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The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Profitable Decision Making
Abstract
The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Profitable Decision Making by Thomas T. Nagel and Reed K. Holden. Reviewed by Una McMahon-BeattieJournal of Revenue & Pricing Management (2002) 1, 286-287; doi:10.1057/palgrave.rpm.5170032
... Others will enjoy a subsidy since they would be willing to pay more for the higher value they perceive. A fixed-price strategy can be segmented to embrace discounts for large purchasers, government, and members of preferred buying organizations [53]. Flat pricing simplifies the vendor's pricing model since the price is set to return a dependable but fixed rate of return. ...
... Bundling increases volume and penetration while creating barriers to the competition [46] [53]. 2. Skim-Pricing Strategies. ...
... Complementary pricing. Complementary pricing is a product-line strategy that exploits the special transaction costs of products that are used jointly but sold separately [53] [66]. The base product (low reservation price/product-line pricing) is sold at a low price that minimizes resistance to purchase. ...
Software pricing has traditionally been focused on the vendor's internal business objectives of covering costs, achieving specified margins, and meeting the competition. Pricing methods such as flat price, tiered pricing, MIPS-based, usage-based, per user, per seat, and pay as you go, are often tactical in nature and easily matched by competitors, which can undermine profitability by accelerating the commoditization process. Conversely, a value-based approach charges a price based on the customer's perceived value of the benefits received. Value-based pricing methodologies can be used to estimate the market value of new software concepts at various stages of the development process in addition to pricing new products for launch. This paper describes a value-based approach to pricing that is dependent on the firm's commitment to invest in the development of its long-term "pricing capital." This investment in methodologies, infrastructure, and processes to create, measure, analyze, and capture customer value is the key to successful long-term pricing strategy.
... (13) Partitioned pricing a Dividing a product's price into two mandatory parts rather than charging a combined, all-inclusive price (Morwitz et al. 1998, p. 453) (14) Penetration pricing a Using low prices as a wedge to get into mass markets early (Monroe 2003, p. 382) (15) Pennies-a-day a The temporal reframing of the cost of a product from an aggregate one-time expense to a series of small ongoing expenses (Gourville 1998, p. 395) (16) Premium pricing A firm exploits consumer heterogeneity in demand for a product by offering a superior version of that product and charging a high (profitable price) for it (Tellis 1986, p. 155) (17) Price bundling a The sale of two or more separate products in a package at a discount, without any integration of the products. (Stremersch and Tellis 2002, p. 56) (18) Price discrimination When a company sells a product or service at two or more prices that do not reflect a proportional difference in costs (Kotler and Keller 2006, p. 453) (19) Price matching An offer to match the lowest price available in the market (Srivastava and Lurie 2001, p. 296) (20) Price signaling a A higher price set by a firm may signal better quality (Nagle and Holden 2002, p. 91) (21) Price skimming a The pricing method of attempting to first reach buyers who are willing to purchase at a high price before marketing to more price-sensitive customers (Monroe 2003, p. 642) (22) Prices charged by competitors The seller provides the comparison price charged by a competitor along with the seller's actual price (Berkowitz and Walton 1980, p. 350) (23) Prices previously charged The seller compares an advertised price with the seller's former (higher) price (Biswas and Blair 1991, p. 1) (24) Random discounting a Discounting price in a manner that should be undiscernible or " random " to uninformed consumers and infrequent so that these consumers do not get lucky too often (Tellis 1986, p. 150) (25) Seasonal pricing Price reductions for merchandise or services out of season (Kotler and Keller 2006, p. 452) (26) Tensile price claims a Promoting a line of merchandise at different sale prices and not specifying the exact level of reduction for any one particular product (Biswas and Burton 1993, p. 217) (27) Two-part pricing Involves two separate charges that consumers must pay to consume a service (Tellis 1986, p. 157). a Item included in final seventeen-item PTPK index. ...
... Selected responses from this " why " inquiry were edited and employed subsequently as false statements for our true–false items. Correct statements associated with the items were based upon descriptive definitions from the extant pricing literature, which describe the various tactics (e.g., Monroe 2003; Nagle and Holden 2002; Noble and Gruca 1999; Tellis 1986). An " I don't know " response option was included to inhibit forced-response guessing. ...
The current research investigates consumer knowledge of the pricing tactics that marketers frequently employ and the effects of that knowledge on responses to various price offers. In the research, a series of studies were conducted to develop and validate a knowledge measure designed to assess pricing tactic persuasion knowledge (PTPK). Consistent with the persuasion knowledge model, individuals with higher levels of PTPK were shown to have more knowledge-related thoughts regarding pricing tactic information than those with low levels of PTPK. Additionally, pricing tactic persuasion knowledge was shown to be more predictive of consumer choices regarding quantity surcharge offers and purchase interest evaluations following exposure to tensile claim offers (e.g., “Save up to 50 percent Off”) than several competing constructs.
... Of three main approaches to pricing in industrial markets ─ cost-based, competition-based and value-based ─ the latter is considered superior by most marketing scholars (Anderson & Narus, 1998; Cressman, Jr., 1999; Nagle & Holden, 2002; Ingenbleek, Debruyne, Frambach, & Verhallen, 2003; Hinterhuber, 2004) and pricing practitioners, (Forbis & Mehta, 1981; Dolan & Simon, 1996; Nagle & Holden, 2002). Paradoxically, few industrial firms have adopted it. ...
... Of three main approaches to pricing in industrial markets ─ cost-based, competition-based and value-based ─ the latter is considered superior by most marketing scholars (Anderson & Narus, 1998; Cressman, Jr., 1999; Nagle & Holden, 2002; Ingenbleek, Debruyne, Frambach, & Verhallen, 2003; Hinterhuber, 2004) and pricing practitioners, (Forbis & Mehta, 1981; Dolan & Simon, 1996; Nagle & Holden, 2002). Paradoxically, few industrial firms have adopted it. ...
