Archives tagged: transparency

Does Dynamic Pricing Hurt Customers?

By Kyle T. Westra March 18, 2020

If you’ve ever used a ride hailing app, chances are that at some point you’ve experienced a higher than expected fee. Surge…

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In Defense of Meetings

By Kyle T. Westra November 17, 2019

The forward-thinking business world is united in the belief that meetings, by and large, are simply bad ideas. Bad meetings are the…

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The New Invisible Hand: Five Revolutions in the Digital Economy

What I (Re)Learned from Writing a Book

By Kyle T. Westra September 13, 2019

My book, The New Invisible Hand: Five Revolutions in the Digital Economy, has been out for six weeks, and I’ve been floored…

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The New Invisible Hand: Five Revolutions in the Digital Economy

The New Invisible Hand

By Kyle T. Westra July 17, 2019

My book The New Invisible Hand will be released at the end of July. This book is for you if you’ve ever…

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Major Commercial Policy Design Issues

By Tim J. Smith, PhD October 30, 2018

In this missive, I examine how companies selling to end customers through distributors and retailers can design their commercial policy.

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Checking Assumptions

By Kyle T. Westra December 22, 2017

Pricing is not only numbers, but strongly psychological and emotional. Certain norms emerge that dictate how products and services are sold in different industries. Customers come to expect those norms, whether or not they are necessarily the most economically efficient.

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Price Transparency VS Pricing Transparency

By Kyle T. Westra October 5, 2016

For Amazon Web Services (AWS), on the other hand, while your final price depends on your usage, the pricing is transparent down to the hour. While you may not know the amount due ahead of time, you know exactly how they will arrive at that number.

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B2B and B2C Ecommerce Trends Witnessed at Internet Retailer 2016

By David Dalka August 3, 2016

Adrienne Hartman, Director of Ecommerce & Customer Insights at J.J. Keller & Associates talked about how B2B Ecommerce cannot be solved only by software alone. (I agree with her) She also talked about using Google Manufacturing Center. She encourages you to ask, “How well can buyers use your site?” It is clear that her words come from an employee of an organization with a strong culture.

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Understanding Velocity-Based Pricing – A Preliminary Investigation

By Tim J. Smith, PhD March 4, 2013

In the age of big data, sales velocity has become a metric for guiding pricing decisions. Pricing software vendors all cite sales velocity as an important factor in guiding pricing decisions. Fortune 500 and mid-tier firms alike are known to practice it. But what does velocity-based pricing mean? Why should sales velocity influence pricing decisions? How should firms use sales velocity to inform pricing? And are there serious pitfalls to this approach, or is it a sound business practice?

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Mark Hurd’s 5 Sales-Force Design Principles

By Tim J. Smith, PhD November 1, 2012

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?

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