As part of our ‘Busting the myths’ podcast series, the Acumen team had the pleasure of speaking to Marleen Verdeyen, Revenue Growth Management & Transformational Leadership consultant. With a wealth of experience in revenue management, Marleen brought insightful observations from her time at PepsiCo. Throughout the discussion, she shared her views on the unique skillset that revenue management professionals need, the compelling ‘Triple Win’ framework, and the importance of managing sponsor expectations. Here, we outline the key takeaways from the podcast, and 3 ways to rethink your revenue growth management strategy:
Excelling in revenue management requires a unique skillset
Roughly 20 years ago in the early days of revenue management, companies ran revenue management programmes with very few people. But as companies keep evolving, we’ve seen that the function is typically taken over by two different teams: one focusing on revenue management strategy and one on revenue management planning. Although these teams have different skillsets that are equally important, business partnering skills are vital at all times. It’s crucial for revenue managers to work well with various teams across the business. The planning team typically partners with sales to make sure that the account plans make sense and can be executed, while the strategy team partners with marketing, brand, and insights ensure that revenue management strategy can be executed in the market.
Working in revenue management also requires functional skills and analytical skills, as individuals need to understand the drivers of performance and analyse large data sets, while making sure they are delivering on KPIs. Commercial savviness and leadership skills are also useful, and will allow for understanding of the bigger picture and thinking strategically for the long term. The revenue management team need to act as connectors and ensure good communication between various teams across the business in order to be effective.
Use the ‘Triple Win’ framework
One of the biggest misconceptions about revenue management is that revenue managers only focus on internal KPIs such as ROI and promotion effectiveness. In reality, there are so many metrics to go after, and perhaps the best way of viewing these is looking at the ‘Triple win’ framework – which takes into account the company, the customer and the consumer. This framework illustrates how revenue management is focused on capturing as much of the available consumer value as economically possible, and distributing it in a way that the entire value chain derives a benefit. By taking this approach, businesses make sure not to lose consumers to competition, meet the company’s financial target to invest in brand building and R&D activities, and safeguard customers’ wins which further enables the execution of the portfolio plans effectively.
Measure and monitor sponsor expectations to succeed
One of Marleen’s top tips for revenue managers is to:
‘Carefully measure your sponsor expectations – take time to prove that revenue management programmes will work and bring advantages to the business agenda’
Successful revenue management involves careful communication with stakeholders. To do this, ensure you provide full visibility of your revenue management roadmap and be clear about your plans and the reasons why you are suggesting them. This will help you secure support and investment when it’s required the most. One of the hardest things revenue managers have to do is convince stakeholders to invest in revenue management teams and tools.
