With Christmas just round the corner, we pulled together a list of Christmas gift ideas for the pricing professionals in your life!
1. Portable Travel Projector
For pricing to work, getting major stakeholders on board to bang the drum about its importance is key. Likewise, pricing should not be a "set it and forget it" job. It needs to be monitored, and any successes or failures that can be learnt from communicated to employees across the business. This ensures that everyone is clear on how even small tweaks in, for example, reducing unnecessary discounting, can have a major impactto the company's bottom line.
Pricing professionals can sometimes be expected to travel to make presentations to staff members in other offices. This is where a portable projector comes in, giving them the ability to quickly setup a presentation room anywhere in the world. We particularly like the Philips PICO 2340 Projector.
2. Magazine Subscription
Pricing does not operate in a silo, and is directly affected by external market factors. A magazine subscription to, for example, The Economist, will ensure the pricing professional in your life is up to speed with the world economy, and spark new ideas so they stay ahead of the competition.
3. Pricing Books
We pulled together a comprehensive list of some of the best pricing books out there in an earlier post entitled 8 Must Read Books for Pricing Professionals. Perfect stocking fillers!
4. Pre-book a 2017 Pricing Seminar
Learning about new pricing techniques will immensely help any business, and where better than for a pricing professional to learn directly from other pricing experts through a seminar such as the Professional Pricing Society or European Pricing Platform. It will also give them the chance to build up their network, as you never know when you may need to call upon others for guidance.
5. Book a Pricing Audit!
When you’re in the trenches, it can be difficult to see the wood from the trees, and this is where a second opinion can be vital.
BlackCurve is currently offering a free phone based audit with a pricing consultant. Following the interview, a report will be provided outlining the suitability of your current pricing strategy, as well as providing recommendations on potential tweaks to drive margin improvement.
6. Pricing Software
Excel is great, but when it comes to pricing it only gets you so far. We outlined some of the pitfalls of using Excel to manage your pricing in the following articles:
- The Problem BlackCurve is Trying to Solve
- Is Your Company Ready for Pricing Software
- 11 Disadvantages of Using Excel to Manage Your Pricing
Likewise cost-plus pricing, or similar basic pricing strategies, whilst being simple and easy to maintain, are proven not to be optimal pricing strategies. This is because they ignore the true value your products provide to customers.
BlackCurve provides an easy-to-use pricing solution that enables companies to fine tune their pricing, and identify opportunities to optimise prices, e.g. by assessing price elasticity. Signup for a free trial.
From the BlackCurve Team, wishing you an excellent Christmas and a Happy New Year.