AI as a Multiplier for Pricing with Emanuel Martonca

AI as a Multiplier for Pricing with Emanuel Martonca

Emanuel Martonca, founder of Soft Fight, reveals how agentic AI is solving one of the biggest challenges in IT services: coordinating pricing decisions across hundreds of people in decentralized organizations.

After his career journey from product management to sales management to discovering pricing at a Simon Kucher workshop, Emanuel shares how his bootstrapped company evolved from traditional consulting to building AI-powered pricing agents that act as an ever-present pricing manager- coaching teams, improving proposals, and recommending pricing models without sending a single byte of data outside the client's infrastructure.

In this episode, learn why AI should augment rather than replace pricing teams, why deterministic calculations still matter, and how to quantify value in IT services without universal quality standards.

Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast:

  • Discover how AI solves coordination problems in large IT services companies where hundreds of people make pricing decisions without pricing expertise.
  • Learn why AI should augment pricing teams, not replace them, and why deterministic calculations still matter more than probabilistic AI outputs.
  • Understand how to quantify value in IT services using measurable quality attributes instead of universally accepted standards.

“Pricing is leverage. It allows you to have an impact with very few actions, with little effort."

– Emanuel Martonca

Topics Covered:

01:32 -Emanuel's transformational discovery of pricing at a Belgian retail bank workshop that revealed a world he didn't know existed—launching 18 years of pricing-focused work.

02:37 - Why pricing is the ultimate leverage tool, especially in B2B tech where "it's just communication"—what you write in Excel, on websites, and in proposals.

03:28 - How the pandemic transformed Emanuel from a globe-trotting sales manager into a pricing consultant, then bootstrapped Soft Fight to solve the value extraction gap in tech companies.

04:41 - How large IT companies lose money when hundreds of non-experts across five functions (finance, marketing, sales, delivery, executives) make pricing decisions on every custom project.

06:59 - The evolution from deterministic SaaS pricing rules to AI-augmented agents installed in client infrastructure—solving pricing problems in hours instead of years without sending data externally.

08:00 - Why new deals lack technical depth and renewals lack value articulation—and how AI coordinates knowledge without restructuring organizations.

11:00 - Eight AI agents (four for understanding, four for justifying) with access to all systems but zero external communication—no security or privacy risks.

13:00 - All pricing calculations remain deterministic because AI makes too many mistakes—it's used only for reading RFPs, emails, and meeting notes to improve value communication.

14:17 - How AI acts as a coach recommending pricing models with ready-made arguments, eliminating months of change management—with email as the main interface.

16:17 - Why determining "how long will this take?" is unpredictable and varies by person and timing—and how AI solves the costliest unknown in custom projects.

18:00 - Mark's perspective on why costs matter less than value, and why companies avoid alternative pricing models despite knowing hourly billing hurts both sides.

21:00 - When AI tools cut development time, hourly pricing becomes self-defeating: "You're cutting your own revenue"—forcing the industry to finally sell value, not time.

21:56 - Starting with measurable quality attributes on invented scales that competitors can't compare—getting 80% of the way just by having the quantification discussion.

23:00 - Mark's framework for B2B value and why results translate to economic impact through customer KPIs like reduced complaints, not abstract "quality" metrics.

25:00 - Unlike automotive suppliers with nanometer specs, IT services vendors can define their own quality metrics—putting them two steps ahead of alternatives.

26:00 - The necessity of industry knowledge for value conversations (increase revenue, reduce costs, mitigate risk) and how AI enables understanding of new sectors that would've taken years.

27:30 - Final Advice: AI as Your Pricing Force Multiplier Using AI for research, analysis, and domain understanding when teams are too small or mandates unclear—plus how to connect with Emanuel on LinkedIn.

