In today's hypercompetitive global marketplace, a company's pricing
policy can make or break the bottom line. Yet a surprising number of
firms attempt to increase profits without the aid of a carefully and
creatively designed pricing strategy. Now, in this long-awaited book,
the world's two leading price experts Robert J. Dolan and Hermann Simon
take managers beyond conventional thinking to show how their
breakthrough system of "power pricing" will improve the bottom line by
an order of magnitude. They destroy popular but not necessarily
financially savvy ideas on pricing, such as relying on a standard markup
on cost rule. They expose as passive the "strategy" of letting the
market or a competitor "set the price." But the key is in what they
provide: the tools by which the pedestrian pricer can become a "power
pricer" who achieves quantum leaps in financial performance by
aggressively implementing sophisticated pricing strategies.
Dolan and Simon combine their international expertise and know-how to
reveal the latest breakthroughs in pricing tactics. Drawing on their
firsthand experience with firms throughout the world, they make
available for the first time the logic behind the actual practices of
"power pricers" engaged in fierce global competition. Market
segmentation, promotional pricing, competitive strategic pricing,
international pricing, nonlinear pricing, interrelated product line
pricing, and time-customized pricing are just a few of the crucial
concepts which the authors explore and explain when and how to
implement. The authors' approach to creating "power pricers" is twofold.
They specify the practices of the strategic pricers among the world's
most successfulfirms and then lay out a four-dimensional system to
attain this level of pricing sophistication and resulting profit
improvement. Dolan and Simon draw their portrait of the power pricer in
four critical dimensions: viewpoint on pricing, fact file support
pricing, tools and scope of analysis, and determination and
implementation.
The authors argue that firms must view pricing as a key and highly
manageable element in the profit equation, worthy of attention equal to
that accorded to sales volume and costs. Companies must have data at
their finger tips which are more accurate, timely, relevant, and
dissaggregated than their competitors'. Using these data to create a
systematic analysis of customers and competitors, companies will be able
to create and assess pricing scenarios to achieve long-term
profitability.
This targeted, quadrupled approach to transforming the bottom line by
managing price leaves no strategy or option unturned. "Power Pricing" is
a highly detailed yet practically focused book which will become
required reading for business leaders; general managers; marketing,
product, and brand managers; accountants, financial managers, and
marketing students, world-wide.