Of three main orientations to pricing in industrial markets − cost-based, competition-based and customer value-based − most marketing and pricing scholars consider the latter superior – but few firms use it. The literature is silent about how organizational and behavioral characteristics of industrial firms may affect pricing orientation and, more specifically, value-based pricing. Semi-structured interviews with 44 managers of small to medium size U.S. industrial firms yielded insights into firm pricing orientations, processes and decision making patterns. We identified five organizational characteristics common to firms implementing value-based pricing: ability to effect deep transformational change, presence of a champion, skill in diffusing organizational capabilities, organizational confidence, and center-led pricing process specialization. Our data demonstrates that value-based pricing is not simply adopted but internalized through a long, tenuous and deep transformation process supported by an experiential and transformative learning environment.
... Evidently, the top management should establish pricing goals, objectives, and strategies that will be consistent with marketing and corporate goals, objectives, and strategies [7]. Undeniably, pricing decisions have vital infl uence on reaching organizational success, especially when they are tactical and short-term based. ...
Introduction. Many businesses nowadays struggle to develop an effective pricing strategy that would boost their sales volume and improve profitability. Some of them may overcharge for their products and services, and usually chase customers away with their profit-hungry image. Others may undercharge as they either do not recognize the value they provide to a customer or simply deliver a below-the-standard project/service. Nevertheless, traditional pricing based mainly on the cost of production is a thing of the past as customers’ needs and demands constantly change and what they would like may no longer be expensive to produce. As such, it is important to focus on psychological factors to understand the value customers are looking for and then amplify on those values when determining the right pricing strategy. Theoretical analysis. The theoretical management principles were determined as the patterns of subjects’ behavior for the strategic management planning, value chain management, manufacturing and sale of products and services. The theory of managing a pricing strategy has proposed a number of tools to optimize the integrative framework for profit driven B2B pricing model, which allows developing a value chain management strategy for digital marketing agencies. Methodology. The basic statement of the problem determining strategic pricing methods for digital marketing agencies, depending of various factors is given. Results. During the research the authors explore several pricing strategies for digital marketing agencies and different online services they provide. The purpose of this article is to shift from traditional to strategic pricing methods for digital marketing services, which nowadays require flexibility, critical thinking, agency’s role in the process understanding, the value they provide, and a total scope of work, including time and resources invested in the completion of a project.
... Hinterhuber and Liozu (2012) emphasize that price setting requires discipline and should be congruent with other aspects of a firm's marketing strategy. Commoditization of offerings in mature markets and pronounced buyer power might drive price setters toward competition-based pricing or cost-based pricing (Farjoun, 2002; Ingenbleek, Debruyne, Frambach, & Verhallen, 2003), and lead to below-target profitability (Nagle & Holden, 2002). Hence, many industrial firms strive to renew their business models by increasing the number of value-adding activities in their offering portfolios. ...
In their effort to differentiate themselves from cost-driven rivals, many industrial companies are beginning to serve their customers through value-based offerings. Such companies often engage actively in collaborative value creation with their customers. To capture a fair share of the value created, they need to adopt a value-based pricing approach. Therefore, value-driven competition necessitates value-based pricing (VBP). The present study explores the barriers to exercising value-based pricing and suggests ways to overcome those obstacles in putting value-based pricing into action in B2B sales. The study is implemented as an exploratory multi-case study applying an abductive research methodology. Our cases show that industrial sellers try to understand and influence their customers' desired value perception, influence customer-perceived value (CPV), and improve their bargaining position as means to overcome these barriers to improved value capture. Hence, our findings deepen the current understanding of value-based pricing in industrial buyer–seller relationships. In doing so, it contributes to the literature on customer value, organizational capabilities, business models, and sales management in previously unexplored areas. Moreover, the study provides guidance to business practitioners willing to develop value-based pricing as part of their business model.
... D. Price Nagle and Holden (2002) ...
The term 'Smartphone' has commonly discussed among young adult especially students from higher learning institutional. Cell phone has becoming a part of their life-tool eventually. Young adult eventually used their phone to communicate with people, alarming themselves from few reminders, direct ways, downloading songs and games, texting messages and more. According to Rice and Katz (2008), the cell phone can be said as a social medium that developing into a multimedia digital platform which has the ability to provides, obtains, and shares personal and social information. However, the market eventually has a higher technology which is called Smartphone. Several industries have hurriedly espoused mobile devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) which have the capabilities of integrating wireless connections and mobile devices that auxiliary pushed the demand effectively in every industry by having a new buzzword, "Smartphone," illustrates this popular PDA-phone amalgamation with numerous capabilities (Park and Chen, 2007). The factors affecting consumer demand towards Smartphone are complex in nature and usually there is no single factor or simple reason can be determined. Nowadays, consumers tend to shift their preferences from a basic cell phone to a Smartphone. It is obviously the major lead for mobile phone manufacturers to switch the production towards Smartphone due to high demand. The four independent variables under investigation in this study include product features, brand name, price and social influences. The dependent variable is the demand of Smartphone among young adult. Young adults may include fresh graduates with no working experience, industrial trainee from higher learning institutional or students that study in higher learning institutional. In other words, the target respondents are those youngsters whose age falls between 17 to 25. The main objective of this study is to develop a literature review of factors affecting the demand of Smartphone among young adult. This conceptual paper showed a strong relationship between the variables. A pilot test will be carried out to test the reliability of the variables.
... Price can be defined as a monetary value when the consumers want to exchange it with any products or services which provided by the seller (Nagle and Holden, 2002). Then, price represents an extrinsic cue and provides one of the most important forms of information available to consumers when making a purchasing decision (Jin and Sternquist, 2002). ...
This study literally develop a conceptual framework by using perceived benefits, price, social influence and economics condition factors as the independent variables that influence consumer buying attitude towards private label brand. It consists on well defined definitions of both dependent and independent variables as well as supportive literature review from several researchers. Consistently, based on the literature review, all four variables mentioned had significant influence consumer buying attitude towards private label brand. A conceptual framework was developed based on past research studies.
... Notably, price alone can rarely build or sustain marketing strategy. Unless committed to this strategy, through cost models and sourcing strategies, this model is potentially highly unstable (Nagle and Holden, 2002; Porter, 1998a). Ultimately, a firm must shift in direction of value to take pressure off maintaining a price advantage. ...
