The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing | Tom T. Nagle, John E. Hogan

Pricing has moved to the top of many executive agendas driven by monumental and permanent shifts in the business environment. Business customers – from hospitals to retailers to automobile manufacturers – have built sophisticated supply chain management capabilities to extract more quality and service from suppliers while paying ever-low prices. Intense global competition, which has long been on the horizon, has become a reality with the emergence China and India as formidable business powers capable of competing on both quality and price. Product life cycles continue to shorten as competitors have perfected the twin arts of innovation and imitation, making it more difficult to recoup development costs through price premiums. In light of these powerful forces, it is not surprising that companies suffer from increased price erosion, loss of sales volume, and declining profitability. Never has the need for clear and effective pricing strategies been greater.

Creating such a capability involves tremendous change. Marketers must change the way they think about the value of their products and services. They must change internal processes for price setting, discounting, and negotiation. They must develop systems to track competitive pricing information, customer purchase patterns, and price management. They must raise the skill level of marketing, sales. And finance personnel who are responsible for making pricing decisions. Ultimately, they must evolve the pricing culture from one in which pricing is viewed as a tactical lever to achieve sales goals to one in which pricing serves as a strategic lever to drive profitable growth.

Commonly referred to as "The Bible of Pricing," The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing provides a comprehensive overview of pricing strategy in an easy to read, pragmatic style. It has been the best selling guide to pricing for over a decade.

Chinese version has been published through Huaxia Publishing Co. Ltd.

Best Face Forward | Bernard Jaworski, Jeffrey Rayport

Jeffrey Rayport and Bernard Jaworski argue that as this "front-office automation" revolution unfolds, competitive advantage will increasingly depend on deploying the right mix of interfaces with customers-human, automated, and hybrids of both-to surpass current levels of performance and service. Based on extensive research inside both start-up and established businesses, Best Face Forward, proposes guiding principles and a practical auditing tool for determining how humans and machines can best collaborate in mediating critical customer interactions. Far from dehumanizing the workforce, the authors show how this revolution will create a "people-rich" workplace--one that combines the unique capabilities of humans and machines to create a better world for all of us.