How to Determine Proxies for Pricing and Build Value in Your Products
Steps to Determine Proxy Pricing in Aftermarket How does your business determine proxy pricing for aftermarket sales? With some organizations holding thousands of products that have been developed over decades, it can be difficult to determine their real pricing power, not to mention your position in the market for said products, if any. For example, when you have customers seeking parts for machinery 10 years old, how do you begin to determine pricing? How does your competition factor in? What say does brand value have? Does it come down to win and loss? There are some key variables to consider...
Price Optimization in the Food and Beverage Industry? Oh, Yes!
Price Optimization or F&B in 3 Steps As a company in the Food and Beverage industry, you know that your product portfolio, types of customers, and regions served change and grow along with you. Blanket pricing doesn’t work, but the more complex your organization becomes, the harder it is to optimize prices according to product type, customer behavior or region. And if your margins don’t reflect that New Yorkers go crazy over bagels, that plant-based nutrition and local produce are trending, or that tariffs on exports to the UK are now dearer than to Ireland, you’re not optimizing prices. Optimizing...
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Pricing with Excel… and Other Ways to Lose Money
How to Plug the Leak and Stop Losing Money With Excel In 2003, Canadian power generator, TransAlta, lost $24 million due to copy-and-paste mistakes. Two years later, Kodak added $9 million to its third-quarter loss due to a typo. And in 2012, JP Morgan lost $6 billion due, in part, to a copy-and-paste error in Excel. Statistics have shown that 88% of spreadsheets contain significant errors. So out of 10 spreadsheets, only one is showing you accurate data. Do you really want to manage pricing off that? Unfortunately, all too frequently, a decimal place can be the difference between an...
The Keys to Reducing Cost and Risk in the Food and Beverage Industry
8 Pricing Essentials for Reducing Cost and Risk in the Food and Beverage Industry Have you been struggling to mitigate costs and control risks in an attempt to reach margin targets? Are you, like many, still using cost-plus pricing methods, where price execution is based on static rules or formulaic price calculations that aren’t updated in real-time and are, therefore, unable to respond to changing market dynamics? Are your pricing deviations often inconsistent, meaning pricing can’t be optimized according to customer willingness to pay? Is ad-hoc trade spend based on gut feeling rather than data-driven insights, leading to uncertain revenue...
Premiumization: How Smart Brands Become Category Leaders
How to Premiumize Your Brand and Become a Leader Things are shaking up for the Consumer Goods industry. COVID has resulted in many categories taking a tumble, thanks to the shift away from restaurants and toward retail, where supplier margins are often considerably smaller. Retailers are now trying to eke out every little bit of profit they can, which is creating long-term threat to suppliers. To make matters worse, suppliers are not allowed to influence retailer shelf prices in Europe. The antitrust laws set by the European Commission were put in place to protect consumers from over-inflated prices and they...
What Are the Real Differences Between Retail and eCommerce?
The Differences Between Retail and E-commerce Retail and e-commerce. Two titans that have been battling it out for some time now. They’re Batman vs Superman. Batman, the tough and down-to-earth brick-and-mortar stores doing their utmost to stay relevant in a changing world. Superman, the otherworldly e-commerce game-changers evolving how we sell and purchase. Or at least, that’s how it may seem. The Beginnings of E–commerce It started in the 1990s when Amazon, Alibaba, and other e-commerce giants raised their heads. Since then, they’ve been rapidly growing and altering buying habits on a global scale. Gone are the days of visiting several stores...
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How the Consumer Goods Industry Can Learn from 2020 and Prepare for 2021
How the Consumer Goods Industry Can Learn from 2020 and Prepare for 2021 While a lot of other sectors had to scramble to meet profit and margin goals last year, some sub-sectors within the consumer-packaged goods industry had other problems to contend with. As we head further into 2021, let’s take a moment to look back at 2020 to see what lessons can be learned from the year and what opportunities and trends await us in 2021. We asked Andreas Broutas of TGN and John Kuffel, solution strategist at Pricefx, to enlighten us, and here’s what they had to say: ...
The Key to Keeping Customers Happy in the Chemical Process Industry
The Key to Keeping Customers Happy in the Chemical Industry In this article, we’ll explore what makes pricing in the chemical industry uniquely complex, why companies are often dealing with thousands of price points, the impact of ever-changing input costs and discover the key to winning more opportunities while protecting the bottom line! Pricing in the chemical industry is more complicated than for other industries as you often have complex product portfolios and customer pricing is often negotiated individually. This pricing can come in the form of spot or negotiated pricing for customers, or indexed or formula pricing for...