Key Takeaways:

"AI is a huge multiplier for pricing experts—not for calculating prices, I agree with you on that, it's not there yet. But for everything else around pricing, whether we want to call it product management, analysis, or research, it can help us overcome typical challenges." - Emanuel Martonca

"Pricing is a change management problem. It can be done, it'll take months, sometimes years, and they have to experiment and they have to make mistakes." - Emanuel Martonca

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Emanuel Martonca:

Connect with Mark Stiving:

Jaksot(500)

Blogcast: You Influence Your Customers’ Willingness to Pay

Blogcast: You Influence Your Customers’ Willingness to Pay

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on November 11, 2024, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/you-influence-your-customers-willingness-to-pay/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

17 Tammi 3min

The Secret to Confidently Raising Your Prices Without the Backlash with Vance Morris

The Secret to Confidently Raising Your Prices Without the Backlash with Vance Morris

Vance Morris is a former Disney Leader turned entrepreneur, coach, speaker and author. He helps businesses deliver extraordinary customer experiences through workshops, boot camps, and training at Disney. In this episode, Vance shares practical strategies for implementing premium pricing by presenting options and building value through transparency and trust. He emphasizes the importance of creating emotional connections with customers to enhance loyalty and retention, even in B2B environments. Additionally, he advocates for confident implementation of price increases, highlighting that many pricing challenges stem from business owners' mindset rather than market resistance.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Learn how to confidently set premium prices and create packages that differentiate your business from competitors. Discover how emotional connections, rather than just logic, can drive customer loyalty and enhance sales, even in B2B settings. Get tips on overcoming common pricing hurdles and improving customer retention through simple yet effective strategies.   “People have enough information, they don't have enough implementation; just go do it. You could go out right now, raise your prices 10% and nobody's going to bat an eyelash.” - Vance Morris   Topics Covered: 01:45 - How he found himself in pricing 02:31 - Sustaining a cycle of value and profitability as inspired by Disney's pricing strategies 05:20 - How he justifies premium pricing in his upholstery cleaning business 08:46 - Demonstrating expertise and showcasing value  11:32 - Emphasizing the value of positioning as a premium service rather than competing on being the second cheapest 13:00 - Maintaining pricing integrity 14:21 - Adapting Disney-inspired strategies to differentiate your business making it incomparable to competitors 16:37 - How to differentiate your products or services, even in competitive markets like B2B software 17:57 - How to foster loyalty, enhance customer retention, and make price increases more acceptable 21:09 - Highlighting the value of small, thoughtful gestures to build a positive reputation and stand out in competition 22:42 - Offering premium pricing tiers in clear, non-salesy manner 24:57 - Vance’s best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: "Not so much to justify [premium pricing], as it is being able to offer a better experience, which then allows me to charge a higher price, which puts more money in my pocket." - Vance Morris "It's about creating a connection. It's people doing business with people. It's not people doing business with business and creating some kind of emotional connection with the purchasing manager, with whoever's doing the buying. And it just makes selling so much easier." - Vance Morris "When you have that connection, a price increase may not be overlooked, but is a lot more palatable than just hard excel spreadsheets flying around." - Vance Morris "There is no competitive advantage to being second cheapest; if you're not going to be the cheapest, you might as well go the other direction." - Vance Morris   People/Resources Mentioned: Disney: https://www.disney.com/ Ritz-Carlton: https://www.ritzcarlton.com/ Dunkin Donuts: https://www.dunkindonuts.com/en   Connect with Vance Morris: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vancemorris/ Website: https://deliverservicenow.com/   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

13 Tammi 27min

Blogcast: The Fluid Nature of Willingness to Pay: How Context Shapes Your Pricing Strategy

Blogcast: The Fluid Nature of Willingness to Pay: How Context Shapes Your Pricing Strategy

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on November 4, 2024, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/the-fluid-nature-of-willingness-to-pay-how-context-shapes-your-pricing-strategy/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

10 Tammi 4min

Pricing Transformation: Insights on Software, Segmentation, and Change Leadership with Stephan Liozu

Pricing Transformation: Insights on Software, Segmentation, and Change Leadership with Stephan Liozu

