave
ready to make an immediate impact.
And if you're bringing your team, be sure to check out our
bundled group rates for even more value.
Secure your spot today at pricingsociety.com.
PPS LV25. All right, back to the show.
(14:05):
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Let's Talk Pricing
Podcast. I'm Kevin Mitchell from PBS and
today we are talking with Christina Worth.
Christina is the Executive Director and Leader of pricing
and commercial enablement at KPMGUS.
And Christina, we've been talking about quite a few
(14:25):
interesting things already. But one of the things that you
mentioned in your introduction as one of the disruptive factors
that we as pricing professionals, that we as
revenue managers, we in sales, whatever our functions are that
we have to deal with is generative AI.
So most people right now are beginning to view Gen.
(14:45):
AI as a tool for efficiency, a way to do some of the old things
that we used to do in a quicker fashion, in a faster fashion.
But I think that you are suggesting that the impact is
much more fundamental. Can you please expand on that
for us? This is probably the most
(15:06):
critical distinction for leadersto grasp right now.
You know, viewing generative AI as just this efficiency tool is
like looking at the fall first automobile and saying, great, a
faster horse. It is this just, I guess, a
profound failure of imagination.This technology doesn't just
(15:27):
make our old work easier, it makes entirely new kinds of work
possible for the first time and for our entire careers.
The complexity of creating just as truly dynamic, personalized
price for every single customer and every single moment was just
impossibly high. But generative AI, you know,
(15:50):
really makes that a reality. This will unlock an explosion of
new ways to create value and then price for that value.
And the leaders who win won't bethe ones who do the old things
10% or 20% faster. They will be the ones who invent
the new things or reimagine the existing things just
(16:11):
differently. I think a really good example of
this is outcome based pricing. While it's existed in services
for years, AI creating just new ways to apply it in other
industries as well. So it's interesting that you
mentioned that generative AI anda lot of us do think of it as
kind of an easy button there. But really what you're success
(16:34):
is, it's not really just an easybutton.
It's a way to change our models to improve our process to in the
example that you mentioned to improve by doing outcome based
pricing and really to create a more dynamic organization.
So that's quite a fundamental change there from just being an
(16:54):
easy button, can you tabulate these notes and write an e-mail
for me to going all the way towards, hey, let's do some
special dynamic outcome based pricing for this segment of our
customers, which would have beencost prohibitive and bandwidth
prohibitive before. So that's a very interesting way
to look at at Jen AI and of course we're very excited to see
(17:17):
the progresses and to see what'snext there.
And since you mentioned outcome based pricing as a new frontier,
do you have a a good example of how a bricks and mortar or how a
traditional company might be able to look at doing outcome
based pricing? Because that's very new for a
lot of us. Yeah, yeah, of course.
(17:40):
So let's take a traditional company that sells industrial
equipment, say, say pumps for manufacturing plant.
The old model is selling a physical pump for $50,000 and
that price was probably based onsome formula involving your
material costs and what competitors are selling similar
(18:00):
pumps for end of transaction. But the new model is selling,
I'll call it a guaranteed operational uptime.
Instead of selling a piece of hardware, they used sensors and
AI to predict maintenance needs before they even happen.
And their price is no longer forthe pump, but it's a
(18:21):
subscription tied directly to the value that they deliver.
And maybe they paid a percentageof the client savings that
they're achieving from avoiding factory downtime.
They're no longer selling a product.
They're really selling a business outcome.
And the way to start is, I'd call it small.
(18:41):
You know you don't want to be boiling the ocean.
You find one of your most innovative customers and you Co
create and pilot a project with them, right?
You build 1 powerful success story from there and that really
becomes your proof point to justdrive a broader change across
your organization. Understood.
And from a customer's perspective of course, hey,
(19:04):
since you work at KPMG, you knowthis, but that also can change
some of the thinking from kind of a fixed cost to a variable
cost CapEx, OpEx and so on and so forth there.
But it really, I can see how that example can create a win
win with your customer because your customer may not want the
(19:25):
repair headaches and the replacement headaches of that
pump. But if there is an outcome based
or a subscription model like that, when it performs better,
not only are is their performance better, but that's
also better for the manufactureras well.
So it kind of builds a win win there by looking at uptime and
(19:45):
looking at performance as the basis for the price that's
charged there. So it might create one of those
incredibly rare fantastic situations where your customer
might want to actually pay you more because that means that
you're getting better performance and kind of getting
a win win there. So a very interesting example.
