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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…
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Harvard Business School Prof. Clay Christensen notes the extreme difficulty in creating successful new products. Each year approximately 30,000 new consumer products enter the marketplace and 95 percent of them fail. How then can product developers find that needle in the haystack?
Read More Most pricing strategists would agree that having a low price is not a competitive advantage in and of itself. In fact, thinking that low prices are always a good strategy for competition is deeply misguided. However, at times, targeting low prices can lead to a strategic focus which delivers tremendous results. For example, Ikea, Wal-Mart, and Southwest Airlines all have low prices and profitably take market share. In this article, we will examine the flaws of assuming low prices is a good competitive strategy, then demonstrate how one firm, Southwest Airlines, redefined the product through target pricing to win the market profitably.
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Spring is nigh. Krokus přijí Kdy? Co chcěš? There is a gigantic leap between a good idea and a successful, money-making business.…
Read More The pattern is pretty similar: the erstwhile entrepreneur usually has a wonderful idea for a money-making business. Often they have done enough research to determine that their idea is unique and they haven’t found anybody else doing precisely what they have in mind. They are excited about their concept and seek advice on how to take it to the next step and go into business for themselves. Here is some of the advice I usually hand out to these entrepreneurs.
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