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Maintaining Pricing Excellence During Currency Depreciation

By Kyle T. Westra March 4, 2016

It is preferable to maintain or carefully increase prices in a clear, methodical way, only decreasing cost slowly and with much consideration. Careful analysis is required to take into account different SKUs, product lines, geographies, and customer segments, adjusting prices in the way that fits best each unique category.

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Trends in Automobiles and Auto Show Practices Seen at the Chicago Auto Show

By David Dalka March 4, 2016

I have noticed one car company breaking the rules of engagement at the Chicago Auto Show the past two years. Kia Motors America, Inc. has public relations people on hand like every car company at the show. They also had product mangement exectutives like Vice President, Product Planning Orth Hedrick and Manager, Long Range Strategy Steve Kosowski onsite. They stayed onsite for both press days – interacting with people and taking product feedback.

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Are You an ‘Imposter?’ If So, the Workplace Needs You

By James T. Berger March 4, 2016

Chance defines the “imposter phenomenon” as “an internal experience of intellectual phoniness” and adds that those who experience, for the most part, are “people who have achieved something; people who are demonstrably anything but frauds.”

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Professional Service Pricing: Beyond the Hourly Rate and into the Deliverable

By Tim J. Smith, PhD February 4, 2016

In deliverable based pricing, prices are tied to deliverables, not effort. In order for that to work in favor of the service provider, that provider has to know, plan, and execute what it takes to achieve the defined deliverable with the client. (Laggard service providers may be afraid of deliverable based pricing precisely because of their project management skill-set deficit – but it is something they can learn.)

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Designing a Product Roadmap – I

By Anirban Sengupta February 4, 2016

Not all products however enjoy the ‘soap & detergent’ kind of stability. Phones in 1990s were used for calling and today calling is one of the many functions of a phone. Cars back then were mechanical marvels and now they’re practically computers on wheels. In case of software and applications, the product life-cycle graph is even thinner and very well summed up in a comment by Reid Hoffman (Linkedin Cofounder): “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

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Incentives Aren’t Everything

By Kyle T. Westra February 4, 2016

Therefore, it is important to design a sales incentive structure that puts heavy emphasis on company profit, if that is indeed what your company seeks. Your company probably does. Shifting a company from a revenue or volume sales mindset to a profit mindset can take a good deal of time and effort, but it is an important shift, and one that shows real results.

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New Washing Machine Marketplace Innovations and Warranties Driving Value Proposition Differentiation

By David Dalka February 4, 2016

Recent purchases have lasted less time than that in most cases. I wondered aloud whether using tools like Six Sigma for efficiency over and over have reached an inflection point where they destroy quality. Once you have perfected a product and focus on taking out costs, there is an opportunity cost. That opportunity cost usually results in a loss of quality.

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Special Marketing Provides the Force behind New “Star Wars” Film

By James T. Berger February 4, 2016

He pointed out how Disney’s ownership of ABC contributed to the integrated marketing effort. One example was when the anchors at ABC came to ‘Good Morning America’ dressed up as Star Wars characters. “That’s a nice synergy between your TV and your studio divisions,” said Eliashberg.

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Consider Business Growth by Focusing on Increasing Market Penetration

By Lee Flynn February 4, 2016

Increasing your market penetration is extremely helpful, and once you have a larger fan base, you’ll have more people to promote to for your next products and services. This is why a market penetration strategy can be a great option when you’re starting out a business and attempting to increase your fan base. These methods should help you to reach a wider audience around the world to promote your business.

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Generic Drug Pricing Practices under Scrutiny

By Tim J. Smith, PhD January 3, 2016

High barriers to entry must be keeping competitors from providing alternatives to off-patent generic drugs. What could be the source of these barriers to entry?
It isn’t the lack of know how. Many firms are able to produce chemicals, even specialized chemicals in the life sciences. And, that is what a drug is: it is a chemical. As observed in animal health care, agricultural chemistry and many other specialty chemical companies: competition keeps prices relatively low. Yet, in human life sciences, there is insufficient competition.

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