(20:06):
So thank you very much for that.And of course, we've been
talking a lot about disruptive forces and we've also touched on
Gen. AI and a little bit about
machine learning. As well, given all the
disruption that's going on, whatdo you feel is the right balance
(20:26):
between the human judgement, theGray cells up here that we've
all built and worked on, and machine learning and using the
latest tools and pricing? Are machines going to take over?
What do you think is coming nexthere?
No, no, not at all. It's not about replacement, it's
really about augmentation. You know, the model that I talk
(20:49):
about is, I'll call it the AI Coworker.
The machine is absolutely brilliant at finding the quote
UN quote what right It can analyze a billion data points
and tell you customers in this industry will pay 7% more for
that bundle. But the humans role is to
provide the wisdom and build therelationships to ask the why and
(21:12):
the So what in these situations.So in a real negotiation your AI
Co worker might whisper in your ear that does just this.
Client values long term support much more than an upfront
discount. So the AI is providing the
tactical insight but then the human needs to provide the
empathy and actually close the deal.
(21:33):
So no, it doesn't replace your people, but it does give them
superpowers. Understood.
And in a lot of ways, we have tothink of this as a tool that as
you mentioned is going to multiply our efforts and is
going to be there for some greatinformation and some insights
(21:55):
that we might not be able to tell initially at first.
So really, I feel that you are leading us toward a situation
where AI is going to become an indispensable tool that we're
all going to rely on. And really it's just a factor of
how well we can use the tools versus what else is going on out
(22:16):
there. But really, it is going to be a
way that we can get those tactical insights, a way that we
can multiply our own brain work and our own sweat equity, so to
speak, in order to perform even better.
All right, terrific. And we will be right back on the
(22:37):
Let's Talk Pricing podcast with Christina Worth.
We've got a very quick break here, but we'll be right back.
Thank you so much for joining us.
If you're serious about growing your pricing career, you need to
hear this. We're heading to Las Vegas this
October 21st through 24th for PPS Profitable Pricings
Preeminent Conference. Four days of bold strategies,
(22:59):
practical tools and real world solutions to help you boost
margins, lead with confidence and accelerate your career.
Connect with pricing leaders, sharpen your skills and leave
ready to make an immediate impact.
And if you're bringing your team, be sure to check out our
bundled group rates for even more value.
Secure your spot today at pricingsociety.com.
(23:21):
PPS LV25. All right, back to the show.
Welcome back to the Let's Talk Pricing podcast, everyone.
I'm Kevin Mitchell from PBS, andwe are talking with Christina
Worth from KPMG about lots of great things here.
We're talking about how we have to forget what we knew about
pricing. We're talking about the tools,
(23:42):
We are talking about how human interaction is still going to be
at the forefront of everything, and we're talking about how
pricing leaders can dismantle some old unprofitable habits in
order to move our organizations forward.
And Christina, one of the central things around being a
pricing leader is that you have to lead pricing transformations.
(24:07):
And we've talked a little bit about dismantling old suboptimal
habits and about trying to overcome human beings, natural
states of inertia and fear of what's new and fear of the
unknown in order to move forward.
And those are very challenging things.
(24:30):
So as a pricing leader, where would you recommend that we
start with dismantling some of these old habits and leading
pricing transformation? Yeah, don't get me wrong, it
does sound challenging and the first impulse is often to try to
plan this massive multi year boil the ocean overhaul, but
(24:52):
I've personally learned that that is a recipe for failure.
You really need to start by by building momentum.
And don't get me wrong, you definitely need a vision.
You need an end goal, but you need to find one business unit
or one product line or one salesteam, what I would call, you
(25:12):
know, a coalition of the willing.
And you run one targeted, manageable experiment to prove
that the new way works, right? You, you create a small but
undeniable win. And then you socialize that win
just relentlessly across your organization.
And that success really creates A gravitational pull that will
(25:34):
just bring everyone else along. I see.
And we've known each other for awhile and I know what part of
the world you're from. So I could make an analogy to
say that instead of rolling thisout globally or across the USA
or across Europe, maybe we startwith a nice win.
If we have geographic territories or business units,
(25:56):
maybe we start with a a great win with people who are willing
contributors in Rhode Island andsay, hey, if we can have these
great gains in Rhode Island, just think what we can do in
Pennsylvania and Texas and California and New York and
larger states. And then we give a lot of credit
to our partners in Rhode Island and work with us.
(26:17):
We make sure to give them that huge pat on the back and say,
hey, Christina and Eric in RhodeIsland did amazing things.
And we make sure to publicize them as much as we can and we
expand from there. So it's kind of the old, as you
mentioned, we're going to win small and we're going to assume
multiplication in a lot of ways there.
