Featured Article
PACCAR, a multinational truck, parts, and financing company, had a negative 2024. Examining PACCAR’s Truck, Parts, and Other business specifically, revenue fell 5% to $31 billion and earnings before interest and taxes fell 17% to $4.5 billion over the last year. (This article excludes PACCAR’s financial services business and makes no comments regarding how pricing should be managed in that line of business.) A review of PACCAR’s 28 January 2025 earnings call…
Read MoreIn This Issue
As Mark Hurd, co-president of Oracle re-emerges on the public stage, we see him once again focusing on the sales force. Within Oracle’s sales force, he has changed job descriptions, reporting structures, compensation plans, staff size, and corporate routines in a stated effort to improve revenue and profits. But what principles guide his sales-force design? Is he a sales-force master architect or a tinkerer that will destroy Oracle’s revenue?
Read More After engaging in a brief conversation on “promotional pricing” with a business operations executive at a global manufacturer in consumer goods industry, I was inspired to address some misconceptions discussed and provide further insight on how firms in the B2B space implement profit-enhancing promotional pricing tactics. First of all, promotional pricing should be viewed as a means to price segment according to consumers’ willingness to pay, not as a pure promotional strategy. Case in point, consider Remington Arm’s Promotion of Nitro-Steel Load.
Read More J.C. Penney’s retail makeover spearheaded by CEO Ron Johnson is remarkably similar to another dramatic — and highly successful — initiative taken in another era. Consider the 1957 challenge and change.
Read More Declining profit margins are forcing companies to find new ways to improve profitability. Most companies have been through the cost cutting and strategic procurement processes and are now looking for the next level to pull. Strategic pricing is starting to become more popular as more senior executive have begun to leverage the power of pricing.
Read More