SmartPricing ^TM in a Competitive Environment

(This seminar is available as a custom, in-house program for member companies.)

Tim Matanovich
"The Pricing Guy" and General Partner
Market Leaders Group LLC

Empower yourself for the competitive pricing challenges of the 2000s

Your price is the single most powerful communication you have with your customers. It is a powerful tool to reduce risk and improve earnings. And it can be the key to energizing your organization. Better pricing can be the one fast and powerful move a firm can make to improve the bottom line—immediately. Yet many businesses set prices without a good process.

Using the SmartPricingTM Process, this seminar provides managers with a framework and tools for making better price decisions day-in and day-out. Plus we focus on two of the most important issues facing B2B pricers today

• Pricing Under Competitive Threat
• Pricing Business Services

Objectives

• Integrating price and competitive strategy decisions
• Being more proactive in using the price variable
• Experiencing competitive price dynamics firsthand
• Anticipating customer and competitive response
• Implementing more powerful price segmentation strategies
• Fresh ideas for improving business financial performance immediately

Who Should Attend

• Graduates of the Value & Pricing Strategy course (not a prerequisite)
• Managers, directors and teams with pricing responsibility, including marketing, finance, sales, product development and operations

Seminar Content

Action Learning

Because adults learn best by doing, SPCE is a hands-on, action learning experience. Through cases, exercises and a computer simulation, participants immediately apply newly acquired skills.

Audit of Pricing Practices

Prior to the workshop, participants will be asked to complete an audit of pricing practices within their business unit. Cumulative results will be discussed at the workshop.

The SmartPricing ^TM Process

At its core, the Process addresses the strategic issues related to price decision-making, including anticipating customer and competitor response and building durable segment fences. But devising a sound strategy is only the first step. Gaining leadership patronage and buy in from critical constituencies is critical to implementation success.

Pricing Business Services

Business models in many firms are shifting from a product basis to a service basis. What are the implications for pricing? Among others, we will address these issues:

• Maximizing profit from a product/service portfolio
• Measuring the value of services
• Evaluating the bundling/unbundling decision

Pricing Under Pressure: The Competitive Game

Intense competitive pressure and aggressive competitor response are hallmarks of today's pricing environment. Participants will learn the two fundamental games pricers play and the consequences of each. They will be introduced to a framework for classifying and profiling competitors in a way useful for price decision-making.

B&B Enterprises Simulation

Using a computer simulation developed at MIT, participants will experience pricing dynamics firsthand, as they themselves guide a company through 5 years of price competition. With this experience, managers will be better equipped to diagnose competitor intent and devise viable long term pricing strategies.

Format

This two-day seminar starts at 8:30 a.m. and ends by 5 p.m. each day. The seminar will involve lectures, cases, exercises, and a computer simulation. All materials are provided.

This seminar is available as a custom, in-house program for member companies.

Instructor

Tim Matanovich has consulted worldwide to help business leaders increase earnings and reduce risk. As well as at ISBM, Tim has lectured at the University of Denver, the GE Management Development Institute and recently joined the faculty of Duke Corporate Education. Tim leads the AMA's workshops on pricing and has been a featured speaker at both Pricex and the Professional Pricing Society. Tim holds an MBA and BA from the University of Michigan.

For more information contact:

Paula Dorminy or Gary Holler
Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM)
Smeal College of Business
The Pennsylvania State University
484 Business Building
University Park PA 16802-3603

Phone: 814-863-2782
Fax: 814-863-0413
E-mail: isbm@psu.edu