Pricing as a strategic capability

Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, 2011

Magnus Johansson holds a PhD from the School of Economics and Management, Lund University and has worked with strategic analysis and planning within the IT, telecom, automotive and general industry.

Strategic Management Journal, 2003

Strategists following the resource-based view argue that firms can generate rents through value creation. To create value, firms develop and use resources and capabilities that other firms cannot imitate, trade for, or substitute other assets for. Even a firm that has created value, however, may not capture the potential rents associated with that value. To capture rents, a firm must set the right prices for what it sells. Most views of pricing assume that a firm can readily set appropriate prices. In contrast, we argue that pricing is a capability. To develop the ability to set the right prices, a firm must invest in resources and routines. We base our argument on a study of the pricing process of a large Midwestern manufacturing firm. We show that pricing resources, routines, and skills may help or inhibit a firm in setting the right price-and hence in appropriating value created. Our view of pricing as a capability contributes to the resourcebased view because it suggests that strategists should consider the portfolio of value creation and value appropriation capabilities a firm uses to create competitive advantage. Our view also contributes to economics because it suggests that strategic decisions about pricing capabilities have important implications for a fundamental economic action, determining prices. Managers in firms without effective pricing processes may be unable to set prices that reflect the wishes of its customers, so the customers may misuse their resources. As a result, resources may be used ineffectively. Our view of pricing as a capability therefore takes the resource-based-view straight to the heart of what is perhaps the central economic question: the best use of resources.

Journal of Strategic Marketing, 2013

This paper contributes to a long-lasting debate between practitioners who argue that academia is unable to understand what pricing is all about and academics who criticize practitioner pricing approaches for lacking rigor or rationality. The paper conceptualizes a resource-advantage (R-A) perspective on pricing by drawing on the R-A theory of competition. After a review of R-A theory, the paper integrates the price discretion concept and pricing as a spanning competence by introducing a separation between resources that create and resources that extract value, thereby expanding R-A theory to pricing. The perspective aims to shed light on how the process of competition helps organizations to learn/benefit from pricing capabilities. The research shifts the focus of pricing research from an equilibrium-based static view to a dynamic, disequilibrium-provoking pricing competence. In this way, it draws attention to what is perhaps most relevant to pricing in practice: the actual means necessary to determine price.

Journal of Product & Brand Management, 2011

Handbook of Pricing Research in Marketing, 2009

This chapter organizes and reviews the literature on new product pricing, with a primary focus on normative models that take a dynamic perspective. Such a perspective is essential in the new product context, given the underlying demand-and supply-side dynamics and the need to take a long-term, strategic, view in setting pricing policy. Along with these dynamics, the high levels of uncertainty (for fi rms and customers alike) make the strategic new product pricing decision particularly complex and challenging. Our review of normative models yields key implications that provide (i) theoretical insights into the drivers of dynamic pricing policy for new products and services, and (ii) directional guidance for new product pricing decisions in practice. However, as abstractions of reality, these normative models are limited as practical tools for new product pricing. On the other hand, the new product pricing tools available are primarily helpful for setting specifi c (myopic) prices rather than a dynamic long-term pricing policy. Our review and discussion suggest several areas that offer opportunities for future research. * Comments and suggestions from Vithala R. Rao, Jehoshua Eliashberg and an anonymous reviewer are gratefully acknowledged. 1 Noble and Gruca's study is not limited to new products. They organize the strategies by the pricing situation for both new and mature products and then, for strategies within each pricing situation, by the conditions expected to favor the choice of a particular strategy. The three new product strategies were chosen by 32 percent of all respondents across all situations (skimming 14 percent, penetration 9 percent, and experience curve pricing 11 percent).

Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, 2002

In mid 2017, a special issue on Implementing Pricing Strategies will be guest edited by Dr. Andreas Hinterhuber. We would like to invite the scientific and practicing community to submit papers by 30 November 2016 in order to be considered for publication.

SSRN Electronic Journal

This article demonstrates how various concepts derived from marketing and behavioral economics can be useful to accountants and others whose advice is sought on the setting of prices. In particular, it shows that a one-price policy may not always be ideal. Using price as a strategic tool can increase both profit and customer satisfaction. Pricing strategies discussed include segmented (tier) pricing, pay-what-you-want pricing, pricing digital products, and peak-user pricing. The ethical implications of pricing decisions are also discussed.

2000

Pricing of products and services is a complex task for industrial marketing practitioners. The failure to understand the connection between business strategy and the pricing decision at the level of industrial products and services may lead to lost business opportunities and unsatisfied customers. In this article, the importance of strategic pricing in business relationships is discussed by examining the effects