(26:39):
Spot on. I'm sorry.
Spot on, Kevin. There we go.
Got you. All right.
And finally and once again, we are very, very excited that
you're joining us at the PBS Profitable Las Vegas conference
coming up. And what else can we expect from
your presentation with us? What are one or two things that
(27:02):
our attendees are going to walk away from?
What insights are you going to give our members when they come
to see you? Yeah, thanks, Kevin.
And I'm, I am very excited to bethere.
So attendees can expect a session that moves beyond theory
and delivers a clear, actionableroad map for change.
And this won't just be a talk about change.
(27:26):
We'll actually build a frameworkfor it.
So you'll leave with concrete strategies that can start that
you can start thinking about on Monday morning.
But really, the one thing, the one single idea that I would
want everyone to walk away with is a new sense of purpose and
(27:48):
identity. I want them to stop seeing
themselves as managers of a pricing system and start seeing
themselves as the architects of their company's future value.
This really just chaotic moment isn't a threat.
It is the single greatest opportunity of our professional
lives to step up and lead. Absolutely, and it's such an
(28:11):
interesting time for people in our very important part of the
business world. And there are lots of
opportunities here as well. And I like how you are going to
challenge us to be the architects within our own
company instead of someone who thinks of himself or herself as
an analyst or a manager. And we do have a challenge to
(28:34):
build these frameworks for change.
And of course, you know PPS members were all about
actionable items that we can start on Monday morning right
after the conference and start to get to work within our
organizations, within our marketplaces and with our
customers and other departments as well.
So that is very interesting and we are very much looking forward
(28:57):
to it. And Christina, it looks like we
are almost out of time here and I think I already know what your
answer is going to be, but I have one more question from you
and I'm going to give credit to a gentleman named Ed Kless for
this one. At the last PPS conference, we
had a panel and there were four people on the panel, three
(29:19):
others and and me. And we had a great discussion
and he asked them a very simple but very difficult question in a
way. And his question was, we kind of
know that pricing is both an artand a science, But if you had to
pick one or the other, which would you say is pricing an art
(29:40):
or is pricing a science? And just for background, we had
three people on the panel. We had one artist, one scientist
and one person who kind of ducked the question.
And I'm still following up from that individual on an answer
there. But what are your thoughts
there? Man, there really is a tough
question, Kevin. And as much as I would want to
(30:02):
say split it down the middle because it is 5050, I think that
really a pricing leaders job is more of an artist.
However, you need to have scientists on your team to be
able to help inform you and makeit happen.
So depending on your role, it can really augment whether
you're going to fall more into the artist category or more of
(30:24):
the scientist category. All right, very nice and stated
and appreciate the information on our nice curveball question
there. And Christina Worth, we are very
much looking forward to seeing you at PPS Profitable.
Christina is going to deliver a keynote address and title.
Forget what you knew about pricing.
(30:47):
And I'm really excited for that.And we're looking forward to
seeing you again soon. And before we wrap up today's
Let's Talk Pricing podcast with Christina Worth, I want to make
sure that everyone is following PBS and following Let's Talk
Pricing wherever you listen to podcasts.
And of course, please join us atthe profitable conferences
(31:09):
coming up, Las Vegas October 21st through 24th, Barcelona the
2nd through the 5th of December.And also, we'll have a schedule
for our 2026 events coming very soon.
And as we know, PBS profitable conferences are the one place
where basically everyone within pricing and revenue management
(31:30):
gets together. We have great discussions and we
get to reconnect with old friends and also meet new
colleagues as well and have great actionable discussions
like we had in today's podcast. So Christina, once again, thank
you so much. We are looking forward to seeing
you again soon and it's been a pleasure having you on the Let's
Talk Pricing podcast. It was my pleasure, Kevin, and
(31:53):
thank you and thank you to the whole team at the Professional
Prices Society. All right, Thanks very much,
Christina, and we will look for everyone.
Please join us again for other episodes of the Let's Talk
Pricing podcast coming up. Have a great day everyone and
thank you so much.
You're listening to Let's Talk Pricing, your connection to the
voices, stories, and strategies shaping the pricing world.
Each episode, we go beyond theory into the practical,
timely conversations that help you lead with confidence and
drive results. Let's start the show.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Let's Talk Pricing podcast.
(00:22):
This is the official broadcast of PBS, the Professional Pricing
Society. I'm your host, Kevin Mitchell,
and today I'm very, very excitedthat we are joined by Christina
Worth. Christina is the Executive
Director and Leader of pricing and commercial excellence at
KPMG here in the USA. Christina has more than 20 years
(00:45):
of experience in strategic pricing and commercial
excellence across professional services B to B industries and
she's an expert in a lot of the things that we talk about here
on the Let's Talk Pricing podcast.
