As pricing emerges as the greatest opportunity for improving profits, it increasingly resides at the heart of forward-looking business decisions. Indeed, technological advances born of big data, e-commerce, and the explosion of omnichannel retailing has brought about an overhaul of retailers’ pricing strategy and capabilities, as noted in a few trends highlighted by expert speakers.
The power of value-based pricing
If you’ve ever tried to buy a last-minute airline ticket, only to cry silent tears at the exorbitant price you’ll inevitably end up paying, you’ve quite a tale to tell about value-based pricing. Significantly more complex than most other pricing strategies, it also requires an understanding of the customer’s mindset. However, tapping into it can open avenues for profit maximization that other strategies simply cannot hope to access.
Making the most of data
They say you can’t manage what you can’t measure, and they’d be right to say so. The good news is that we’re now generating more data than ever, and gleaning insights from it is a matter of knowing what to look for. Companies are increasingly placing a demand on highly detailed, transaction-level data that is actionable.
An evolution in applications
A proliferation of data and devices means transaction-level data is often strewn across multiple systems, which means pricing managers must embark on an exhaustive process to find the data that explains any slip in margins. What’s worse, these managers then often import the data into a spreadsheet that doesn’t make it easy to uncover actionable insights. Pricing-specific business applications are changing the rules of the game though, making it easier for managers to embark on a journey of critical thinking that makes a meaningful difference to their organization.
