Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta pricing. Mostrar todas as mensagens
Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta pricing. Mostrar todas as mensagens

quinta-feira, maio 11, 2023

Momento, preço, valor, modelo de negócio e futuro

O que se segue é-me doloroso. Amanhã escreverei sobre emigração qualificada, marketing gerador de cinismo e sucesso de uns inocentes como sinal de fracasso da comunidade.

"With the economy at a turning point, companies should be thinking more critically about growth—concentrating on growing better rather than simply getting bigger. [Moi ici: Como bebi por volta de 2007 em "Manage for profit, not for market share" e depois demorei a refinar com Marn e Rosiello para seguir a máxima "Volume is Vanity, Profit is Sanity" desde 2006]

...

As inflation and costs have risen, it has become harder for most businesses to grow.

Yet that is exactly what makes this the right moment to think critically about growth

...

If you want to find growth in a world where costs are rising, the key is to understand what customers really value today and what they will value in the future.” [Moi ici: Que tempo, que espaço, que paz de espírito é guardada para esta reflexão profunda e de longo prazo? Então com empresas familiares é muitas vezes doloroso ... A única pessoa que pode dedicar tempo a isto está a conduzir um empilhador para arrumar paletes, ou está a substituir um operário especializado que está de baixa... e quem pensa no futuro da empresa? Quem encara de frente o monstro da erosão competitiva?]

...

Understanding how to identify and unlock better growth is the key to sustainable success in business.

...

If value is key, we need to ask what value really means.

...

you can’t even begin to form your growth strategy until you stand in the customer’s shoes and understand how people make trade-offs between price and something much more subtle which is perceived value.” [Moi ici: Claro que isto implica escolher, conhecer quem são os clientes-alvo. Claro que isto implica pôr o output nos bastidores e dar primazia aos outcomes ou inputs e isso é areia demais para muita camioneta]

Some companies tend to confuse value with price, although they are very different concepts. The problem is that price is easy to state, but value is harder to calculate. 

...

“Firms need to understand that pricing should be a strategy, not a tactic,”  [Moi ici: Citação poderosa. Muitas vezes, demasiadas vezes usamos o preço como táctica, como resposta ao próximo desafio imediato e não como estratégia. Ainda recentemente vi este trecho como exemplo do preço como estratégia]

...

You need to think about what information you are trying to convey with price, because price not only captures value for the consumer, it can also create value for the firm.” [Moi ici: "also create value for the firm" nem comento. Não posso comentar... demasiados casos de destruição de valor, de desperdício de recursos, de irresponsabilidade infantil]

...

Many things influence value—including brand, quality and not just what is offered to the customer, but how it is offered and when. [Moi ici: Também relacionado com o o tema da primazia dos outcomes sobre os inputs, porque o foco deixa de ser o produto acabado e passa a ser a situação do cliente-alvo, o seu contexto, os seus objectivos]

...

Growth for growth’s sake is a recipe for staff burnout and overall corporate exhaustion: sustainable growth should be about creating opportunities for everyone.

Knowing how to explain value to your customers and understanding how your customer data can tell you exactly what value people are prepared to pay for and what to forego is the essence of a balanced strategy for sustainable growth

...

The trade-offs that underlie growth strategy go to the heart of a company, shaping the kind of business it wants to be. “Better growth is about finding a growth model that treats volumes and margins in a way that keeps stakeholder interests in balance and reduces the pressure in the business,” 

...

“What we find with companies that adopt a pure volume mindset and market-share mindset is that they often fail to see the real implications for growth,” adds Dr. von der Gathen. “It is what we call getting ‘too hungry to eat.’ Sales are growing, but the company doesn’t have enough inherent revenue stability or profitability, and eventually their business model runs out of juice.” [Moi ici: Que sina!!!]

Creating better growth opportunities

Better growth, therefore, is about building business models with long-term, sustainable revenues and the headroom for innovation. It is about going beyond the math of market share and sales volumes, and finding a growth model designed to nurture the business as a real value-provider."

Entretidos e amparados pelas esmolas dos apoios comunitários, as dores de parto necessárias para a ascensão a um novo nível do jogo não passam de picos de urtigas mansas. 