Christina has built and LED value based pricing functions at
two of the BIG4 firms. She has driven pricing
(01:06):
transformations for multibilliondollar organizations and she has
lectured globally on the things that are made and dear to our
heart, like pricing strategy andleadership and best practices
and much, much more. And of course, the PPS team.
We are very, very excited that Christina's going to join us at
the Profitable Las Vegas conference coming up here very
(01:29):
soon. And Christina's keynote is
entitled Forget What You knew about pricing.
And today, she's going to give us some best practices, talk
about what's new and what's next, and also give us a quick
preview of the themes behind herkeynote address coming up.
(01:49):
Christina, always good to see you and welcome to the Let's
Talk Pricing podcast. You as well, Kevin.
So happy to be here. Thank you very much.
We appreciate that. And first of all, I did a brief
introduction of your background,but please tell us a little bit
more about your background, about your role at KPMG and
(02:10):
about your team and what they are focusing on, please.
Yeah, absolutely. So I've spent the last, oh boy,
2 decades of my career in pricing strategy and business
transformation. And currently I lead KPMGS
pricing and commercial enablement practice and on paper
(02:31):
that means that my team and I focus on, you know, pricing
strategy, advanced analytics negotiation techniques and
implementing technologies to make our firm more effective
with their pricing strategies. But what that really means is
that we are in the trenches withour business leaders who are
just trying to navigate really the most destructive commercial
(02:52):
environment of our lifetime right now.
And our job is to help them answer the fundamental question,
how do we create and capture value when all the old rules are
breaking? So it's less about optimizing
spreadsheets and much more aboutarchitecting the company's
future based off of client value.
(03:13):
Understood. And I'm certain that your two
decades plus in pricing has absolutely flown by.
And with the new challenges thatwe're facing now, of course, I'm
sure that you and your team havea very full plate.
But some of the things that you mentioned there, we have to deal
with analytics, we have to deal with disruption, but we also
have to keep our focus on the value that our organizations
(03:36):
have created over the decades and also make sure that we focus
on the customer needs there as well.
And of course, I'm very, very much looking forward to your
keynote address with us. Forget what you knew about
pricing. So tell me about what inspired
that title and what's the urgentmessage that we as pricing
(03:59):
leaders, we as revenue managers,what's the message that we need
to hear right now? So the title is really a I call
it a deliberate wake up call. It's inspired by the difficult
truth that I'm seeing every day in our field, which is the
pricing models that built our careers are quietly becoming one
(04:21):
of our biggest liabilities. And the very foundation of our
entire profession that we built it on has simply vanished.
And the urgent message is that this isn't really a gradual
shift. We're not in calm waters.
We are facing these, I call it 2tidal waves hitting us at the
exact same time. And the first is this
(04:44):
unprecedented economic volatility, and the second is
this exponential disruptive force of generative AI.
And the playbooks from the last decade just won't work.
Over the next 18 months, they'llactively be holding us back, and
this is really the moment where we must consciously choose to
(05:05):
either let go of the old rules or become irrelevant.
Understood. And as we know, being human
beings, inertia and change management are really big
obstacles to overcome with us ina lot of ways.
So I think it's interesting how you talk about the fact that the
(05:25):
old playbooks, so to speak, the old best practices, the old
strategies and tactics, given the economic volatility, given
disruption, given the new technology and the new tools
around Gen. AI, a gentic AI and everything
that's new there. Really we are in a position
where we have to get retrained and we have to kind of flip a
(05:47):
switch and be ready for what's new and what's next.
So looking forward to some greatinformation there.
And Christina, one of the thingsthat you talked about are the,
let's call them the legacy habits that we'll probably need
to overcome. So in your opinion, what are
some of the most common outdatedthings that we've seen?
(06:08):
And why do they still exist in companies that otherwise are
very strong at change managementand very strong at managing
people, but still we see some outdated things that have legs,
so to speak. So why do you think that is?
That is a fantastic question. The most common, without a
(06:30):
doubt, I'd say, is the annual price review.
It's this idea that you can carve a price list into a stone
tablet once a year and that the world will just hold still for
you, right? It's it's a complete relic.
And I'd say another is just thisobsession with cost plus
pricing, which anchors your value to your own inefficiencies
(06:52):
or even simple competitor matching, which anchors you to a
competitor who is likely just aslost as you are.
And you know, for why they persist.