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Subscription Pricing with Patrick Campbell (Pricing Matters Video)
Gabe Smith of Pricing Matters interviews Patrick Campbell, CEO of Profitwell, to discuss subscription-based pricing, Slack’s pricing strategy, pricing based on what the customer will accept, and more.
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COVID-19 and the Pressure of Digital Transformation in Pricing
COVID-19 and the Pressure of Digital Transformation Pre-COVID, most companies were in the early stages of ambitious digital transformation programs, but now they no longer have the luxury of time. In just a matter of months, digital adoption has been thrust forward several years. Digital initiatives that companies have been eternally putting off have become the top priority, albeit adapted through the lens of the “new normal”. Adopting a Through-Cycle Mindset to Change While it might feel counterintuitive to invest against a backdrop of plummeting revenues, missed budget estimates, higher costs, and strained employees, technology and infrastructure, this is precisely the right time to advance your digital agenda. While some CEOs...
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How to Structure Compensation Plans to Drive Sales Performance
Managing Compensation Plans That Drive Sales Performance The companies with the highest employee morale and productivity pay a mix of salary and incentives. Financial incentives beyond base pay include commission, overtime, bonuses, profit sharing, stock options, benefits (insurance, vacation, leave, etc.), but what about the other “softer” forms of compensation that drive sales productivity? There are plenty of ways to restructure your compensation plans to motivate sales teams, maximize productivity, and retain employees and customers. Many can be achieved without spending a penny. These often-ignored methods, explored in detail below, provide real-life solutions for extracting the best performances from each...
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Doing Good Vs. Making Profit: Do Businesses Have To Choose?
Can You Make a Profit While Doing Good? This article, by Gabe Smith, was originally published on Forbes.com As businesses strategize and execute on creative ways to segment customers and products, price dynamically and increase profit, some cross lines and spark moral and popular outrage. The recent headlines of price gouging of sanitizers, cleaning products and paper goods are good examples. In fact, they arrested a man a few blocks away from my house for selling these items on the street corner. He charged $5 a roll for toilet paper. Though some economists argue that there is no such thing as price...
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How the Discrete Manufacturing Industry Can Learn from 2020 and Prepare for 2021
What the Discrete Manufacturing Industry Can Learn From 2020 to Plan for 2021 As we head further into 2021, it’s clear that although some things are going back to normal, that “normal” might be further off than we anticipated. So, what’s someone in the manufacturing industry to do? That’s why we asked the experts what they think are the biggest lessons and windfalls of 2020 and what companies like yours can do to still be successful in 2021 and beyond. In Your Opinion, How Has 2020 Changed the Discrete Manufacturing Industry? Maggie Buckland – Big Data Pricing In 2020, the...
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How to Measure Success in a Pricing Digital Transformation Project
How You Can Measure Success in a Pricing Digital Transformation Even in the wake of COVID-19, digital transformation continues to surge in popularity across all sectors. It’s forecasted to increase by 10% in 2020 to $1.3 trillion. Still, despite this sustained growth, some 84% of companies’ digital transformation efforts end in failure. It’s an alarming statistic, but one that seems less surprising when you learn that half of CEOs have no metrics whatsoever for digital transformation success! It’s vital to remain alert to successes and failures along your digital transformation journey, staving off problems as they arise. Having clear, carefully tracked KPIs in place lets...
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Applying a Change Management Perspective to Digital Transformation
Change Management Principles to Aid Your Digital Transformation Successful digital transformation requires making fundamental changes to cope with a new, globalized, technology-driven market environment. But employees are instinctively resistant to change. Rosabeth Moss Kanter identifies ten reasons for such reluctance. These include a loss of control, uncertainty, breaking habits and routines, loss of face, concerns about competence, and the false belief that change equals more work! The answer to a smooth rollout of digital transformation technology and processes is adopting a change management perspective. Here’s how you can make change management work within your organization. Working with the Salesforce for Change Management Sales teams are particularly resistant...
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The Real-Life Impact of Digital Transformation on Pricing
What Is the Impact of Digital Transformation on Pricing? The tangible impact of digital transformation on pricing is far more profound than merely the digitization of legacy paper-based systems. Sure, automation plays a vital role, streamlining processes and boosting pricing analysts’ and salespeople’s’ efficiency. But real transformation harnesses the latest technology to redefine pricing strategies, solve customer problems, and identify new and exciting revenue-generating opportunities. Some companies can add 2% to their bottom line in the first quarter after transformation showing that there are real stakes involved. Price optimization, management, and realization software makes pricing your company’s unfair advantage, generating pure...
