Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. Confused on pricing? Call an expert. Nothing is set in stone – especially pricing. But understanding that concept and accepting and implementing it in a challenging marketplace are two separate things. Tapan Bhatt, director of marketing for Vendavo Inc., a price management and optimization software company specializing in helping businesses with pricing, offered CANVAS a handful of misconceptions that companies often make in pricing decisions. 1. Companies feel that they have no control over pricing and that they need to accept what the market will bear. 2. Companies are reluctant to set segment specific pricing – they take the path of least resistance and take a one-size fits all pricing approach. 3. Companies are often very volumecentric and feel that any perceived increase in prices will hurt their volume even when that may not be the case. When companies need a fresh perspective on a particular topic, usually in venues such as promotions, marketing and even production, they’ll look outside to an expert/consultant. Well, why not pricing? One of Vendavo’s products, the Enterprise Pricing Suite, is a “comprehensive price optimization and price management application,” according to the company. It is designed to help business-to-business companies improve profits by 1 to 3 percent of sales, representing margin improvement of 10 to 30 percent. “The suite combines pricing science, best practices, and enterprise-class software to drive improvements in average prices at every stage of the pricing process,” says Bhatt. “Added up, these improvements deliver big increases in profits. The goal is simple: make better pricing decisions and more money on every deal.” Don’t sell yourself short What Cone doesn’t recommend, however, is an exclusive marketbased approach. At least for long-term thinking. Bottom-line decisions often factor in to maximizing your pricing philosophy, especially in a tough market. Tapan Bhatt, director of marketing for Vendavo Inc., a price management and optimization software company, says there are a handful of ways a company may overlook how to make pricing work for them. (For more on Vendavo, see accompanying sidebar) One-size-fits-all approach. “Many businesses charge every customer the same price for a particular product regardless of their perceived value of the product or cost to serve, which can vary significantly by customer-segment attributes. This approach results in money left on the table in every deal.” Ad hoc price setting. “ERP, CRM, and SCM applications collect information that can help determine pricing. But often this information is ignored in favor of a “gut feeling” or an ad hoc approach to setting prices. The result is money lost through ineffective pricing.” Manual, error-prone processes. “Most companies have highly manual, disconnected processes to manage prices and communicate pricing to customers. This impacts response time to market changes and introduces errors in pricing. These processes are even more limited because they are not integrated with other applications.” CANVAS P25