Trechos retirados de "How businesses can unlock better growth


quarta-feira, março 22, 2023

"isn’t a license to not worry about costs"

Uma, mais uma, excelente reflexão de Roger Martin, que por sua vez nos põe a pensar. Desta vez é "Cost-Effective Differentiation - Why it Really Matters for your Strategy" da qual sublinho a parte final:

"Real differentiators have the margin room to be aggressive with pricing when needed and, in addition, have the earnings from their high margins to invest in the next differentiation. And low-cost players can grab share by pricing below the level that any other player is game to match. Consequently, ineffective high-value players have difficulty growing. Customers who happen to really value their particular offering remain loyal customers at the price they need to charge. But as with all companies, ineffective high-value players face a downward-sloping demand curve in which higher prices mean lower demand.

Simply, the ability to grow any business is hampered by needing to charge a high enough price to earn a return on costs. If those costs are higher than they need to be, but you add value to a set of customers, you will have a decent business. But it won’t be a great business.

Seeking to be a differentiator isn’t a license to not worry about costs. It is all one singular value equation. The determinant of your competitiveness is the margin between the value you create and the costs you incur. And in that metric: a buck is a buck is a buck."

Recordo trading up versus trading down.

sexta-feira, dezembro 23, 2022

Há quantos anos não mexe nos seus Custos Gerais de Fabrico?


Imagem retirada do Caderno de Economia do semanário Expresso publicado hoje.

Como vai o cálculo dos custos de fabrico na sua empresa? Tem a certeza que os Overhead Costs estão actualizados? Receio que demasiadas empresas se foquem nos custos das matérias-primas e componentes e nos custos de mão-de-obra, esquecendo-se de actualizar os Custos Gerais de Fabrico. 

Há quantos anos não mexe nos seus Custos Gerais de Fabrico?





terça-feira, setembro 06, 2022

"Losing Customers on Purpose"

"Though your goal is to maximize the price increase without losing your customer, sometimes price increases can help you introduce unprofitable customers to your competitors without the conflict of firing them.

...

I've found that customers who are easy to work with and highly profitable make my business life a joy. These accounts are the best fit. On the other hand, customers who are overly demanding, fail to live up to their commitments, consume my resources, and pay low prices, so that the profitability of their account is negligible, suck my energy. It's not fun to work with these customers. Far too often, though, we hang on to these soul-sucking accounts because they are large and we are afraid to lose them; or we are concerned about negatively impacting our retention numbers; or we know that we'll have to prospect to find a replacement for the revenue.

A few years back I was working with a pain-in-the-rear account like this. It was a big, nationally known brand. Exactly the type of logo you want in your account portfolio. It also generated a lot of revenue. When we first signed the account our entire company celebrated. The only problem was that the customer was killing us.

Because it was such a big company, the stakeholders were used to being the 800-pound gorillas, especially when working with small companies like mine. When they said dance, we danced even when what they were asking us to do was far outside of the scope of our contract. That's how it is when you are afraid of the gorilla. We did their bidding for a year, often working overtime and shortchanging other accounts in order to meet their demands. I hated working with them, my team hated working with them, and when I took a rational look at the cost of serving them, we were not making that much money. Certainly not enough for the hassle.

As we got closer to contract renewal time, the people on my team implored me to fire them. 

...

So, instead of cutting them loose as my team wanted, I met with my contact and presented the contract renewal. I walked her through the value we had delivered and backed that up with numbers and stories. She agreed that we had done a terrific job and thanked me.

I then presented a new contract for the following year that included a 100 percent price increase. Double what they paid us the year before. She stared at the number for a long silence, whistled, and asked matter-of-factly, "How can you possibly justify an increase like this?"

"You are hard to work with," I responded, just as matter-of-factly. "The people on your team are extremely demanding, want instant turn around on tasks, and often ask us to do things that are beyond the scope of our agreement.

"Because we are a small business, these requests and demands tax our resources, making it difficult to serve our other customers. I don't see this changing, so the only way we can meet these expectations is to add dedicated resources focused on your account. We can't do that without this price increase.'