Well, I mean, I, I think that it's entirely human.
There's this deep human need forcontrol.
And in a chaotic world, these old familiar processes feel
(07:14):
safe, right? They are this organizational
muscle memory, but it's really this false sense of control, and
we're clinging to a map of the world that just no longer exists
right now. And then we're wondering why
we're lost. Understood.
And I know that we're talking about your, but you accidentally
(07:36):
and maybe, I don't know, maybe you are psychic.
You gave a quick preview, believe it or not, of my opening
speech that I'm going to talk about at our event coming up
here in a couple weeks. And very briefly, I did some
research and I tried to find what was the first written price
list that we could find in history.
(07:58):
And believe it or not, there wassome Indiana Jones guy in the
Tigris Euphrates Valley, where of course, a lot of the first
civilizations and 1st cities kind of sprung up.
And he found a stone tablet thathad what we would consider a
price list, actually what we would consider a manufacturer's
(08:19):
maximum price list, where for a cow, it was written in stone.
You couldn't charge more than this amount and things like
that. So I think it's interesting that
legacy habits like this are partof human nature.
They go back millennia. I mean, this goes back to a
couple thousand years BC when there was actually a carb price
(08:39):
list. And so, yeah, we do have that
resistance to change. We do have that human need for
control and think of as you mentioned an annual price
increase a year ago right now seems that it was almost in the
Middle Ages. Things are changing so quickly
(08:59):
right now and our plans from a year ago, if we think as we're
recording this October 2024, so much has happened since then
that affects us on a daily basis.
But you're absolutely correct. These are relics.
These are suboptimal in a lot ofdifferent dimensions and these
legacy habits are things that wedefinitely need to correct.
(09:21):
And also I like how you talked about the cost plus pricing or
competitive pricing also being abit of a relic there.
And here on the Let's Talk Pricing podcast, we say that
pricing is so important because someone is making a pricing
decision that affects every dollar, euro, yen, yuan,
whatever that comes into your organization.
(09:42):
And that can be a gut reaction. That can be something somebody
did a year or years plural ago. It could be something that
someone etched on a stone tablet2000 BC, or it could be your
competitors. And it's such an important
decision that we need to take advantage of all the tools, all
the training that we have in order to do the best that we can
and making that very important decision.
(10:03):
So I'm very interested in your discussion and I appreciate how
you talk about getting rid of the relics there.
So another question and the nextstep from that is you as a
pricing leader and what would beyour recommendation to other
pricing leaders as we try to dismantle these old these old
(10:24):
habits? What are the internal roadblocks
we have to overcome? Is this a technological problem?
Is it a data problem? Is it a people problem?
What are the elements there thatmake it most difficult for us to
overcome these relics and these old processes?
Yeah, great. Great question.
(10:47):
It's 100% of people problem, butit almost always disguises
itself as I'd say a technology or a data problem because you'll
hear things like our CRM just can't handle dynamic pricing or
we don't have clean enough data to do that.
But what's really happening beneath the surface is I call it
(11:07):
fear. You know, it's the sales team
being afraid that their new model will hurt their Commission
checks or the finance team beingafraid of unpredictable revenue
streams. And the real roadblock is fear
of this, of this unknown. And this means the pricing
leaders job has, I'd say fundamentally changed.
It's no longer about being the best analyst in the room.
(11:31):
It's more about being a diplomat, A storyteller, a
change agent who can build trustacross the entire organization.
Understood. And yeah, I would certainly
agree with that. And really at the crux of it,
there are a lot of cases where we as prices, we as revenue
(11:53):
managers have to influence without direct authority in a
lot of cases. And we have to talk to people.
We have to talk to people, sorry, in a language that they
can understand as well in order to help them grow and overcome
these fears of the unpredictablethings that are next.
So that is a big part of our job.
(12:14):
Sometimes it takes a psychological group hug or a pat
on the back to say, hey, we can do this, we are good.
Our company invests so much to create the value in our goods,
products and services. And it's our job to make sure
that we are all compensated wellfor that because that's where
salaries, bonuses, reinvestment in R&D, reinvestment in our
(12:36):
communities or whatever, all of that comes from those decisions.
So it's very, very important that we do that.
And of course, another thing, another human element that you
mentioned, it's very important there is we do relate to stories
and anecdotes sometimes more than we relate to spreadsheets
and data. Even though spreadsheets and
(12:57):
data are amongst some of our favorite things, they may not
work as well for our compatriotsand for other people in other
departments that we have to workwith.
So you're right, we've got to doboth.
We have to be the artists and the scientists there sometimes.
