Pricing and Profitability Management: A Practical Guide for Business Leaders

Foreword

Several years ago, I was asked to lead the transformation of an organization with a record of success that spanned a century. In an effort to continue and to grow that success, we embarked on a comprehensive program to transform some areas within the company. One of the most important was pricing. The leadership team knew we could improve our pricing, and that the value this would create was larger than any other improvement initiative we could undertake. As a result, I had the opportunity to work closely with several of the authors. I have personally applied what you are about to read, and can attest to the value it will create.

I have more than a passing familiarity with pricing, from both my academic background and my career in business management. There are literally dozens of books on pricing theory, and I have read a fair number of them. Most address specific aspects of pricing; while helpful in addressing specific challenges, they do not provide an integrated, holistic approach to setting and managing price. If we were truly going to transform our organization, we needed an approach that incorporated theory, but also gave us a pragmatic and realistic roadmap for applying advanced pricing capabilities as quickly and efficiently as possible. This approach also had to take into account that the business would not stop while we determined the future. We needed a roadmap that told us where to start, gave us the right tools and techniques needed to improve our performance, ...