Stephan Liozu is a business executive with deep knowledge in pricing strategy, value-based pricing, monetization, and transformations. He speaks the language of sales, pricing, finance, and the C-suite.  In this episode, Stephan highlights the need to combine value-based pricing with strong change management for successful transformations. He shares practical segmentation strategies tailored to diverse business needs. Reflecting on his move into pricing software, he explores its potential and the challenges of gaining C-suite support.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Delve into the nuances of value-based pricing and its implementation and practical advice for businesses aiming to maximize profitability while addressing internal and external challenges. Learn about a methodology for effective customer segmentation, practical steps, and real-world applications for targeted strategies. Discover the critical role of change management in successfully implementing pricing strategies and have a deeper understanding of organizational dynamics and leadership in pricing transformations.   "You cannot do advanced pricing without advanced change management and change leadership." - Stephan Liozu   Topics Covered: 01:10 - Significance of the Chief Value Officer (CVO) title 01:58 - The complexity of defining value within companies 02:52 - Contrasting his roles as a Chief Value Officer at Thales and Zilliant 04:35 - Reflecting on the challenges and uncertain future of the pricing profession with his article on LinkedIn 06:27 - Discussing the challenges of B2B pricing which hinders value-based pricing and the scalability of pricing strategies 12:11 - Advocating for internal pricing centers of excellence as cost-effective 14:01 - Explaining his approach to segmentation 17:26 - Stephan expressing excitement about his Zilliant role, exploring pricing software's potential and questioning its limited market growth 19:07 - The challenges of convincing the C-suite to invest in pricing solutions, suggesting on reframing pricing discussions under a new term  22:31 - Stephan's best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: “If you want to industrialize your processes in pricing and value, you have to use an engine, the heart of this engine is software. And be able to touch all the business if possible, at least a large amount of the business.” - Stephan Liozu “Pricing professionals should become certified change managers, it should not be an option.” - Stephan Liozu   People/Resources Mentioned: Thales: https://cpl.thalesgroup.com/software-monetization/software-packaging-pricing Zilliant: https://zilliant.com McKinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com   Connect with Stephan Liozu: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanliozu/ Website: https://www.stephanliozu.com/   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

6 Tammi 23min

Exploring the Future of AI: Prompt Management and Generative Thinking with Steven Forth

Exploring the Future of AI: Prompt Management and Generative Thinking with Steven Forth

Steven Forth is Ibbaka’s Co-Founder, CEO, and Partner. Ibbaka is a strategic pricing advisory firm. In this episode, Steven discusses how AI, particularly transformer models, is revolutionizing business strategies by automating complex tasks like value modeling and scenario planning, making them more efficient. He emphasizes the importance of leveraging AI to explore frameworks and generate innovative solutions, such as using AI to better understand industry problems. Steven also highlights the ongoing development of prompt orchestration tools, which will soon become essential for managing AI workflows and optimizing the use of multiple models.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Discover how AI is transforming traditional frameworks like value modeling, scenario planning, and pricing, making complex processes faster and more efficient. Gain insights on how AI can help you better understand problems and create innovative solutions, ultimately improving your decision-making process. Dive into emerging concepts like prompt orchestration and how AI is evolving, giving you the tools to enhance your AI workflows for maximum effectiveness.   “Create a series of prompts, create a series of context documents that you can reuse and explore the framework in ways that you never could before and find ways of applying it.” - Steven Forth   Topics Covered: 02:10 - How no single AI model can meet all needs, thus,  advocating for multiple model for diverse perspectives and specialized capabilities 03:11 - Distinguishing between diffusion models and transformer models 05:46 - How does a transformer model work 07:28 - Understanding the [LQMs] Large Quantitative Models, [RAG] Retrieval Augmented Generation and challenges faced by companies like Pros in leveraging customer-owned data  11:39 - How Wolfram/Alpha uses mathematical reasoning to validate and simplify equations and highlighting the emergence of reasoning models for complex problem-solving 15:34 - Steven reflecting on his increasing reliance on AI tools, how they are transforming his thinking, and the need to embrace these technologies as vital partners in enhancing exploration, communication, and decision-making 17:17 - How generative AI enables more dynamic and efficient approaches to scenario planning 23:29 - Emphasizing how leveraging AI with established frameworks accelerates complex tasks like building value models 25:13 - Learning 'prompt orchestration’ to optimize prompt sequences and responses 26:52 - Explaining Perplexity's limitations in generating complete outputs   Key Takeaways: “It used to take Ibbaka between 40 and 60 hours of work by a highly trained person to build a value model. It now takes us less than two hours to build a better value model than we could have done before.” - Steven Forth   People / Resources Mentioned: Geoffrey Hinton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hinton Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/asia Attention is All You Need paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_Is_All_You_Need Sam Altman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman Karen Chiang: https://impactpricing.com/podcast/467-minimize-churn-and-boost-your-net-dollar-retention-with-karen-chiang/ Porter's 5 Forces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter%27s_five_forces_analysis Clayton Christensen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Christensen William Gibson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson Perplexity AI: https://www.perplexity.ai ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com You.com: https://you.com Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co   Connect with Steven Forth: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/ Email: steven@ibbaka.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