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to investigate competitive pricing strategies of apparel brands and retailers.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper begins with a broad discussion of competition by examining Porter's five forces model, and narrows by examining price competition within price tiers in the retail apparel industry according to store format and brands. Included are case studies of apparel retailers and brands incorporating concepts of pricing strategies, brand positioning, and price competition, with a focus on retail channel relationships. The paper analyzes the impact of price competition on apparel retailers and brands, and further examines price tiers as a competitive strategy.
Findings
The study reveals that the concept of price tiers is applicable to apparel retailers and brands. Price tiering is a vehicle for market positioning for the retail apparel industry. Retailers are enacting a price tier strategy by branding their retail store formats or engaging store brands as a vehicle of differentiation for a tier. Retailers and brands can be successful with a price tier strategy, unless they fail to differentiate between tiers on factors other than on price alone.
Research limitations/implications
The lack of relevant price competition literature, relating to the retailer apparel industry, forced the exploration of price competition literature from grocery and automotive sectors.
Originality/value
The paper provides useful information on the impact of price competition on apparel retailers and brands, and also price tiers as a competitive strategy.
... The decrease of sales is larger when the price changes from € 4.95 to € 5.00 than when the price changes from € 5.00 to € 5.05 (Gabor and Granger, 1961, 1966). Psychological prices are perceived as being really lower than the rounded price, although the difference is negligible (Dodds and Monroe, 1985; Nagle, 1987). With a price increase from € 4.95 to € 5.00, the price comes in a higher euro unit, the category of € 5 prices. ...
With the introduction of the euro consumers have to develop a sense of value for euro prices. Consumers may be the victim of a money illusion effect, in which they evaluate euro prices as cheaper than they actually are. For retailers, psychological or odd pricing may be less effective for euro prices than for guilder prices. In this study, we find some support for the money illusion effect. We also find support for less psychological pricing for euros than for guilders.
... Service delivery is assumed to be a variable cost. The inability to successfully model the circular nature of the impact of price on volume and of volume on price can lead to overpricing in weak markets and under pricing in strong markets [52]. It may be particularly inappropriate for services where it is difficult to assign costs to intangibles. ...
While commoditization is creating opportunities for customers of information technology services, it is creating new challenges for the service providers. Pricing strategies are one of the most important challenges and decisions for today's IT service providers. Pricing strategies for IT services have traditionally focused on covering costs, achieving desired margins and meeting the competition. These pricing schemes range from simple approaches, easily copied by competitors, to complex models with high management costs. In order to be successful in today's competitive business world, the service providers need to define their pricing strategies by considering the customer's perceived value from the service they receive rather than using traditional cost-based pricing strategies. This paper surveys literature on IT services pricing and presents a value-based approach to effectively price IT services.
... The approach is somewhat limited as price is not always a conscious variable, competitive price awareness isn't always high, and pricing often varies across distributors. In spite of these limitations, GG and VW techniques are popular due to the nature of their convenient descriptive data analysis and visualization especially when compared to numerous other more theoretically based price and cost models (see, for instance, [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]). These models serve as " workhorse " instruments in marketing research for empirical pricing of concepts and products (for instance, [31] [32] [33] [34] [35]). ...
Pricing a product is one of the most important decisions an organization can make. Marketing research has developed several different approaches to price optimization. They include direct methods such as estimation of willingness to pay, indirect methods such as Gabor-Granger and van Westendorp techniques, and prod-uct/price mix methods such as various discrete choice models. All of them are widely used in practical marketing research for evaluation of optimal prices for different products and product innovations. This work describes and compares several main of these approaches.
... In the State Oil Company v. Khan case of 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that maximum resale price restraints are permitted (Blair and Lafontaine 1999). Resale price maintenance is acceptable if it is unilaterally applied to all downstream partners and if it is not anti-competitive (Coughlan et al. 2006; Nagle and Holden 2002) ...
The existing literature on channel coordination typically models markets where used goods are not sold, or are sold outside the standard channel. However, retailers routinely sell used goods for a profit in markets like textbooks. Further, such markets are characterized by a renewable consumer population over time, rather than the static consumer population often assumed in prior literature. We show that accounting for these market characteristics alters the optimal contract form as compared to the contracts derived in prior research. In particular, when new goods are sold in both the first and second periods of our model, the optimal contract differs from those in prior literature in that it can exhibit a negative fixed fee in the second period and requires contracting over the resale price in the second period. The model shows that the manufacturer makes higher profits from allowing used-good sales alongside new-good sales than from shutting down the retailer-profitable secondary market, and that unit sales expand with a profitable secondary market over those achievable without a secondary market. Furthermore, in contrast to previous investigations of durable goods markets that ignore the possibility of a retailer-profitable secondary market, we show conditions under which the manufacturer would optimally choose to sell no new goods in the second period, ceding the market entirely to the used-goods retailer. This research thus expands our knowledge of how durable goods markets work by incorporating the profitable operation of a retailer-run resale market. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007
... 5 Put differently, the aggravation associated with the outright loss of a sum of money ought to be greater than that associated with the opportunity loss of not being able to gain the same amount. That is, a movement away from the origin in the domain of losses yields a relatively large change in value perceptions, while an equivalent movement towards the origin in the domain of gains yields a relatively small change in value perceptions (Nagle & Holden, 2002; Thaler, 1980). This view of opportunity costs is consistent with the perspective that ''. . . ...
We examine how prior outcomes can influence expectations about unrelated future events. Consistent with the affect literature, we first predict that prior outcomes will yield more optimistic expectations when the outcomes are positively, rather than negatively, valenced. We then predict that the impact of prior outcomes will depend on not only the valence, but also the domain of prior outcomes. Specifically, we draw from Prospect theory to predict that the impact of prior outcomes on future expectations will be greater in the domain of losses than in the domain of gains. Two lottery-based experiments demonstrate that this effect is robust across different starting and ending wealth states, and a third experiment shows that these differences in expectations also translate into differences in risk preferences.
Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) is the landlord and sole provider of marine services in South Africa’s eight commercial ports. Historically, TNPA set port prices for marine (nautical) services below full cost recovery. Price regulation has improved the situation, but substantial reforms are still required. This paper revisits marine services pricing in South Africa’s ports. The methodology employed content analysis to analyse 99 stakeholders’ submissions to the Ports Regulator of South Africa from financial years 2013/2014 to 2021/2022. The results are discussed under four categories of themes: concerns about the above-inflation price increase, suggestions on alternative marine services pricing models, concerns about marine services provision and productivity, and the disputed cross-subsidization between ports and port user groups. Despite above-inflation price increases for marine services, tariffs remain 44% below the global benchmarked mean, whilst revenues from cargo owners subsidise port tenants and shipping lines. The relatively low prices for marine services may exacerbate the sub-optimal levels of investment and maintenance in marine services. The study recommends that marine services pricing reforms incorporate the user-pays principle, be founded on activity-based costing, and adopt a dual-till model. Activity-based costing is considered the international best practice, and it is the preferable approach recommended by several port users in South Africa.
Teoride ve pratikte sıklıkla kullanılan fiyat promosyonlarına yönelik olarak tüketici fiyat algılarını anlamak sadece pazarlama teorileri kapsamında ele alınmamalı; aynı zamanda ekonomi ve psikoloji gibi farklı bilimlerden beslenerek kendi özünü yaratan pazarlamanın bu gibi bilim dallarındaki teoriler çerçevesinde de ele alınması gerekmektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı, fiyat promosyonlarına yönelik olarak ele alınan teorilerin incelenmesi ve tüketicilerin rasyonel bireylerden çok irrasyonel bireyler olduğunu savunan davranışsal ekonomi teorileri kapsamında incelenmesidir. Araştırmanın bir diğer amacı ise, fiyat indirimlerinin birden fazla ürün ya da hem ürün hem de ek hizmetine ilişkin indirim gibi çoklu durumlarda, tüketicilerin fiyat indirimlerini karşılaştırmalı olarak analiz edebilmesine olanak sağlayacağı düşünülen zihinsel muhasebe teorisi ve hedonik çerçeveleme ilkeleri kapsamında ele alınmasıdır. Bu amaçlar doğrultusunda, literatürdeki ana konuları, yazarları, kaynakları, en çok atıf alan makaleleri ve ülkeleri bulmak için bilimsel literatür, bibliyometrik bir analizle belirlenmiş ve analiz edilmiştir. Bunu yapmak için, Web of Science (Wos) ve Scopus’un ana koleksiyonlarında indekslenen makaleler analiz edilmiştir. Araştırma sonuçları iki aşamalı olarak sunulmuş olup ilk aşamada davranışsal ekonomi ve fiyat promosyonlarına yönelik çalışmalar incelenmiştir. İkinci aşamasında ise spesifik olarak zihinsel muhasebe teorisi & hedonik çerçeveleme ve fiyat promosyonlarına yönelik çalışmalar ele alınmıştır.
Purpose
This study aims to examine the effect of hotels’ star ratings and customer ratings on online hotel prices from both supply- and demand-side perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach
To compile the supply-side data, a Web crawler was designed and implemented to read online prices and characteristics of available hotels from Trivago. Demand-side data were compiled from surveys conducted using the Amazon Mechanical Turk portal. Data were analyzed with an array of advanced machine learning regression models.
Findings
The results show that while a star rating is the most important predictor of price from both supply- and demand-side perspectives, customer rating influences the price much more significantly on the demand-side. Customers showed a tendency to overestimate the room price of three- and four-star hotels and underestimate the price of five-star hotels. Customers placed a heavier weight on customer ratings when estimating prices particularly when the average rating was above 7.5 (out of 10). The study also confirms the strong effect of price adjustment for customers when they were exposed to the prices of other similar hotels. Finally, the study examines the impact of demographics on the perceived hotel value. Age, ethnicity, education and income are shown to be the most significant demographic characteristics.
Originality/value
The results are valuable from a research perspective because they demonstrate how to price rooms more effectively based on their perceived value from consumers’ perspectives. From a practical standpoint, the findings provide useful managerial tools for pricing in competitive environments.
Process innovation is a chain of activities designed to reduce the cost and time of manufacturing a product or delivering a service with the desired quality and competitive advantage. The most challenging issue in process innovation and improvement is identifying the redundancies in the manufacturing or services delivery process and eliminating them to reduce the cost and time involved in the process of generating the final output. Therefore, it is essential for managers to understand the process at work and find a critical path to optimize the time and cost of carrying out an innovation. The relevant executives can design an efficient process to improve workable ideas that will make a real difference to the organization as they move the innovation into the marketplace. This chapter discusses the capabilities and competencies of companies in carrying out process innovation and value chain management, and analyzes the process outcome and focus. The chapter also addresses various issues referring to managing process improvements, and developing an innovation value chain.
Despite strong evidence of substantial impact on the bottom line, most companies counter-intuitively neglect the pricing function — as do most scholars. Although pricing is gaining in popularity, only a few articles published in major marketing journals focus on it, and scholars have long asked how organizational and behavioral characteristics of firms affect the link between pricing practices and firm performance. To address these practical and theoretical deficits, we surveyed 507 professionals involved in account and sales management at business-to-business (B2B) firms from around the world to measure the influence of five organizational factors on sales collective confidence associated with pricing and relative firm performance. Results demonstrate that four of the five factors (pricing capabilities, delegation of pricing authority, incentive and goal systems, and knowledge before negotiation) positively and significantly influence sales collective confidence associated with pricing. In turn, we find collective confidence in the sales force to be significantly and positively related to relative firm performance, suggesting that firms that are able to design organizations and allocate resources in a way that maximizes pricing confidence can achieve superior financial outcomes. In aggregate, these organizational factors promote competitive advantage and comparative firm performance.
Now days, the marketing environment is rapidly changed. Therefore, a lot of companies try to reduce production cost. Especially, Design is a important activities in new product development. While the concepts of design for manufacturable and concurrent engineering have made significant advances in integrating the design function with other areas in the firm. There are still major gaps in timely and accurate costing information available to designers. Inappropriate design could result in high redesign cost and delay in product relation. The generation of design and improvement is a time-consuming and mentally exhaustion process. It involves combining design features to generate as many potential design as possible. As not all features combinations are feasible, decision-makers have to narrow down the potential solutions and subsequently select appropriate design for further development. This new study is composed of 3 steps aiming at the Low Cost Design of the product. The three steps are consisted that setting up the target Cost, estimating the current functional cost, the design of a unit's reviewing according to the priority of the difference between the target cost and the functional cost.
