22
International executive programs
The Strategy and Tactics of
Pricing
A Guide to Growing More Profitably
Program Overview
Pricing is one of the most important but least understood marketing decisions. Too often,
managers treat pricing as a tactical problem in financial analysis or sales management. In
fact, pricing products and services is a strategic problem that requires coordination of many
functional areas. The ability to manage effective pricing affects a company’s growth and
profitability more quickly and directly than any other strategic decision.
The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing is designed to equip you with the concepts, techniques,
and latest thinking on assessing and formulating pricing strategies. The program covers a wide
range of topics associated directly with the pricing of products and services.
We will cover pricing techniques such as cost-based, competition-based, and value-based
pricing. The program will look as well at how to develop a profitable pricing structure and how to
increase profits using concepts of price discrimination such as bundling. Finally, we will explore
issues related to pricing tactics. These issues will include price effects on purchasing behavior
and the role of pricing when dealing with competition.
The materials used in this course are intended to provide you with a comprehensive exposure
to making managerial pricing decisions. You will be expected to understand theoretical pricing
concepts and, more importantly, apply them to a variety of marketing scenarios.
Program Objectives
The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing is an interactive workshop which concentrates
on how firms attempt to capture value, as well as profits, in the revenues they earn.
The objective of this three day international executive program is to assist you in
developing an in-depth knowledge relating to the formulation of pricing strategies for new
and existing products and services. You will learn the process of making pricing decisions
and explore innovative approaches for setting prices. Additional focus will be made on
pricing dynamics and the reaction to and by competitors at the firm and product level.
Participants develop a sound understanding of how to:
• Evaluate the real financial implications of pricing decisions.
• Use pricing strategically to guide a firm to long-term profitability, rather
than reactively to solve short-term problems.
• Acquire the skills that will enable you to effectively develop and implement
pricing strategies.
• Develop a template that provides structure for identifying the most
profitable price.
• Understand a customer’s willingness to pay and its relationship to pricing
strategies.
• Integrate pricing with other elements of the marketing mix.
• Determine when it makes sense to compete on price and when it does not.
• Evaluate which value-added alternatives to price competition are
appropriate for your business
• Change customers’ price perception to capture more value.
Program Structure
The program features several stimulating modules that address numerous issues of
concern to marketing managers. Topics to be discussed include:
The Art of Pricing. Pricing strategies have a significant impact on a company’s
performance, growth and profitability. Setting the right price is an art, and doing so
across multiple channels, fragmented markets and ever smaller consumer segments
is a challenging task. These sessions will examine the best pricing strategies such
as penetration or skim pricing to achieve profitable growth.
Setting the Right Price across a Product or Service Portfolio. The central
question in many firms revolves around how to price new and existing offerings.
Although cost-based and competition-based pricing are the most prevalent means
utilized by firms to establish prices for their offerings, these approaches may prevent
firms from fully realizing the benefits that are due to them. These sessions will
introduce value-based pricing approaches such as conjoint analysis which examines
General Information
Duncan McIver
Unilever España
“I found the program practical, thought provoking, but very
relevant and applicable. Overall an excellent program.”
Price: €3,800
Location: Madrid, 28, 29 and 30 of October, 2009 and May 2010
For further information, please contact:
Melissa Rodríguez Stam
International Executive Program Manager
María de Molina, 27
28006 Madrid, Spain
Tel.: +34 91 568 97 64 / 96 69
Melissa.Rodríguez@ie.edu
www.execed.ie.edu/internationalprograms
the value that a firm’s offering creates for the customer.
Developing a Pricing Structure to Optimize Profits. Firms typically sell their
offerings to multiple customers with differing needs and value perceptions. This
allows firms to charge different prices to different customers. This is usually referred
to as price discrimination. Robert Candall, the former CEO of American Airlines
highlights the importance of price discrimination with the words “if I have 200
customers on a given route and 400 different prices, I am obviously short 1,600
prices”. These sessions will explore the different means of price discrimination such
as product bundling or dynamic pricing.
Fighting a Price War and How to Prevent It. In the battle to capture customers,
firms use a wide range of tactics to ward off competitors. Increasingly, price is the
weapon of choice – and frequently the skirmishing degenerates into a price war.
Creating low-price appeal is often the goal, but the result of one retaliatory price
slashing after another is often a precipitous decline in industry profits. These
sessions will therefore indentify means of preventing a price war and discuss price
and non-price tactics when facing a price war.
Managing a Customer’s Price Perception. For most of the products and services
consumers buy, they don’t have an accurate sense of what the price should be. One would
expect this information gap to be a major stumbling block to consumers. Yet people
happily buy products and services every day. Is this because they don’t care what kind
of deal they’re getting? No. Remarkably, it is because consumers rely on the firm to tell
them if they’re getting a good price. In subtle and not-subtle ways, firms send signals to
customers, telling them wether a given price is relatively high or low. In these sessions we
will review the most common pricing cues firms use, and we will reveal some surprising
facts about how – and how well – those cues work.
Who this Program is Designed for
This program has been designed for business executives responsible for designing,
evaluating, and implementing pricing strategies or for executives charged with
ensuring the overall profitability of the firm in B2B, consumer, or service markets.
In particular, mid- to senior-level executives in product development, marketing, or
accounting and finance will benefit from this program.
The program is targeted at, but not limited to:
• General Managers.
• Senior-level marketing and sales executives.
• Pricing directors, managers, and analysts.
• Product planners and product managers.
• Controllers and CFOs.
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.