Archives posted in: Pricing

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Pricing is Product Management’s Responsibility Too

By Tim J. Smith, PhD November 16, 2017

Product managers undoubtedly can be held accountable for the profitability of their portfolio. It is reasonably possible to make portfolio profitability a key performance indicator of a product manager. And it reasonable to make this part of their compensation package, thus holding them not only accountable but impacting their own economic condition based on the quality of the decisions they make.

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If My Customers are Unique, Why Isn’t their Pricing?

By Mary DeBoni November 16, 2017

Assigning a list price is an arduous task—we want to make sure we get it just right to ensure good margins and profitability. But are we underestimating the importance of one key question? Who is(are) my end user(s) and how are they using my product? If you can think of various answers you may have various customer segments.

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Shaping Customer Behavior Through Commercial Policy

By Tim J. Smith, PhD October 18, 2017

There are two basic approaches businesses take to managing commercial policy. For most, the default approach is tactical decision making. For some, they take the leap and add strategic decision-making.

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Building High Quality Pricing Systems

By Pravin Vemuri October 18, 2017

These systems typically flow into order management systems and are sometimes built on top of them, or contained within them but often they are stand-alone and talk to the order management system through some standard interface (API). The industry term is CPQ (Configure-Price-Quote), also called pricing or quoting engines.

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Strategic Movements: September 2017

By Tim J. Smith, PhD September 14, 2017

Wendy’s achieved another quarter of same store sales growth.  Was it their sassy social media campaign that reminds detractors of the existence of refrigerators?  Was it their new menu items?  Or was it the fast food chain’s competitive pricing? Of the three, I think it was their social media campaign that propelled otherwise strong product and pricing strategy to outperform.

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Valuing Benefits: Weighted Average or Economic Impact?

By Tim J. Smith, PhD July 19, 2017

Because the exchange value approach examines the focal product against its next nearest competitor from the viewpoint of a specific market segment, it creates a focused picture of how an offering is likely to be evaluated by that specific segment. If more segments and competitors are to be considered, more models of the Exchange Value to Customer are needed. This leads to better and more accurate pricing on a segment-by-segment basis.

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Strategic Consulting as Detective and Diplomat

By Kyle T. Westra July 19, 2017

“Strategy consultant” is a job title that is can mean everything and nothing. It’s no surprise that people have trouble understanding what skills are necessary for a strategy consultant, let alone what the role even normally entails.

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The Right Personality For The Right Negotiation

By Pravin Vemuri July 19, 2017

Negotiations are no different, although not as dramatic and not as much a matter of life or death. Not surprisingly, on occasion, they devolve into a hypercompetitive, personality-driven blood sport

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Strategic Movements: July 2017

By Tim J. Smith, PhD July 19, 2017

What will Gillette do? As a starter, they cut prices by 12%. Good for consumers (and society overall), bad for investors. Competition’s role is to drive prices down and quality up. This is part of the reason private capitalism is better than state-controlled enterprise.

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Sales, Marketing, Finance and Pricing in Price Management

By Tim J. Smith, PhD June 16, 2017

Our own research—that of Homburg, Jensen, and Hahn—as well as research by Hinterhuber and still other works by Liozu, repeatedly indicated firms that engage sales, marketing finance, and pricing leaders in pricing decisions outperform those that don’t. At this point, we may even call this settled managerial science.

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