Numbers Never Lie: An Observation on Sports and Analytics
By John Healy, Vistaar Technologies, October 2009
As a businessman and avid sports enthusiast, it recently occurred to me that my job and my passion have something in common. While watching the baseball playoffs, and also speaking to companies who are now looking to close out their final quarter of 2009, I realized that successful organizations in sports and in other industries are increasingly turning to analytics to improve their performance.
We Love Numbers, It's The Arithmetic We Could Do WithoutBy Scott Buckley, Left-Brain Marketeer, June 22, 2009
Over the weekend I finished a book that had been on my reading list for some time. “Microtrends” by Mark Penn provides a good read not only for marketers, but anyone who is interested in understanding how the ‘world’ is evolving around them. The book covers 75 U.S.-centric trends brewing in the background of everyday life that could have a significant impact on society in the years ahead.
Pricing in an Inflationary Downturn (191K PDF file)By Cheri N. Eyink, Michael V. Marn and Stephen C. Moss,
The McKinsey Quarterly, September 2008
In the current environment, costs are rising as price sensitivity increases. Companies who want to sustain this downturn need to invest in areas that give them richer insights into their pricing environment.
Companies need to manage the profitability of individual customers and transactions with greater precision, develop richer insights into their customers' changing needs and price sensitivities, and understand more clearly the microeconomics that shape their own industries and those of their suppliers. This article covers six tactics aimed at maintaining the best balance possible between sales volume and profit margins in the current challenging environment.
Innovation Trickles in a New Direction
By Reena Jana, BusinessWeek, March 11, 2009
Products traditionally are created in rich nations and repackaged for emerging ones. But big name companies are now reversing the process.
This new way of thinking may be ideally suited to dealing with the widening recession: creating entry-level goods for emerging markets and then quickly and cheaply repackaging them for sale in rich nations, where customers are increasingly hungry for bargains. The term for this new approach is trickle-up innovation.
The process turns conventional product development on its head. Over the years, multinationals have prospered by turning out premium-priced products for the world's affluent. Many businesses found they could simply pass yesteryear's models down. Lately, big companies are discovering that they can profit by targeting the world's masses first. And they can score again by selling these low-priced products elsewhere...
Pricing in an Economic Downturn - A Pricing Manifesto for CFOs (74K PDF file)
By Hermann Simon, Frank Bilstein, Frank Luby, and Drew Conrad,
Corporate Finance Review, February 2009
Yes, recessions are scary for businesses. But deflation is scarier. Deflation leads to Great Depressions. So now is not the time for companies to engage in price wars. As sales managers across the country threaten to drive down prices in a destructive scramble for declining volume, now is the time for CFOs to show true courage, remove inefficient capacity, enforce pricing discipline, and ensure their companies price for profit.
In fact, history has not been kind to companies that practice predatory pricing in downturns, for they contaminate their future. Those companies find it almost impossible to claw their way back to previous price levels after the economy recovers, and they find themselves saddled with price sensitive, disloyal customers. Successful companies turn crisis to opportunity. They take steps to plug price leaks. They align their pricing more closely to value delivered to customers. They focus on value creation, while others fall victim to creative destruction.
Therefore, for the long term health of our economy, and for the future success of their companies, we encourage CFOs throughout this great land to embrace the following pricing manifesto...
Change with Your Customers - and Win Big
By Ian C. MacMillan and Larry Selden, Harvard Business Review
Companies should exploit an economic downturn by identifying and meeting emerging customer needs that competitors can’t—or don’t even see. For consumers, the world is changing: Fuel prices are volatile, jobs and compensation are in jeopardy, loans are harder to get, and debts are more difficult to pay off. For B2B customers, volumes and margins are shrinking, credit is tightening, and suppliers are getting tougher. Under these pressures, customers need new types of offerings. It’s an ideal time to go on the strategic offensive and innovate by segmenting customers.
Profitable innovation requires resegmenting your customers and creating new offerings that meet their new needs. The essence of this strategy is differentiation. Reconfigure your customer portfolio by deciding which segments to continue investing in, which to divest, and, especially, which emerging segments of customers to target. As you begin this process, start to treat your human, marketing, service, and R&D resources not as costs to eliminate but as potential targets of investment aimed at increasing the profitability of individual customer segments.
Fixing the Product-Marketing Disconnect (151K PDF file)
Article by Jason Compton, 1to1 magazine, Oct. 2006 Issue.
Product marketing projections fuel corporate financial forecasts, manufacturing
and supply chain decisions, and strategic choices about markets, channels, and
customers to pursue. But how reliable are product marketing projections? How are they
being made? This article builds upon the survey conducted by the BPM Forum.
In “Shared Planning, Shared Rewards” (p.2), Hitachi Data Systems rethinks its approach to product marketing and Scott Nelson, senior director of pricing operations, emphasizes the importance of getting buy-in across the organization.
Market Vigilance, Product
Diligence (executive overview) (91K PDF file)
By the CMO Council and BPM Forum
To what degree are product marketers equipped to make intelligent, informed and insightful decisions that drive top-line and bottom-line performance, as well as maximize product value and longevity? A survey of 150 leading companies reveals significant areas for improvement, and surprising estimates of the potential financial benefits.
Key Areas Covered in the Report
- Types of analytical tools used by product marketers for various processes such as
forecasting, competitive response, profitability, portfolio planning, pricing, and
promotions. - Quality and consistency of data used for these analyses.
- Importance of “what if” analysis that shows P&L impact before making changes to
key levers like prices, costs and new product introduction. - Financial and operational metrics that product marketers are being measured on.
- Revenue and margin enhancement potential using better analytics and scenario
planning.
Read the executive summary here, or email us to request a copy of the full report.
Find the right pricing strategy - at any cost
By Tom Lester, Financial Times
Few companies like to talk about their pricing methodology for two reasons - it might give something away to competitors but, more often, it simply will not stand up to scrutiny. Change is in the wind, however, as more chief executives realize their companies' weakness and how great a contribution effective pricing can make to the bottom line…
