Posts by: Tim J. Smith, PhD

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.

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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.

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Strategic Movements: April 2018

By Tim J. Smith, PhD April 26, 2018

”… Think of value generation and leadership development as the chariot wheels that support a transformation, and the quest as the horse that provides direction and momentum. Alignment of the three is critical if you want to reach your destination.”

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Amazon Prime

Will Nordstrom Survive the Amazon/Walmart Duopoly Onslaught?

By Tim J. Smith, PhD March 26, 2018

As Amazon and Wal-Mart continue to dominate e-commerce, Nordstrom has been faced with a unique challenge of growing its own e-commerce presence, and continuing to promote its differentiators against this duopoly.

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dollar general

Dollar General Looks Good Today. Will Tomorrow Be Different?

By Tim J. Smith, PhD March 26, 2018

From a business strategy standpoint, Dollar General has positioned themselves to avoid direct competition with Amazon and Walmart, having successfully demonstrated a way to deal with the duopoly’s increasing presence in the retail market.

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Strategic Movements: March 2018

By Tim J. Smith, PhD March 26, 2018

In his book Pricing: The Third Business Skill, EJ Bouter made the case for pricing to become its own department, right next to finance, marketing, sales, and operations in chapters 14-16.

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The Process for Pricing Innovation

By Tim J. Smith, PhD February 23, 2018

A good pricing decision is two-fold: One defines an aspirational list price and a commercial policy that deducts from this list price known discounts, which lead to the expected target prices by customer segment and perhaps channel.

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Strategic Movements: February 2018

By Tim J. Smith, PhD February 23, 2018

Margrethe Vestager, EU’s antitrust chief, hit Qualcomm with a EUR 977 million fine for anticompetitive practices. Crime: contracts with rebates paid to Apple for using Qualcomm chips exclusively and had a dominant position.

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Value on the Table vs. Capturable Value

By Tim J. Smith, PhD January 30, 2018

In this article I will review some of the issues engaged and practices suggested by different authors, and then offer the Half-Gains Double-Losses rule to define the capturable value from the economic value to customer and therefore drive a price recommendation for guiding the pricing decision.

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Strategic Movements: January 2018

By Tim J. Smith, PhD January 28, 2018

The future may not become a dystopian duopoly of just Amazon and Walmart. There will be competition, but which and who? In dirt one can find gems.

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About The Author

timjsmith
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.