She looked down again at the new agreement and said, "You're right. We are a difficult company to work with." Then she signed the contract."

sábado, agosto 13, 2022

"The Value Of Selling Value"

"Your company needs you to sell more at higher prices. Your family needs you to work less while bringing home bigger paychecks. Your community needs you to work less so you can participate more. And, you want more time and money for your hobbies. Imagine, if you could win more deals, faster, at higher prices, then all these things could happen.

It's possible! It's possible because you likely have a HUGE gap in your selling toolkit. Ninety-nine percent of businesspeople I speak with don't really understand value. This problem is almost universal. Yet salespeople, more than anybody else, benefit by deeply understanding buyer perceived value.

...

Every purchase happens exactly the same way. The buyer looks at the price of a product and compares it to the value they expect to receive. If the prospect doesn't purchase, it's for one of two reasons: the price was too high, or they didn't perceive enough value. You can probably lower your price enough to get them to purchase, but that's not why you're in business, or in sales. The key is helping the buyer perceive more value."

Este tema é importante para se chegar ao quadrante de ouro:

E quem está no negócio tem de trabalhar para o fazer. E vejo pouco, muito pouco trabalho sistemático para o fazer. De entre as poucas empresas que trabalham sistematicamente para aumentar preços a maioria aposta em torneios de braço-de-ferro. 

Claro que não é disso que estamos aqui a falar.

Agora imaginem esta predisposição para não trabalhar para o aumento de preços, conjugada com inflação elevada, falta de mão de obra, e voracidade fiscal.

Ao escrever "esta predisposição para não trabalhar para o aumento de preços" recordei a noite em que morreram as ilusões de Cavaco

A forma como se está num negócio depende do pensamento dos donos do capital. Há empresas que são geridas como o aproveitamento de uma oportunidade limitada no tempo. Há empresas que são geridas como um terreno agrícola, pretende-se passá-las a descendentes sem prejudicar as hipóteses desses descendentes. Há empresas que sobrevivem, um ponzi mais ou menos longo à espera de rebentar.

Quem gere uma empresa como um terreno agrícola, num país pequeno e aberto como Portugal, só tem um caminho, trabalhar para ser uma joalharia. Pode não ser o maior, pode não ser o mais rentável no curto-prazo, pode ... 

Trechos retirados de "Selling Value: How to Win More Deals at Higher Prices" de Mark Stiving. 

sexta-feira, agosto 12, 2022

Exportações no 1º semestre de 2022

Exportações no 1º semestre de 2022 e comparação homóloga com 2019 e 2021.


Em relação a 2021, em cerca de 99 categorias só 3 evidenciam variação homóloga negativa.
Em relação a 2019 o mesmo desempenho positivo. O sector exportador já está acima do pré-pandemia.

Da próxima vez que ouvirem as queixas das cerâmicas ou das têxteis, lembrem-se destes números de crescimento das exportações. O mais provável é estarem a vender e a perder dinheiro. Não se esqueçam dos que pedem subsídios ao governo, impostos nossos, para subsidiar as suas exportações, porque não conseguem subir os preços. Cada vez mais o país do Chapeleiro Louco.

BTW, exportações a crescerem mais depressa para fora da UE do que intra UE.

quinta-feira, agosto 11, 2022

"but you aren’t selling value"

"Pricing experts like me evangelize the importance of value-based pricing. It's the most profitable pricing strategy out there. Yet, when asked the question, "What is value?" even pricing experts don't agree. Face it. Value is an ambiguous word, but ambiguous doesn't mean unimportant.

Value is possibly the single most important, yet misunderstood, concept in business. To make a purchase, your buyers must believe they will receive significantly more value than they pay. Your entire business is based on trading value for money, but what is value?

It's not surprising that most companies can't clearly explain how much value their customers get from their products. Even most salespeople, who are the closest to the customers, can't explain how buyers perceive value when making purchase decisions.

...

Experts buy features. Everyone else buys benefits. Very few people are experts. 

Forrester tells us, “Sixty-two percent of vendor salespeople are knowledgeable about their company and its products, but only 22% understand the buyers’ business issues, and where they can help.” This means you probably know your products, but you aren’t selling value."