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How the Retail Industry Can Learn from 2020 and Prepare for 2021
What the Retail Industry Can Learn From 2020 to Plan for 2021 Last year presented a lot of challenges but also plenty of opportunities for the retail industry. From BOPIS to the increased adoption of omnichannel messaging and pricing practices, the retail industry seems to have had many options to adapt and evolve. We spoke to Andreas Broutas of TGN and Jochen Schmidt, Manager of Solution Strategy for EMEA, to discover what he felt were the key lessons from 2020 and how to face the changing landscape of 2021. In Your Opinion, How Has 2020 Changed the Retail Industry? Andreas...
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How the Chemical Industry Can Learn from 2020 and Prepare for 2021
Chemical Industry – Learn From 2020 and Prepare for 2021 Last year presented a lot of challenges for the chemical industry. Robert Smith, an industry expert at Pricefx, even wrote an article on ideas for what the chemical industry could do to prepare when it was clear that suddenly, “business as usual“ would not be enough to sustain an organization. Well, it’s almost been a year or so since “lockdown”, “quarantine” and “face mask” became part of our daily vocabulary, so, it’s time we took a look back at 2020 and forward to 2021 and beyond. We spoke to Martin...
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How to Reduce Overhead & Risk in the Manufacturing Industry
Reducing Overhead and Risk for the Manufacturing Industry Considerations are vast in the reduction of overhead and risk for the manufacturing industry. Especially when you’re looking at adapting your business to dynamic market shifts. We are here to help simplify the process. What Is Overhead and Risk in the Manufacturing Industry? In simple terms, overhead is the sum of ongoing business expenses not associated with the production process. Manufacturing overhead such as plant costs, salaries Selling and administrative costs Corporate salaries Risk refers to the risks incurred by manual processes, which can be broken down into three key areas. These...
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How to Unlock Pricing Potential Trapped in Minds and Excel Sheets
Release the Pricing Potential Trapped in the Minds and Excel Sheets Of Your Organization Global spending on digital transformation is predicted to grow to $1.3 trillion in 2020. But, a Pricefx survey of pricing professionals found that 54% still relied on Excel as their primary pricing tool, as opposed to cloud-based software that offers far superior performance for reasons discussed in this piece. This startling figure shines a light on the lack of investment that companies are making in their pricing infrastructures, and hints at the masses of powerful pricing discoveries that lie trapped in Excel documents and the minds of...
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The Bain Accelerators
Unlock Bain’s Leading IP Powered by Pricefx Technology A few months ago, Pricefx released its exclusive accelerators designed to supercharge your implementation. We’re now launching three new accelerators with Bain & Company, the first such partner developed accelerators from Pricefx that are unlike any solution in the marketplace today. Companies who lose profit and often struggle with pricing can leverage pricing best practices taken from a wide variety of industries. These standardized, prepackaged solutions remove the friction and delay in getting started and seeing value fast. The Bain Accelerators help companies improve their pricing disciplines to identify key sources of margin leakage, optimized promotion management, and gain control of frontline discounting. Clients gain the benefit of world-class software in combination with Bain & Company’s pricing...
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Lessons in Pricing from 2020 and Trends for Success in 2021
What Experts Learned from 2020 and Trends for 2021 While very few of us are sad to see 2020 in our rear-view mirrors, its effects on how we conduct business has left ripples that will be felt in 2021 and beyond. We spoke to top pricing industry experts from around the world to get their thoughts on what they felt were the most important lessons of 2020 and what companies like yours can do to find success in 2021. In Your Opinion, How Has 2020 Changed the Pricing Industry? Depending on which industry you’re in, there’s no doubt that you’ve experienced some changes in how you operate internally as well as with customers and partners. When speaking with our experts, we found a few key themes kept coming up – digital transformation, agility, precision and confidence. Surprisingly, these...
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Embracing Pandemic-Driven Change in Business
Pricefx 2021: Embracing Pandemic-Driven Change 2020 was a challenging year, to say the least, with a global pandemic and mandatory work-from-home initiatives impacting virtually every business across every industry. In spite of the difficulties, thanks to the company’s focus on attaining new funding, expanding global market leadership and accelerating product innovation, Pricefx grew its year-over-year subscription revenue by 44%. Our commitment to product innovation kicked off with the release of Lightning, our turnkey solution that delivers pricing analytics, management and CPQ realization tools able to go live in just six weeks. Our acquirement of Brennus Analytics brought additional advanced AI technology and a team of AI professionals into our mix, leading to the launch of our ground-breaking Vesper release and the Unity UI – PriceOptimizer AI. We partnered with Bain & Company to launch three price accelerators to assist Bain customers with discounting, pricing leakage...