Purpose - This paper aims to explore the strategic dimensions and drivers of sustainable IT and
roadmaps its likely development as a disruptive innovative force over the next decade as it moves
beyond the datacenter and throughout the IT organization, the firm, markets, and society at large. Its
purpose is to provide a comprehensive view of the emerging industry to inform sustainable IT strategy
development and stimulate future research.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a qualitative three-phase process to develop the
technology roadmap for the sustainable IT industry. The phases are domain analysis, which features a
comprehensive literature review and expert panel depth interviews; roadmap development, which
involved two technology roadmapping brainstorming sessions; and follow-up activity, to confirm
roadmap session results with the expert panel.
Findings – The paper defines the emerging field of sustainable IT and its green IT and sustainable IT
services dimensions. It identifies market segments, products and services, technologies, compliance
and reporting requirements, organizational changes, and value migration and roadmaps a likely future
landscape for the development of sustainable IT strategy.
Practical implications – Developing a sustainable IT strategy is a major issue for most organizations.
Managers and researchers can use the results of this study to better understand the dimensions of
sustainable IT and its likely future growth paths. Researchers will find the comprehensive approach to
the topic useful for planning future technological innovations and determining their disruptive potential.
Managers can use the results to benchmark their current situation and develop strategies for the next
generation of sustainable IT service solutions.
Originality/value – This paper is the first to apply technology roadmapping to the emerging sustainable
IT industry. It provides a strategic planning perspective of the future of the industry as it migrates from
green-IT strategies for reducing the costs and energy use of computing to sustainable IT services that
hold the potential for transforming complex environmental and social responsibility problems into
business opportunities.
We address the following paradox: most scholars consider value-based pricing as superior to cost- and competition-based approaches in industrial markets – yet, few firms use it. Semi-structured interviews with 44 managers of small to medium size US industrial firms revealed key characteristics that are common to the firms who successfully implement value-based pricing: the ability to face deep transformational change, the role of champions as transformational leaders, the creation and diffusion of organizational mindfulness, the building of organizational confidence to fuel the transformation, and the design of center-led and specialized teams of experts supporting the firm's pricing process. Our data demonstrate that value-based pricing is not simply adopted but internalized through a long and purposeful process supported by a mindful, experiential, and transformative learning environment.
This paper investigates how an insurer's pricing strategy can be adapted to respond to market conditions, and in particular the insurance cycle. For this purpose, we explore the use of dynamic pricing strategies, such as the revenue management techniques used by other industries (e.g., airlines, car rentals, internet service providers) in an insurance context. We then compare these dynamic pricing techniques with the static ones currently used in the market, and demonstrate that they can prove very valuable to insurers looking to enhance their competitive strategy.
E-Commerce has developed into a major business arena during the past decade, and many of the sales activities are handled
by computers. Intelligent algorithms are being developed to further automate the sales process, which reduces labor costs
as well as business operational expenses. This paper describes an automatic sales-price determination algorithm for online
markets in a competitive environment. It tries to dynamically adjust the sales price to maximize the profit and minimize the
sales time. This algorithm gathers sales prices of competing online stores, and optimally adjusts the advertising price. It
is particularly useful when a store carries numerous items so manual price adjustments are laborious and costly. The algorithm
has been applied to DVD movie sales in the online market, and shown to shorten the sales time and increase the profit.
Purpose
Price sensitivity is one of the key factors affecting to companies pricing choices. Yet in mobile services sector business practitioners are facing problems in pricing decisions as they are short of knowledge on their customers’ price sensitivity levels and dynamics. Therefore this study aims to focus on this unexplored field in order to provide more accurate tools for mobile service providers to price their services more effectively.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is conducted on Finnish mobile services markets. The focus is on examining how customers’ price sensitivity differs between different customer segments and which factors affect to the price sensitivity levels. The sample data is collected through a quantitative postal survey in which 3,000 questionnaires was sent to mobile service customers of a Finnish teleoperator. In analyzing the empirical data the explanatory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis was applied.
Findings
It was discovered that mobile service customers differ significantly in their price sensitivity levels; customers with moderate usage of mobile services are least price sensitive, while intensive and low‐end users are most sensitive to price changes. Important was also the notion that customers’ price perceptions and innovativeness levels were accurate indicators of their price sensitivity.
Research limitations/implications
This paper has concentrated only on Finnish mobile services markets. In order to construct a robust set of indicators for international use, cross‐cultural study on testing the factors of this study should be conducted.
Practical implications
For business practitioners, the most distinctive finding of this paper are a new set of factors through which segmenting of their customers can be made more accurately.
Originality/value
With the findings of this paper a mobile service provider is able to increase efficiency of pricing of mobile services.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework to help marketers of services price their products by looking beyond costs and competitive forces. By analysing the value of information; consumers' price sensitivity; and transaction costs other than search costs, against the characteristics of their service they could make more profitable pricing decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
– A critical review of the academic and professional literature reveals a rich array of possibilities for pricing services. A simple framework is developed in the form of a matrix crossing the three dimensions of heterogeneity of consumer demand with the four characteristics of services. Each cell represents a set of pricing options.
Findings
– Services should be priced in a way to reflect the customers' price sensitivity, the nature of the transaction and its cost, and the value of information. The pricing should also reflect the four characteristics of services: intangibility, perishability, lack of standardization, and inseparability of production and consumption.
Originality/value
– This paper fills a conceptual and practical gap for a structured review of the current state of knowledge about the pricing of services. It offers practical and solid advice and examples demonstrating the application of the different types of pricing strategies for service providers.
This paper includes an examination of two key issues on price decisions: (1) how should price decisions be made (the strategic and normative issue) within market contexts, and (2) how are price decisions actually made (the execution and implementation of price decisions). The paper closes with some observations useful for applied research and strategies for making effective pricing decisions. The propositions and literature review show that one pricing strategy does not fit a brand in all market contexts that brand executives experience annually in managing brands. Setting specific price points requires continuing deliberate management responses to dynamic market contexts. This paper provides useful sense-making conjunctive steps to accomplish such deliberate thinking effectively relevant for different market contexts.