Trechos retirados de "Selling Value: How to Win More Deals at Higher Prices" de Mark Stiving.

quarta-feira, agosto 10, 2022

A surpresa ...

Organização interna superior à média permitindo entrega na data combinada. 

Produto com qualidade de acabamento.

Produto com design superior. 

Aumento da procura por causa da alteração de contexto que vivemos.    

Aumento das vendas em mais de um terço face ao período homólogo.


A surpresa ...

Preço médio cerca de 30% abaixo da média do sector.

Uma das minhas preocupações reside na importância de subir na escala de valor. No entanto, o cenário descrito acima é anterior a esse desígnio.

terça-feira, agosto 02, 2022

Não, não pode ser uma repetição do que já se faz

Depois de ler Erik Reinert e os seus "The Visionary Realism of German Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to the Cold War" e "How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor" percebi a armadilha da competitividade sem produtividade:
Quando lanço o desafio de criar o objectivo de "aumentar o preço médio" ... raramente é bem recebido.

Aumentar o preço médio não pode ser o resultado de um braço de ferro com os clientes:


Quando olho para o que algumas empresas se propõem fazer para aumentar o preço médio o que vejo é uma repetição das actividades já incluídas num ou mais processos existentes.

Não, não pode ser uma repetição do que já se faz. E penso em Segmentar como deve ser e Configurar como deve ser.

quinta-feira, junho 30, 2022

"Value Conversations "

"Value Conversations are, well, valuable. This is the best way I've seen to estimate how much value someone receives from a solution. The point of value-based pricing is to charge what a buyer is willing to pay, and the more value they receive, the more they're willing to pay. It has always been hard for a salesperson to estimate a buyer's value from a solution. Here's what's funny. It's often tough for a buyer to know how much value they will receive from a solution. Value Conversations helps you and the buyer understand the R part of ROI.
Great salespeople master this technique. They clearly understand many problems and desired results typical in the industry they serve. They know what's important to their buyers and how they make money. But even though they have all this knowledge in their head, they shouldn't spew it out. Instead, they must guide the buyer while the buyer provides the answers."

Trecho retirado de "Selling Value: How to Win More Deals at Higher Prices" de Mark Stiving

segunda-feira, junho 20, 2022

"The payoff for price increases is massive"

"Sales professionals are ill prepared to talk with customers about price increases because they don't get trained and there are almost no resources to help them develop the skills to do so. 
...
One of the reasons that I hated price increases and believed that I was betraying my customers is that I didn't understand basic business fundamentals. I didn't understand that price increase campaigns are far more effective at generating profit and free cash flow than increasing topline revenue through sales volume increases or acquiring new customers. Nothing else in the business-to-business sales arsenal protects the health of your company like price increases. They protect the enterprise during inflationary periods, produce capital for investment in growth, help improve quality and service delivery, boost stock prices, and protect jobs.
The payoff for price increases is massive. They can drop through as much as 400 percent more profit as increases in sales volume. For example, a l percent increase in sales volume, will produce 3.3 percent in profit. However, a 1 percent increase in price, when sales volume remains stable, delivers an 11.1 percent increase in operating profit. [Moi ici: Recordar Marn e Rosiello]
...
The bottom line is that increasing prices is the single greatest profit improvement opportunity and strategy for B2B enterprises. That is, of course, if you retain your customers along the way."

Trechos retirados de "Selling the price increase the ultimate B2B field guide for raising prices without losing customers" de Jeb Blount. 

domingo, junho 19, 2022

Subir preços

"Why Companies Raise Their Prices: Because They Can"

"In 2021, US companies logged their most profitable year since the 1950s, as many took advantage of economies of scale and other more efficient production processes. Yet, firms increasingly held on to the savings they gained from these reduced costs, rather than passing them on to customers in the form of lower prices.
...
markups—the difference between prices charged at checkout and the marginal costs incurred by a company in order to make a product—climbed about 25 percent between 2006 and 2019
...
The researchers came to a startling conclusion: Consumers were 30 percent less price sensitive—meaning less likely to abandon favorite brands and seek cheaper equivalent products—in 2019 than they were in 2006.
...
Meanwhile, company costs have declined over time as firms have squeezed more productivity out of increasingly efficient operations. Since 2006, marginal costs have dropped by 2.1 percent annually on average, the authors estimate. In the latter part of the study period, from 2017 to 2019, firm costs were about 25 percentage points lower versus 2006.