30 Joulu 202430min

Blogcast: Context Driven Pricing: The Ultimate Pricing Strategy

Blogcast: Context Driven Pricing: The Ultimate Pricing Strategy

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on October 24, 2024, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/context-driven-pricing-the-ultimate-pricing-strategy/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

27 Joulu 20244min

Balancing Academic Insights and Real-World Pricing Strategies with Russ Winer

Balancing Academic Insights and Real-World Pricing Strategies with Russ Winer

Russ Winer is a William H. Joyce Professor of Marketing, Stern School of Business, New York University. His specialties include pricing, new technologies, consumer choice models, and advertising. In this podcast, Russ discusses the critical role of understanding consumer behavior in pricing decisions, emphasizing the importance of considering how customers will react to price changes. He explains the difference between academic theories and practical applications in marketing and also highlights the growing shift of research from academia to industry, particularly in data-driven fields like marketing, and stresses the need for businesses to stay competitive while balancing consumer protection and profitability.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Gain practical advice on how businesses can align their pricing strategies with consumer behavior for maximum impact. Discover the unique perspectives on how academic research shapes real-world marketing practices and why general theories can be a game-changer for business strategies. Learn about the challenges and opportunities in both B2B and B2C markets, including data availability, decision-making processes, and competitive pressures.   "Don't forget the consumer, or customer, if it's B2B, when you're thinking about the price. How is the customer or consumer going to react when you take this particular action?" - Russ Winer   Topics Covered: 01:48 - One accomplishment that brings Russ great pride 02:13 - Describing his entry into pricing 03:56 - Clarifying that he did not introduce the concept of reference price, though he was the first to incorporate it into empirical models 04:45 - Distinguishing reference pricing from behavioral economics 06:40 - How context influences reference prices, highlighting the relevance of acquisition and transaction utility in pricing 08:08 - Explaining the psychology behind 99-cent pricing 09:50 - Discussing deceptive pricing, highlighting practices like false markdowns in both brick-and-mortar stores and online retail 11:59 - Comparing deceptive pricing to deceptive advertising 14:33 - Differentiating between academics and practice in marketing 17:23 - The data availability challenges between B2C and B2B research 20:20 - Reflecting on the shift of research dominance from academia to industry 25:44 -  How marketers' strategies to influence reference prices are not inherently harmful to consumers  28:14 - Russ's one best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: “It's not just the firm side that's important when we think about pricing, it's also the consumer side, how they react to the prices that we're putting in the marketplace.” - Russ Winer   People/Resources Mentioned: Bob Lucas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lucas_Jr. Richard Thaler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Thaler Dan Kahneman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman Amos Tversky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Tversky Facebook: https://www.facebook.com Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com Google: https://www.google.com/ Campbells: https://www.campbells.com/   Connect with Russ Winer: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russ-winer-4b69b7/ Email: rwiner@stern.nyu.edu   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

23 Joulu 202430min

Blogcast: Profit vs. Market Share: Which Should Your Business Prioritize?

Blogcast: Profit vs. Market Share: Which Should Your Business Prioritize?

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on October 17, 2024, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/profit-vs-market-share-which-should-your-business-prioritize/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

20 Joulu 20243min

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