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How to Eliminate Margin Leakage in the Manufacturing Industry
Eliminating Margin Leakage in the Manufacturing Industry Margin leakage can have a devastating effect on your profits, leaving your “pocket price” – the amount of money you receive after all discounts and incentives have been accounted for – way below the value stated on your price list. Margin leaks range in threat level from drips to torrents, but as anyone who’s ever experienced a weeping pipe will attest, a drip can be every bit as damaging as a flood! In this article, we identify the critical sources of margin leakage in the manufacturing industry. And explore how the manufacturing...
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Ready for Anything: Improving Business Agility Through Pricing in the Manufacturing Industry
How to Improve Business Agility in the Manufacturing Industry The discrete manufacturing industry belongs to an increasingly volatile and uncertain environment, where rapid and frequent change is becoming the norm. So, it’s time for companies to seriously investigate how to improve business agility. Business agility is the ability of a company to rapidly respond to changes in the market. It’s a company’s ability to pivot and adapt, and determines whether it weathers the storm – be it changes in the market, demand, competition, supply chain, regulations, technological breakthroughs or global pandemics. But how do you improve business agility when your...
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Get Running At Lightning Speed
Get Running at Lightning Speed Pricefx Lightning is your fast track to pricing excellence. Designed to supercharge your implementation, Lightning delivers a full suite of standard pricing analytics, management, and CPQ tools through our exclusive Accelerators. It’s all pre-configured to get you live in just six weeks. Introducing Accelerators Many companies want to leverage pricing best practices that will help them to reach their goals with speed. To provide even more value to our customers and enable faster time-to-value, we have developed standard, out-of-the-box pricing capabilities for our customers – we call these Accelerators. Accelerators encapsulate years of expertise and learnings condensed into a flexible, robust set of standard pre-configurations that allow companies to leapfrog overpricing basics so that they can focus on enabling their pricing competitive advantage in Pricefx. We’re not saying this is the...
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A Round of Applause for Simon Business School Case Competition Winners
The Winners of the Pricing Case Competition Pricing is so important is the possible consequences of a poor pricing strategy. Companies lose significant amounts of profit by pricing too low. Conversely, they could miss out on leagues of customers by pricing too high compared to their competition. In either case, the results can be disastrous. For this reason and to support dedicated students, Pricefx’s Next Gen sponsored the 2020 Simon School of Business Pricing Case Competition at the University of Rochester. Throughout the event, students had access to Pricefx’s state–of–the–art cloud–native pricing software and the opportunity to learn pricing and its importance from industry professionals. The Event The event took place on April...
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How COVID-19 is Affecting Life Sciences and Medical Devices Industries
How COVID-19 is Affecting Life Sciences and Medical Devices Industries Even those of us living under rocks couldn’t have slept through the global health crisis that is taking over our lives. A mere four months ago, it was nothing more than a handful of people in China having somehow contracted pneumonia after visiting a seafood market in Wuhan. But testing showed similarities to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. A new CoV virus was on the scene –coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19). Today, Coronavirus has become a global health emergency calling for united worldwide action. We’ve seen heavy restrictions on travel, constraints on trade, an almost complete shutdown of the hospitality industry, companies frantically scaling their work-from-home policies to the entire workforce, schools closing...
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How to Still Close Deals Even When Working Remotely
Working from Home Might Be Nothing New but Companies That Embrace It Profit In the light of the current global health crisis, big tech companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Amazon have asked their employees to work from home (as have Ford, General Motors, and Unilever). According to the Financial Times, some companies are testing their ability to go fully remote – KPMG have had all 8,000 London staff working from home since Friday last week. Classes and lectures are being delivered via the Internet, online shopping and food delivery are booming, even religious services are happening via a live feed. And as companies of all sizes try to prevent spreading the virus among employees and those they come into face-to-face contact with, their “working...
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Pepsi Philippines Sparks Deadly “Number Fever”
The Disastrous Consequences of the “Number Fever” It’s 1992, and Pepsi Philippines has launched a groundbreaking marketing campaign that’s taken the nation by storm. It’s a lottery-style competition that involves matching a ‘unique’ three-digit code, printed on the underside of Pepsi bottle caps, to the numbers announced every night on the Channel 2 News program in Manila. The campaign was designed as a way to wrestle a chunk of market share from the dominant soft drinks force at the time, Coca Cola, but it ended in riots, homemade bombs, and death. All because of a software blunder that should have been avoided. ...