| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £18.50
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Pricing on Purpose: Creating and Capturing Value for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £18.50, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
"With Pricing on Purpose, Ron Baker had made an enormous contribution to the better understanding of pricing that will be accessible to anyone who wants to learn. People are intrigued by instances of what they see as idiosyncratic pricing. Sometimes it is idiosyncratic, but oft–times it is fiendishly clever and well researched. So is this book. There are examples that at first sight seem to have nothing to do with the subject at hand, but the learning points are all made and explained in any number of interesting and memorable ways. Pricing on Purpose is a welcome and valuable addition to the learning on pricing and I recommend it to professional pricers, marketers, and anyone interested in capturing the value their business creates."
—Eric G. Mitchell, President, Professional Pricing Society, www.pricingsociety.com
"Ron Baker is what I′d call a ′thought giant.′ In his first two books he literally began a revolution in the accounting and legal professions. Thousands of professionals in public practice now lead far better, more rewarding lives thanks to him. Now he′s broadened his impact in a huge way. Read this book, implement the ideas and you′ll never look at your prices or your pricing policies in the same way again. You′ll be richer in many ways because of it."
—Paul Dunn, founder and CEO, ResultsNet Australia, coauthor, The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services, www.resultsnetaustralia.com
"As a reader of hundreds of business books, I am thrilled when I come across one that has something new to say. Pricing on Purpose does just that. Instead of presenting a set of feel–good items to check off a list, Ron Baker encourages us ′to think with him, not like him.′ He methodically builds his argument leading us through the labyrinth of pricing theory and encourages us to look at pricing as the strategic tool that it is rather than taking the lazy cost–based tactical approach of most businesses. To paraphrase Karl Marx in terms of Baker′s book, ′Cost–based pricing is the opium of business.′"
—Ed Kless, Director, Partner Development and Recruitment, Sage Software
"Baker has done it again! Building on the core principles that he advanced in Professional′s Guide to Value Pricing and The Firm of the Future, Ron Baker has again evolved thought leadership on the critical dynamics of value and pricing. Baker′s latest work, Pricing on Purpose: Creating and Capturing Value, provides real–world examples and practical strategies that provide a framework for pricing optimization. His clarity of purpose and passionate call to action resonates in today′s intellectual capital economy."
—Thomas Finneran, Executive Vice President, American Association of Advertising Agencies
"We love this book! With detailed research, thorough references, and recommendations for further reading, this could be considered a textbook. That it is so readable and engaging is a triumph. The chapter providing the epitaph for cost–plus pricing is worth many times the price of this book. ′Got price–sensitive customers? Wonder why? Read and stop weeping. Who′s in charge of value in your company?′ Baker asks. If you can′t immediately answer, you′d better read this book. Bravo, Baker!"
—Paul O′Byrne and Paul Kennedy, partners, O′Byrne and Kennedy LLP, Chartered Accountants, United Kingdom, www.obk.co.uk
"Ron Baker is nothing short of brilliant, and his enthusiasm for pricing is contagious. Pricing on Purpose will add more value to your firm than anything else you could do. As usual in Ron′s books, he presents cutting–edge ideas. There is no greater value to your company than to read Pricing on Purpose and implement its ideas."
—Scott Abbott, entrepreneur, former regional business development, manager, BDO Dunwoody, LLP, Manitoba, Canada
From the Inside Flap
The book presents the theory of value— long established in economics—and details how any business can use various pricing strategies to create, communicate, and capture the value of their products and services. It takes a new approach of focusing on the external value as perceived by the customer and advocates matching price to value. Written in everyday language so it′s valuable to beginning executives as well as professional pricers and marketers, it covers:
- What and how people buy
- The fallacy of commodity thinking
- The five Cs of value
- The market share myth
- The difference between cost–plus pricing and value pricing
- A comparison of the Subjective Theory of Value and the Labor Theory of Value
- Customer segmentation strategies
Complete with examples from a multitude of industries and successful entrepreneurs and peppered with quotes from business experts as well as economists, the book is not a dry treatise on an ethereal economic theory. It′s lively and down–to–earth, using examples such as the high cost of popcorn in movie theaters, 99? pricing, and the way love–struck couples purchase engagement rings. It gets down–to–business, providing proven strategies and tactics CEOs, CFOs, marketing managers, and professional pricers can implement as a part of a value–based pricing architecture. If the purpose of your business is to add value to customers in order to earn profits, Pricing on Purpose can be incredibly valuable to your business!
Why don't we observe movie popcorn price wars, similar to what other industries engage in from time to time? Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Baker argues that value is created outside the firm in the hearts and minds of customers and is largely independent of the time or effort taken to create it. The focus for pricing decisions therefore has to be the customer's perception of value - what would customers willingly pay for this product or service? Getting it too high will lead customers to walk away. Getting it too low will damage customers' perceptions of value.
Baker rightly dismisses those who bemoan that their services have become a commodity. They have merely failed to create value for their customers. That value depends not only on the function of a product or service but on the whole design of the customer experience or transformation (ie demonstrated outcome).
Everything - at every point of contact with customers - must act to create a perception of value. Baker lists the 5 Cs of value:
1. Comprehend value to customers
2. Create value for customers
3. Communicate the value you create
4. Convince customers they must pay for value
5. Capture value with strategic pricing based on value.
Different customers will have different perspectives on value and this justifies differential pricing. Baker examines various strategies for ethical differential pricing such as skim pricing where a relatively high price is set initially (to capture early adopters willing to pay more) before lowering prices, perhaps with a slightly different product, for the mass market -think of hardback books, the newest mobile phones and iPods.
For me the most important question in the book is "Who is in charge of value in your firm? If your answer to that question is "everyone" then it might as well be no-one. Two organisations - both accountancy firms - have taken a lead in appointing a Chief Value Officer.
Baker argues his case well with a thorough analysis and sound theoretical underpinning. Notwithstanding this, it is very readable (I read it during a five-hour flight) with extensive quotes and illuminating examples.
I for one am looking forward to Ron's next book in his series on intellectual capitalism which will deal with key performance indicators for value and pricing competence.
In the first book in his Intellectual Capitalism series, Ron Baker returns to the topic that has seen him named in the World's 100 Most Influential Accountants: value pricing.
Unlike his previous works, "Pricing on Purpose" is not devoted only to professional service firms (or professional knowledge firms in Baker's terminology) but all business organisations. However, the theme is familiar, if now broader and deeper: the subjective theory of value, that value subjectively judged by customers determines prices.
Baker invites us to "think with him" as he takes us through the history of economic theory on pricing and value, and then through numerous practical examples of price psychology and strategy. Along the way, Baker demonstrates that there is no such thing as a commodity, that cost-plus pricing is dead, the importance of customer selection and that striving to offer a superior value proposition is key. While the point feels intuitively right, Baker repeatedly proves that successful businesses price their products and services based on the external value perceived by their customers rather than the internal costs incurred in their delivery. Activity-based costing is a "wrong mistake".
While focused here more on the why than the how, Baker then wraps up with a discussion on the support structures needed to implement value-pricing, in particular pricing teams and Chief Value Officers.
What distinguishes this book from a typical business tome is that the thinking is grounded firmly in academic, economic - indeed, pricing - theory rather than the latest management fad. What distinguishes this book from an academic treatise - indeed a typical business tome - is that it is immensely readable and entertaining.
Pricing on Purpose provides you with the motivation and ammunition to change, and win over hearts, minds and pockets throughout your business.
Just what we expected: more of the common sense approach to one of the most important aspects of any business:PRICING. Read more
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
