Manufacturing.net and PROS’ Doug Fuehne, VP, Professional Services of PROS Pricing Software Solutions talk about how manufacturers can improve their pricing strategies and come out ahead as the economy turns around.
To get right to it, the five pricing strategies Fuehne suggests will help you come out ahead in the economic recovery:
Identify underperformers.
Proactively forecast future performance.
Increase organizational agility.
Focus on customer satisfaction to keep the customers you DO have.
Provide sales force with optimized prices and other highly relevant information in a timely manner.
With the success of PROS’ Global Leadership Seminar Series along its stop in Shanghai, China, Robert Rutledge, who leads Accenture’s Pricing & Profit Optimization practice in Asia-Pacific noted, “Manufacturers in China today face low-cost competition from places like India and Mexico and design and engineering competition from Japan and the west.” The seminar focused on the tremendous opportunity for manufacturers in China and across Asia-Pacific to adopt advanced pricing strategies and price optimization software to remain competitive and profitable in an increasingly global manufacturing landscape. Mr. Rutledge continued, “In order for Chinese manufacturers to maintain their competitive edge, they will increasingly turn to more robust pricing strategies such as those supported by PROS’ industry-leading price optimization software tools.”
Below are two video clips of Mr. Rutledge’s presentation which the discuss the topic of Cost Plus as well as a Case Study focusing on how Chinese manufacturers can evolve from basic to more sophisticated pricing models, including pricing strategies in manufacturing and a compare and contrast with other Asian countries.
If you are a pricer, marketer, or are in the market for a pricing optimization solution, you have surely heard about “segmentation” and probably have some questions about exactly how it will help you do your job better. I’d like to share some insight from a high-level perspective of how this can help.
(1) Microsoft is placing a heavy focus on its vertical strategy this year. This is good news. They are looking at how their solution stack meets the needs of enterprise businesses in a holistic fashion. If you are a manufacturer, it is very likely that you are looking at cutting IT costs. Microsoft wants to help you do that by offering an integrated landscape that includes non-Microsoft apps. For an example of this, see my second point. Companies are making their “bets” about enterprise software stacks and looking for opportunities to cut costs. Microsoft is working hard to be included in those decisions.
(2) Companies that use SAP should take a look at Duet. Duet is an excellent example of an Office Business Application (OBA). This is the future of enterprise software. If you used SAP, you know the difficulty of the user interface. Microsoft and SAP have worked together to wrap core business workflows in an Outlook interface. The results are very compelling.
We at PROS are working to extend our applications to bring a similar type of OBA experience to Pricing Optimization.