Can pairing items from different price tiers decrease consumers’ perceptions of monetary value? Prior research suggests that adding an item with positive utility to an offering can only increase the offering’s overall value. In contrast, we show that combining expensive and inexpensive items can lead to subtractive rather than additive judgments, such that consumers are willing to pay less for the combination than for the expensive item alone. We attribute this subtraction effect to the categorical nature of consumers’ processing of numeric information when evaluating combinations of items classified into opposing categories. Five empirical studies lend converging support to the proposition that categorical reasoning can lead to subtractive judgments.
In developing pricing strategies, managers typically take into account a wide array of factors, including those that are internal to the firm as well as those that are external to its operations. However, little attention has been paid to how managers consider these factors in combination and how such judgments affect their ultimate choice of pricing strategy. These questions are the focus of this study, particularly as they pertain to international pricing decisions. Drawing on key dimensions thought to influence the relative weights that pricing managers place on both internal and external factors, the study details how those relative weightings influence the ultimate strategies managers employ. Findings indicate that international experience, product technology, degree of internationalization, market share, and certain external factors influence weightings managers give to internal and external factors in the process of making international pricing decisions. Furthermore, these decision-making factors combine to affect the specific strategies pricing managers employ in determining international prices.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate customers' intentions to purchase mobile communications services and how these intentions are affected by the customers' price perceptions in two customer segments – a mobile segment and a combined segment. A further aim was to gain insight into the formation of price perceptions, and customer characteristics that underlie the differences between purchase intentions and price perceptions. Design/methodology/approach – The study was conducted in the Finnish mobile services market. The sample data were collected through a postal survey (n=3,000) sent to customers of a Finnish teleoperator. In analyzing empirical data the explanatory factor analyses, linear regression analyses, and analysis of variance were applied. Findings – The results indicated that a significant and positive relationship exists between customers' price perceptions and their purchase intentions, and that the formation of price perceptions is significantly influenced by satisfaction with pricing and services. Price transparency was found to be negatively associated with customers' price perceptions. Gender, age, and experience of service use were found to explain the differences in customers' perceptions. Practical implications – By segmenting customers according to the research results and targeting pricing schemes specific to these segments would potentially improve customers' price perceptions and their intentions to purchase mobile services. The study also supported the use of multi-dimensional pricing schemes as it was found to positively influence customers' price perceptions. Originality/value – This paper provides new practical and theoretical insights into the relationship between purchase intentions and price perception, and into the formation of the price perceptions of mobile services customers.
This chapter delineates the antecedents of tourists’ perceptions of the extent to which they perceive the prices they pay as being fair. The study also tests the relative importance of overall price fairness perception, which is measured as the relative gap between the expected price and the perceived price. A model and hypothesis was developed and tested, with reference to existing theories. Data was collected from nine nature- and activity-based firms in Northern Norway. A regression analysis was performed, in order to test the relative effects and strengths of the antecedents of tourist perception of price fairness. The results revealed that both information and monetary antecedents affect perceptions of price fairness. In particular, monetary-related antecedents such as household income, payment in advance, and value for money affected perception of whether prices were fair. Interestingly, information-related antecedents such as previous experience affected negative perceptions of price fairness. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the tourist industry.
Purpose
– Supplementary fees such as restocking fees, nonrefundable shipping and handling fees, and cancellation fees have become prevalent in the USA, and customers as well as the popular media have raised serious concerns about them. This paper aims to test whether such fees could benefit consumers because they lead to lower prices.
Design/methodology/approach
– Transaction data that include prices and fees were collected from different service providers, including hotels, airlines, online retailers, and restaurants. The data were collected from different countries at different points in time. Cross‐sectional and panel data sets were used to test the relationship between fees and prices.
Findings
– The empirical results indicate that on average higher fees lead to lower prices for the majority of customers who do not abuse customer‐friendly service policies. These findings are valid for different service industries in different countries even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity using panel econometric models.
Originality/value
– The results are consistent with the hypothesis that special fees are used to limit the abuse of customer‐friendly service policies, thus helping service providers to offer lower prices to the majority of customers who do not abuse these policies.
The aim of this study was to document and compare price levels for restaurant services and discuss the possible implications for the tourist industry in Norway. The sample consisted of a total of 47 restaurants in Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin and Paris. It was an exploratory research using a combination of qualitative methods (categorization and choice of menu items) and quantitative analyses. The result of the study indicated that price levels of restaurants in Oslo and Stockholm were clearly higher than price levels in Copenhagen, Paris and Berlin. The differences were distinct for alcoholic beverages, non‐alcoholic beverages and food. It was argued that high price levels gave strong effects for individual family tourists, travelling by car or other “free” transportation. If the tourists had low income or low budget, or if they originated from a country with a relatively low price level, the negative effects would be strengthened. The effects are probably not so strong for business travellers and package tourists. The author also argues that the restaurant industry might weaken the negative effects by calculating lower prices on menu items where tourists have a clear reference price, and by giving the tourists information about the reasons for high price levels.
In this paper, the supplier of a key component to a global manufacturer offers a one-time price discount; we study the firm's optimal response to the discount under two different strategies. In the first strategy, the firm does not pass along the discount to its customers (sales subsidiaries); the firm simply coordinates purchasing and production among the different factories to take advantage of this one-time price discount. In the second strategy, the firm offers price discounts for its most profitable products in different sales subsidiaries to increase their demand. We carried out experiments for the two strategies based on a mathematical programming model, built around Toshiba's global notebook supply chain. Model constraints include, among others, material constraints, bill-of-materials, capacity and transportation constraints, minimum lot size constraints, and a constraint on minimum fill rate (service level constraint). Unlike most models of this type in the literature, which define variables in terms of single arc flows, we employ path variables, which allow for direct identification and manipulation of profitable and non-profitable products.