Yeah, absolutely. All right.
We are overdue for a quick breakhere, but please hold on the
Let's Talk Pricing podcast with Christina Worth.
(13:20):
We'll be right back. Thank you so much.
If you're serious about growing your pricing career, you need to
hear this. We're heading to Las Vegas this
October 21st through 24th for PPS Profitable Pricing's
preeminent conference. Four days of bold strategies,
practical tools and real world solutions to help you boost
(13:40):
margins, lead with confidence and accelerate your career.
Connect with pricing leaders, sharpen your skills and leave
ready to make an immediate impact.
And if you're bringing your team, be sure to check out our
bundled group rates for even more value.
Secure your spot today at pricingsociety.com.
PPS LV25. All right, back to the show.
(14:05):
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Let's Talk Pricing
Podcast. I'm Kevin Mitchell from PBS and
today we are talking with Christina Worth.
Christina is the Executive Director and Leader of pricing
and commercial enablement at KPMGUS.
And Christina, we've been talking about quite a few
(14:25):
interesting things already. But one of the things that you
mentioned in your introduction as one of the disruptive factors
that we as pricing professionals, that we as
revenue managers, we in sales, whatever our functions are that
we have to deal with is generative AI.
So most people right now are beginning to view Gen.
(14:45):
AI as a tool for efficiency, a way to do some of the old things
that we used to do in a quicker fashion, in a faster fashion.
But I think that you are suggesting that the impact is
much more fundamental. Can you please expand on that
for us? This is probably the most
(15:06):
critical distinction for leadersto grasp right now.
You know, viewing generative AI as just this efficiency tool is
like looking at the fall first automobile and saying, great, a
faster horse. It is this just, I guess, a
profound failure of imagination.This technology doesn't just
(15:27):
make our old work easier, it makes entirely new kinds of work
possible for the first time and for our entire careers.
The complexity of creating just as truly dynamic, personalized
price for every single customer and every single moment was just
impossibly high. But generative AI, you know,
(15:50):
really makes that a reality. This will unlock an explosion of
new ways to create value and then price for that value.
And the leaders who win won't bethe ones who do the old things
10% or 20% faster. They will be the ones who invent
the new things or reimagine the existing things just
(16:11):
differently. I think a really good example of
this is outcome based pricing. While it's existed in services
for years, AI creating just new ways to apply it in other
industries as well. So it's interesting that you
mentioned that generative AI anda lot of us do think of it as
kind of an easy button there. But really what you're success
(16:34):
is, it's not really just an easybutton.
It's a way to change our models to improve our process to in the
example that you mentioned to improve by doing outcome based
pricing and really to create a more dynamic organization.
So that's quite a fundamental change there from just being an
(16:54):
easy button, can you tabulate these notes and write an e-mail
for me to going all the way towards, hey, let's do some
special dynamic outcome based pricing for this segment of our
customers, which would have beencost prohibitive and bandwidth
prohibitive before. So that's a very interesting way
to look at at Jen AI and of course we're very excited to see
(17:17):
the progresses and to see what'snext there.
And since you mentioned outcome based pricing as a new frontier,
do you have a a good example of how a bricks and mortar or how a
traditional company might be able to look at doing outcome
based pricing? Because that's very new for a
lot of us. Yeah, yeah, of course.
(17:40):
So let's take a traditional company that sells industrial
equipment, say, say pumps for manufacturing plant.
The old model is selling a physical pump for $50,000 and
that price was probably based onsome formula involving your
material costs and what competitors are selling similar
(18:00):
pumps for end of transaction. But the new model is selling,
I'll call it a guaranteed operational uptime.
Instead of selling a piece of hardware, they used sensors and
AI to predict maintenance needs before they even happen.
And their price is no longer forthe pump, but it's a
(18:21):
subscription tied directly to the value that they deliver.
And maybe they paid a percentageof the client savings that
they're achieving from avoiding factory downtime.
They're no longer selling a product.
They're really selling a business outcome.
And the way to start is, I'd call it small.
(18:41):
You know you don't want to be boiling the ocean.
You find one of your most innovative customers and you Co
create and pilot a project with them, right?
You build 1 powerful success story from there and that really
becomes your proof point to justdrive a broader change across
your organization. Understood.
And from a customer's perspective of course, hey,
(19:04):
since you work at KPMG, you knowthis, but that also can change
some of the thinking from kind of a fixed cost to a variable
cost CapEx, OpEx and so on and so forth there.
