The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Profitable Decision Making

Highly recommended. I read three books on pricing and tis was by far the most in-depth and clinical in its approach.

Disclosure - I worked with Tom Nagle, John Hogan and Joe Zale at Monitor Group and continue to work with them at LeveragePoint, where we are coding many of their ideas into software tools, so my review may be a bit biased. This is a major update of the classic book on strategic pricing, a book that introduced many of us to the field and that taught us how to think about customer value and how it relates to price. In my case, this book also helped me to sharpen my understanding of pricing, segmentation and bundling and changed how I thought about sunk costs and pricing. If I had read this book ten years ago I would be a wealthier person today. What's New in the Fifth Edition? A completely new chapter on "Pricing Strategy Implementation" identifies the challenges involved in embedding strategic pricing principles within an organization and describes how managers can lead a structured change process to build a commercial organization more consistently focused on value creation, for the firm and its customers The revised chapter on "Pricing Policy" provides a theoretically grounded framework to describe specific policies for managing price changes for a variety of situations including raw material cost increases, demand recessions, and new product launches. The chapter on "Value Creation" for the first time addresses explicitly how to deal with value differently when it is driven by subjective psychological drivers (such as doing the right thing for the environment) rather than by tangible monetary drivers (for example, saves money on fuel). The chapter on "Value and Price Communication" has been substantially revised to describe how to communicate value in a wide variety of product and customer contexts. It demonstrates how to target communications to affect specific behaviors throughout the customer's buying process. The chapter on "Price Setting" has been expanded to provide a robust process for setting prices that can be widely applied both to consumer and business markets. Throughout the book, we have updated examples with more topical illustrations of current pricing challenges (such as iPhone pricing, new models for pricing music, and services pricing).

Yes, I admit. I'm the guy who slouched in the back row of accounting classes, honestly never scoring higher than maybe a "D". Accounting is hard, dude. TCP/IP is fun; credits and debits aren't.Eventually, however, life dragged me into situations that required an understanding of this stuff...not general theory: I needed to intelligently price my products and services. A friend recommended the book, and even though I initially found it hard, I can't stop referencing and re-reading it.I had to re-read the first three chapters, to gain a growing awareness of just what the hell these guys were talking about, because at first their flavor of English was as impenetrable as legalese. But man, what got me to re-read these chapters was a clear understanding that this book was going to provide immediate applicable benefit. It was therefore well worth the investment.Now that I'm acquainted with what they call English I've found the book wicked powerful. The book features so many math tools I've found myself pulling this book off the shelf, sometimes daily when need be. And I sound smart, which is good for my fragile ego.My friends have given me a rich share of hell for reading this baby. You may consider putting another cover on the book so you don't look like a goon, boning up on pricing strategies while your friends are fishing.

Written with great clarity, "The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing" is a phenomenal book. It begins with an explanation of strategic pricing, and proceeds to cover competition in the market place, segmentation of buyers, pricing and the marketing mix for industrial and consumer goods, as well as the psychology of pricing. Also covered are models for determining price sensitivity, implications of sales staff price setting and negotiation, and finally, legal aspects of pricing.After reading this book, you will understand the pitfalls of pursuing market share at all costs and common mistakes businesses and sales people make when setting or negotiating price. You will view your current pricing structure and strategy in a new light, and be able to spot the weak spots. You'll have a better picture of how to attract the right buyers, those that can be served profitably.The book indirectly touches on topics covered in Co-opetition, and Thinking Strategically, as well as elements of the Theory of Constraints (see Eli Goldratt's "The Goal" and "It's Not Luck" or "Management Dilemmas" by Eli Schragenheim)I can't recommend this book highly enough. As for the other reader who states:"After reading this book, I was able to talk circles around the $20,000 "marketing consultant" we were considering." believe it, it's that valuable!

Highly, highly recommended. After reading this book, I was able to talk circles around the $20,000 "marketing consultant" we were considering. Explains how to appeal both to price-sensitive and insensitive clients and shows how this is done all the time. Warns about pitfalls of letting salespeople set price. Even shows how to "manage the competition" when it comes to pricing. This is by far one of the most valuable books I've bought for business managment.