The controversial debate on the appropriate standard for the assessment of bundled discounts echoes the difficulties encountered by courts, antitrust authorities and scholars in their ongoing attempt to develop a coherent theoretical framework to distinguish exclusionary conduct from legitimate competition. Currently, there is no general consensus on the treatment of the practice. Even the recent DOJ report on single-firm conduct – withdrawn by the new US administration – and the Commission guidance on Article 82 EC have not definitely clarified the proper approach to bundled discounting. The application of general principles on foreclosure could prevent the use of an effective competitive tool and may result in reduced price competition and protection of inefficient competitors. On the other hand, a total bundle predation-style safe harbor would not detect above-cost bundled discounts that are capable of excluding or limiting the competitive capacity of equally efficient rivals. The US discount allocation test aims at tempering the excesses of the two above-mentioned approaches, but it is too simplistic, does not fit most actual cases and may be both over-deterrent and under-deterrent. The test proposed by the Commission guidance may give rise to similar inconveniences, although it is more likely to be over-deterrent. This paper proposes a refined cost-based test, aimed at establishing whether an equally efficient rival could reasonably compete for the (contestable portion of demand for the) product(s) reasonably open to competition. This test is based on the idea that a practice should be considered a legitimate form of competition on the merits if, notwithstanding the possible existence of one or more competitive advantages that cannot be reasonably replicated or overcome by rivals in an acceptable time frame, a hypothetical competitor that is equally efficient under all remaining aspects could react to the dominant firm’s behavior through a conduct that would benefit consumers. However, in case of complex pricing policies, cost-based tests are imperfect and approximate tools, which may provide useful evidence and indications as to the risk of exclusion of equally efficient rivals, but cannot usually function as a safe harbor for dominant firms. A cost-based test can only be part of a comprehensive assessment of the likely effects of the practice. When the application of an appropriate cost-based test turns out to be too complex and uncertain or, in any case, the test does not provide sufficiently complete and reliable indications, a proper allocation of the burden of proof could reduce the risk of type I and type II errors.
Should market prices include or exclude taxes? Market prices in U.S. do not include sales taxes and similarly prices in Canada are tax-exclusive. But in many other countries exclusion of taxes is considered misleading, and thus consumer protection laws regulate tax-inclusive pricing. This paper explains, based on optimal tax analysis, that the opposite is true. To the extent that tax-exclusive pricing confuses consumers who hence ignore non-indicated taxes, consumers are better off, and therefore, tax-exclusive pricing is socially desirable. The argument is counter-intuitive, in particular for consumer protection advocates: confusion is actually good for consumers. The paper further investigates other potential rationales for tax-inclusive pricing, and shows that a reasonably accepted justification is rather limited in scope and unrelated to consumer protection motivations. Finally, the paper extends the analysis to wage taxes and to misleading non-tax (marketing) practices.
We characterize the optimal screening mechanism for a monopolist facing consumers with privately known demands, some of whom have limited abilities to misrepresent their preferences. We show that consumers with better abilities to misrepresent information benefit from the presence of consumers who lack such abilities. Whenever the fraction of the latter group is positive, there is no exclusion: the firm supplies a positive quantity of the good to all consumers whose valuations exceed marginal cost of production. Our analysis is motivated by the evidence indicating that some individuals have limited ability to misrepresent themselves and imitate others.
Increasingly, manufacturers sell their products in their own retail stores, and many of these stores appear to be in direct
competition with independent retailers; i.e., both types of retail stores are physically co-located. We analyze one way this
practice affects the retail market. We find that, when independent retailers compete against company stores (instead of just
against other independent retailers), they (1) charge higher prices and (2) are more willing to engage in marketing efforts
on behalf of the manufacturer’s brand. Furthermore, when company stores and independent retailers compete in the same market,
the company store charges higher prices and provides more marketing effort. Anecdotal data are consistent with these model
predictions.
Abstract This paper presents a multi-layered valuation framework for pricing investment advisory services, using service modules as product specification and a reference base for pricing. The aim is to bridge,the gap between investment advisors and marketing,experts with a common ,ground for service design, valuation and value-based pricing of investment advice. The framework, uses ,two nested pro- pose-and-revise loops covering ,three different layers: Product configuration, qualitative valuation, and pric- ing. Thereby the approach,enables marketers: 1. To spec- ify investment advice as a ,knowledge ,and,information product, based on service modules. 2. To assess the value ofinvestment,advisory services in a scoring ,model ,to support value-based pricing. 3. T o use this specification of the actual service as the reference base for pricing in a modular,pricing kit. 4. To provide decision support ,for product managers, achieving results and insights about valuation and pricing, even with rules of thumb and in- complete information. 1. Assessing the value proposition of in-
Le taux d'échec des lancements de biens et services innovants appelle une réflexion sur les méthodes utilisables dès le stade du concept pour mesurer le consentement à payer (CAP) des consommateurs. Cet article vise à comparer deux méthodes qui peuvent être utilisées à cette fin : l'évaluation contingente et l'analyse conjointe. Il présente les résultats de deux études visant à mesurer le CAP de locataires de logements sociaux pour une offre groupée de services d'information et multimédia. Les résultats montrent une divergence des résultats issus des méthodes étudiées et appellent à un développement des recherches dans ce champ.
Hearing loss is a common health issue that affects nearly 10% of the world population as indicated by many international studies. The hearing impaired typically experience more frustration, anxiety, irritability, depression, and disorientation than those with normal hearing levels. The standard rehabilitation tool for hearing impairment is an electronic hearing aid whose main components are transducers (microphone and receiver) and a digital signal processor. These electronic components are manufactured by supply chain rather than by hearing aid manufacturers. Manufacturers can use custom-designed components or generic off-the-shelf components. These electronic components are available as application-specific or off-the-shelf products, with the former designed for a specific manufacturer and the latter for a generic approach. The choice of custom or generic components will affect the product specifications, pricing, manufacturing, life cycle, and marketing strategies of the product. The World Health Organization is interested in making available to developing countries hearing aids that are inexpensive to purchase and maintain. The hearing aid presented in this article was developed with these specifications in mind together with additional contemporary features such as four channels with wide dynamic range compression, an adjustable compression rate for each channel, four comfort programs, an adaptive feedback manager, and full volume control. This digital hearing aid is fitted using a personal computer with minimal hardware requirements in intuitive three-step fitting software. A trimmer-adjusted version can be developed where human and material resources are scarce.