But it really, I can see how that example can create a win
win with your customer because your customer may not want the
(19:25):
repair headaches and the replacement headaches of that
pump. But if there is an outcome based
or a subscription model like that, when it performs better,
not only are is their performance better, but that's
also better for the manufactureras well.
So it kind of builds a win win there by looking at uptime and
(19:45):
looking at performance as the basis for the price that's
charged there. So it might create one of those
incredibly rare fantastic situations where your customer
might want to actually pay you more because that means that
you're getting better performance and kind of getting
a win win there. So a very interesting example.
(20:06):
So thank you very much for that.And of course, we've been
talking a lot about disruptive forces and we've also touched on
Gen. AI and a little bit about
machine learning. As well, given all the
disruption that's going on, whatdo you feel is the right balance
(20:26):
between the human judgement, theGray cells up here that we've
all built and worked on, and machine learning and using the
latest tools and pricing? Are machines going to take over?
What do you think is coming nexthere?
No, no, not at all. It's not about replacement, it's
really about augmentation. You know, the model that I talk
(20:49):
about is, I'll call it the AI Coworker.
The machine is absolutely brilliant at finding the quote
UN quote what right It can analyze a billion data points
and tell you customers in this industry will pay 7% more for
that bundle. But the humans role is to
provide the wisdom and build therelationships to ask the why and
(21:12):
the So what in these situations.So in a real negotiation your AI
Co worker might whisper in your ear that does just this.
Client values long term support much more than an upfront
discount. So the AI is providing the
tactical insight but then the human needs to provide the
empathy and actually close the deal.
(21:33):
So no, it doesn't replace your people, but it does give them
superpowers. Understood.
And in a lot of ways, we have tothink of this as a tool that as
you mentioned is going to multiply our efforts and is
going to be there for some greatinformation and some insights
(21:55):
that we might not be able to tell initially at first.
So really, I feel that you are leading us toward a situation
where AI is going to become an indispensable tool that we're
all going to rely on. And really it's just a factor of
how well we can use the tools versus what else is going on out
(22:16):
there. But really, it is going to be a
way that we can get those tactical insights, a way that we
can multiply our own brain work and our own sweat equity, so to
speak, in order to perform even better.
All right, terrific. And we will be right back on the
(22:37):
Let's Talk Pricing podcast with Christina Worth.
We've got a very quick break here, but we'll be right back.
Thank you so much for joining us.
If you're serious about growing your pricing career, you need to
hear this. We're heading to Las Vegas this
October 21st through 24th for PPS Profitable Pricings
Preeminent Conference. Four days of bold strategies,
(22:59):
practical tools and real world solutions to help you boost
margins, lead with confidence and accelerate your career.
Connect with pricing leaders, sharpen your skills and leave
ready to make an immediate impact.
And if you're bringing your team, be sure to check out our
bundled group rates for even more value.
Secure your spot today at pricingsociety.com.
(23:21):
PPS LV25. All right, back to the show.
Welcome back to the Let's Talk Pricing podcast, everyone.
I'm Kevin Mitchell from PBS, andwe are talking with Christina
Worth from KPMG about lots of great things here.
We're talking about how we have to forget what we knew about
pricing. We're talking about the tools,
(23:42):
We are talking about how human interaction is still going to be
at the forefront of everything, and we're talking about how
pricing leaders can dismantle some old unprofitable habits in
order to move our organizations forward.
And Christina, one of the central things around being a
pricing leader is that you have to lead pricing transformations.
(24:07):
And we've talked a little bit about dismantling old suboptimal
habits and about trying to overcome human beings, natural
states of inertia and fear of what's new and fear of the
unknown in order to move forward.
And those are very challenging things.
(24:30):
So as a pricing leader, where would you recommend that we
start with dismantling some of these old habits and leading
pricing transformation? Yeah, don't get me wrong, it
does sound challenging and the first impulse is often to try to
plan this massive multi year boil the ocean overhaul, but
(24:52):
I've personally learned that that is a recipe for failure.
You really need to start by by building momentum.
And don't get me wrong, you definitely need a vision.
You need an end goal, but you need to find one business unit
or one product line or one salesteam, what I would call, you
(25:12):
know, a coalition of the willing.
And you run one targeted, manageable experiment to prove
that the new way works, right? You, you create a small but
undeniable win. And then you socialize that win
just relentlessly across your organization.
And that success really creates A gravitational pull that will
(25:34):
just bring everyone else along. I see.
And we've known each other for awhile and I know what part of
the world you're from. So I could make an analogy to
say that instead of rolling thisout globally or across the USA
or across Europe, maybe we startwith a nice win.
