Posts by: Tim J. Smith, PhD

Strategic Movements – September 2018

Procter & Gamble announced price increases for Pampers and Bounty in July 2018. Kimberly-Clark similarly announced price increases for Huggies and Viva in August 2018. Both cite inflationary cost pressures specifically pulp. Monitoring competitive price moves is good business intelligence. Watch out for inflation 2018.

How to Manage Price During a Trade War

By Tim J. Smith, PhD August 23, 2018

Executives in industries impacted by the tariffs, retaliatory tariffs, and threatened future tariffs must react. The playbook for executives in this trade war will vary.

Strategic Movements: August 2018

By Tim J. Smith, PhD August 23, 2018

“Those who are insistent that human beings cannot cope with determining what to do unless all values are somehow reduces to no more than one, are evidently comfortable with counting (‘is it more or less?’), but not with judgment (‘is this more important than the other?’).”

The Niti and Nyaya in Pricing

By Tim J. Smith, PhD July 30, 2018

Pricing balances the needs of very disparate interests. Pricing professionals consider profitability, shareholder interest, customer demands, customer psychology, and much more in our recommendations.

Strategic Movements: July 2018

By Tim J. Smith, PhD July 30, 2018

It is past time for Corona to raise prices in response to trucking cost inflation, but will competitors follow? The cost hits everyone. Someone needs to lead and then all others should fast follow.

Pricing in the Age of Machine Learning – Hype v. Reality

By Tim J. Smith, PhD June 28, 2018

At some point, we must separate hype from reality. Concurrently, we can also reduce confusion created by terms like “data scientist,” “wisdom of crowds,” and “machine learning” with clarity and plain language.

Strategic Movements: June 2018

By Tim J. Smith, PhD June 28, 2018

With new competitors Norwegian Air Shuttle and JetBlue Airways entering the market, and the addition of smaller 200-seat planes, capacity on transatlantic flights has grown by more than 20% since 2013. That is comparable to a 4% capacity increase year for the past five years. Did demand increase at this rate as well? Expect pricing pressure to increase as new entrants attempt to muscle their way in.

Pricing Transformation: Decision Making Required, Software Optional

By Tim J. Smith, PhD May 24, 2018

What is not stated is “pricing transformation is a software implementation.” Pricing transformations do not require software. Changing routines, the way people work, and the goals of their effort may benefit from software and software may support the cultural change, but new software is not fundamentally required.

Strategic Movements: May 2018

By Tim J. Smith, PhD May 23, 2018

Walmart took a 75% stake in Flipkart for about $15 billion. Flipkart was recently valued at $11.6 billion in April 2017. Nice premium. Big value of Flipkart: they know how to compete online. Jet.com wasn’t good enough for Walmart. Now it is going abroad. Good thinking. We are all on this planet together.

Bootstrapped Entrepreneur: Learning from Errors at Every Stage

By Tim J. Smith, PhD April 26, 2018

My entrepreneurial endeavor is beginning to pay fruits, albeit 15 years after its founding. The path hasn’t been easy nor financially secure and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anyone. But then again, successful entrepreneurs don’t always choose to be entrepreneurs.

Tim J. Smith, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Wiglaf Pricing, an Adjunct Professor of Marketing and Economics at DePaul University, and the author of Pricing Done Right (Wiley 2016) and Pricing Strategy (Cengage 2012). At Wiglaf Pricing, Tim leads client engagements. Smith’s popular business book, Pricing Done Right: The Pricing Framework Proven Successful by the World’s Most Profitable Companies, was noted by Dennis Stone, CEO of Overhead Door Corp, as "Essential reading… While many books cover the concepts of pricing, Pricing Done Right goes the additional step of applying the concepts in the real world." Tim’s textbook, Pricing Strategy: Setting Price Levels, Managing Price Discounts, & Establishing Price Structures, has been described by independent reviewers as “the most comprehensive pricing strategy book” on the market. As well as serving as the Academic Advisor to the Professional Pricing Society’s Certified Pricing Professional program, Tim is a member of the American Marketing Association and American Physical Society. He holds a BS in Physics and Chemistry from Southern Methodist University, a BA in Mathematics from Southern Methodist University, a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Chicago, and an MBA with high honors in Strategy and Marketing from the University of Chicago GSB.