Motivada pelo recente debate sobre o aumento da sensibilidade a preço dos consumidores que compram pela Internet, esta tese propõe um modelo de compra na Internet no qual a confiança do consumidor no varejista eletrônico desempenha um papel central. O modelo proposto encontra forte sustentação teórica na teoria de marketing de relacionamento e, mais especificamente, nos resultados de um estudo de Morgan e Hunt (1994). Estes autores propuseram e validaram um modelo no qual o comprometimento e a confiança desempenham um papel central para o sucesso do marketing de relacionamento. O modelo proposto nesta tese foi desenvolvido apenas para situações envolvendo encontros iniciais entre consumidores e varejistas eletrônicos. Nesta situação particular, o modelo propõe que a confiança do consumidor no varejista eletrônico depende da avaliação do consumidor sobre os atributos funcionais do Website do varejista e das associações de confiança em relação à marca do varejista. A confiança do consumidor no varejista eletrônico resulta na formação da atitude do consumidor em relação ao varejista que, por sua vez, aumenta a intenção de comprar o produto do varejista e diminui a sensibilidade a preço do consumidor. Ao considerar a estreita relação entre os conceitos de confiança e risco percebido, o modelo também propõe que a influência da confiança é menor em situações de baixo risco percebido do que em condições de alto risco percebido. Para estabelecer-se um contraponto à atitude do consumidor em relação ao varejista, o modelo leva em conta também a influência da marca do fabricante sobre a intenção de compra e sobre a sensibilidade a preço do consumidor. As hipóteses originadas do modelo teórico foram testadas por meio de dois experimentos realizados concomitantemente e os dados foram coletados com os mesmos respondentes. De modo geral, o modelo proposto não foi rejeitado pelos dois experimentos. Não foi possível verificar-se, entretanto, o efeito moderador do risco percebido sobre a confiança, isto é, a influência da confiança no varejista não foi diferente nas duas situações de risco percebido. Especificamente, os resultados do primeiro experimento sugerem que a atitude do consumidor em relação ao varejista influencia positivamente a intenção de comprar o produto mas não tem nenhum efeito sobre a sensibilidade a preço do consumidor. Por outro lado, a atitude em relação à marca do fabricante influencia tanto a intenção de compra quanto a sensibilidade a preço do consumidor e seu efeito é superior ao da confiança no varejista. Os resultados do primeiro experimento também indicam que os consumidores demonstram mais confiança em varejistas eletrônicos híbridos (varejistas que comercializam seus produtos tanto por meio da Internet quanto por meio de lojas convencionais) do que em varejistas eletrônicos puros (varejistas que comercializam seus produtos unicamente por meio da Internet). Esta maior confiança, entretanto, não se traduz em maior intenção de compra e é provável que a familiaridade influencie o nível de confiança do consumidor no varejista eletrônico. Os resultados do segundo experimento, por sua vez, indicam que o efeito da confiança do consumidor no varejista eletrônico é menos importante para a decisão do comprador do que o preço do bem e apenas ligeiramente superior à atitude em relação à marca do fabricante. Tomados em conjunto, os resultados sugerem que a confiança do consumidor no varejista eletrônico é importante, embora talvez não mereça o papel de destaque que alguns autores vêm lhe atribuindo. A tese ainda aponta as limitações dos experimentos e sugere caminhos a serem explorados por novas pesquisas na área.
Health economic analyses seek to assess the relative value (cost vs health benefit trade-offs) of medical technologies. However, these methods have been underused in studies of the electrocardiogram (ECG).
We develop a framework for the economic evaluation of the ECG as a decision support tool within broader treatment strategies. We then apply this framework to the development of an economic study protocol for the Prehospital Wireless Transmission of Electrocardiograms to a Cardiologist via a Hand-held Device Multicenter study.
Our framework defines key cost-effectiveness concepts and describes alternative methods for estimating medical costs and health benefits. We demonstrate how this framework has been applied to develop the Prehospital Wireless Transmission of Electrocardiograms to a Cardiologist via a Hand-held Device Multicenter economic protocol.
The conduct of health economic studies alongside ECG clinical studies could provide important information for those seeking to promote newer ECG applications that require significant financial investments.
Health information professionals recognize the need to demonstrate that the benefits of health information technological (HIT) interventions outweigh their costs. However, such cost-benefit analyses are rarely conducted for HIT interventions, due in part to the lack of a standard methodology. In this study, we describe how the U.S. Public Health Service's guidelines for health economic analyses can be used to evaluate HIT interventions. This framework is described in the context of an economic analysis we are conducting for three HIT interventions to be implemented in a community-based health network caring for Medicaid beneficiaries in Durham County, North Carolina. At present, the 17,779 patients in our study cost Medicaid more than $5 million per month. In sensitivity analyses, we demonstrate that if our information intervention redirects just 10% of low-severity emergency room encounters to outpatient encounters, it will result in $12,523 of monthly savings to the local health system.
Demand for durables can be modeled using a logit framework in which a customer chooses one brand from several alternatives, or buys nothing at all. In this framework, optimal prices for competing brands can be expressed as a system of nonlinear equations, which, however, do not have closed form solutions. Although the optimal price can be determined by numerical search, the solution offers limited understanding of its omponents. In this article, we develop a linear approximation of the Nash equilibrium optimal price of a brand as its marginal cost plus a weighted sum of: (1) the inverse of the price sensitivity of the market, (2) the average value added by all brands in the market, and (3) the value advantage (or disadvantage) of the brand. The weights depend primarily upon the number of competing brands, with price insensitivity having the strongest impact, followed by value advantage of the brand, and average value added by all brands. This approximation for optimal price is found to be robust under a wide range of conditions. Additionally, we demonstrate that using the approximation results in only marginal deviation of profits from the theoretical Nash optimal.
The extending interorganizational electronic business (business-to-business) means system to system communication between business partners without any manual interaction. This has led to the development of new standards for the exchange of electronic product catalogs (e-catalogs), which are the starting point for business-to-business trading. E-catalogs contain various information about products, essential are price information. Prices are used for buying decisions and following order transactions. While simple price models are often sufficient for the description of indirect goods (e.g. office supplies), other goods and lines of business make higher demands. In this paper we examine what price information is contained in commercial XML standards for the exchange of product catalog data. For that purpose we bring the different implicit price models of the examined catalog standards together and provide a generalized model.
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