If we have geographic territories or business units,
(25:56):
maybe we start with a a great win with people who are willing
contributors in Rhode Island andsay, hey, if we can have these
great gains in Rhode Island, just think what we can do in
Pennsylvania and Texas and California and New York and
larger states. And then we give a lot of credit
to our partners in Rhode Island and work with us.
(26:17):
We make sure to give them that huge pat on the back and say,
hey, Christina and Eric in RhodeIsland did amazing things.
And we make sure to publicize them as much as we can and we
expand from there. So it's kind of the old, as you
mentioned, we're going to win small and we're going to assume
multiplication in a lot of ways there.
(26:39):
Spot on. I'm sorry.
Spot on, Kevin. There we go.
Got you. All right.
And finally and once again, we are very, very excited that
you're joining us at the PBS Profitable Las Vegas conference
coming up. And what else can we expect from
your presentation with us? What are one or two things that
(27:02):
our attendees are going to walk away from?
What insights are you going to give our members when they come
to see you? Yeah, thanks, Kevin.
And I'm, I am very excited to bethere.
So attendees can expect a session that moves beyond theory
and delivers a clear, actionableroad map for change.
And this won't just be a talk about change.
(27:26):
We'll actually build a frameworkfor it.
So you'll leave with concrete strategies that can start that
you can start thinking about on Monday morning.
But really, the one thing, the one single idea that I would
want everyone to walk away with is a new sense of purpose and
(27:48):
identity. I want them to stop seeing
themselves as managers of a pricing system and start seeing
themselves as the architects of their company's future value.
This really just chaotic moment isn't a threat.
It is the single greatest opportunity of our professional
lives to step up and lead. Absolutely, and it's such an
(28:11):
interesting time for people in our very important part of the
business world. And there are lots of
opportunities here as well. And I like how you are going to
challenge us to be the architects within our own
company instead of someone who thinks of himself or herself as
an analyst or a manager. And we do have a challenge to
(28:34):
build these frameworks for change.
And of course, you know PPS members were all about
actionable items that we can start on Monday morning right
after the conference and start to get to work within our
organizations, within our marketplaces and with our
customers and other departments as well.
So that is very interesting and we are very much looking forward
(28:57):
to it. And Christina, it looks like we
are almost out of time here and I think I already know what your
answer is going to be, but I have one more question from you
and I'm going to give credit to a gentleman named Ed Kless for
this one. At the last PPS conference, we
had a panel and there were four people on the panel, three
(29:19):
others and and me. And we had a great discussion
and he asked them a very simple but very difficult question in a
way. And his question was, we kind of
know that pricing is both an artand a science, But if you had to
pick one or the other, which would you say is pricing an art
(29:40):
or is pricing a science? And just for background, we had
three people on the panel. We had one artist, one scientist
and one person who kind of ducked the question.
And I'm still following up from that individual on an answer
there. But what are your thoughts
there? Man, there really is a tough
question, Kevin. And as much as I would want to
(30:02):
say split it down the middle because it is 5050, I think that
really a pricing leaders job is more of an artist.
However, you need to have scientists on your team to be
able to help inform you and makeit happen.
So depending on your role, it can really augment whether
you're going to fall more into the artist category or more of
(30:24):
the scientist category. All right, very nice and stated
and appreciate the information on our nice curveball question
there. And Christina Worth, we are very
much looking forward to seeing you at PPS Profitable.
Christina is going to deliver a keynote address and title.
Forget what you knew about pricing.
(30:47):
And I'm really excited for that.And we're looking forward to
seeing you again soon. And before we wrap up today's
Let's Talk Pricing podcast with Christina Worth, I want to make
sure that everyone is following PBS and following Let's Talk
Pricing wherever you listen to podcasts.
And of course, please join us atthe profitable conferences
(31:09):
coming up, Las Vegas October 21st through 24th, Barcelona the
2nd through the 5th of December.And also, we'll have a schedule
for our 2026 events coming very soon.
And as we know, PBS profitable conferences are the one place
where basically everyone within pricing and revenue management
(31:30):
gets together. We have great discussions and we
get to reconnect with old friends and also meet new
colleagues as well and have great actionable discussions
like we had in today's podcast. So Christina, once again, thank
you so much. We are looking forward to seeing
you again soon and it's been a pleasure having you on the Let's
Talk Pricing podcast. It was my pleasure, Kevin, and
(31:53):
thank you and thank you to the whole team at the Professional
Prices Society. All right, Thanks very much,
Christina, and we will look for everyone.
Please join us again for other episodes of the Let's Talk
Pricing podcast coming up. Have a great day everyone and
thank you so much.
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