Rising markups come from either price increases or marginal cost reductions."


"In all, we examined 846 large publicly traded corporations last year through the lens of 34 separate indicators in five categories: customer satisfaction, employee engagement and development, innovation, social responsibility and financial strength.
...
To build our ranking, companies are compared in each of the five areas, as well as their overall effectiveness, through standardized scores with a typical range of 0 to 100 and a mean of 50.
...
In our latest research, prompted by concerns over inflation, we explored the correlation between net profit margin-the percentage of profit a company produces from its total revenue-and customer satisfaction for 2021.
Of the 24 industries we looked at, 11 showed no meaningful statistical relationship between the two. Others, however, stood out. In six industries-household and personal products, autos, telecommunications, consumer services, banks and pharmaceuticals-there was a significant positive correlation between profit margin and customer satisfaction.
This means the two variables move in the same direction.
When one goes up, the other goes up; when one goes down, the other goes down. And it implies that, in general, firms in these industries have a fair bit of leeway to raise prices without making their customers disgruntled.
"We call this pricing power,'
...
At the other end of the spectrum are companies in industries with a negative correlation between profit margin and customer satisfaction. Across these sectors, when net profit margin goes up, customer satisfaction goes down-and vice versa.
...
What's more, any company with low customer satisfaction may well have trouble raising prices-regardless of the industry it's in. "It's a delicate calibration,""


quinta-feira, junho 16, 2022

What price point?

"We started to test the new Olay product at premium price points of $12.99 to $18.99 and got very different results,” he says. “At $12.99, there was a positive response and a reasonably good rate of purchase intent. But most who signaled a desire to buy at $12.99 were mass shoppers. Very few department store shoppers were interested at that price point. Basically, we were trading people up from within the channel. At $15.99, purchase intent dropped dramatically. At $18.99, it went back up again—way up. So, $12.99 was really good, $15.99 not so good, $18.99 great.
The team learned that at $18.99, consumers were crossing over from prestige department and specialty stores to buy Olay in discount, drug, and grocery stores. That price point sent exactly the right message. For the department store shopper, the product was a great value but still credibly expensive. For the mass shopper, the premium price signified that the product must be considerably better than anything else on the shelf. In contrast, $15.99 was in no-man’s land—for a mass shopper, expensive without signaling differentiation, and for a prestige shopper, not expensive enough. These differences were quite fine; had the team not focused so carefully on building and applying robust tests for multiple price points, the findings might never have emerged."

Trechos retirados de "A New Way to Think" de Roger L. Martin.

quarta-feira, junho 15, 2022

Patience Wins

"A rule in negotiations is Patience Wins! Offer small, incremental discounts. Make the purchasing agent work for whatever they get.
...
Here’s another hint. Executives should not negotiate prices. Executives are smart, driven, strategic people. When an executive gets involved in a negotiation, you can guarantee the deal will close. It will close quickly, probably today. They have the authority to make whatever concession is necessary to win the deal. However, most executives are not patient. Remember the rule. Patience Wins! Yes, executives will close the deal quickly, but they will do so at a lower price than if they were not involved."
Trechos retirados de "Selling Value: How to Win More Deals at Higher Prices" de Mark Stiving.

segunda-feira, fevereiro 14, 2022

O tema do pricing

O tema do pricing está sempre em cima da minha mesa. Por isso, alguns sublinhados de "How To Identify And Adopt Your Ideal Pricing Strategy":

"1. Avoid Commoditizing Your Product Or Service

The key to a smart pricing strategy is to avoid commoditizing your product or service.

...

2. Define Your Target Customers' Needs [Moi ici: Um clássico!]

Entrepreneurs are notorious for leaving money on the table. Pricing always follows the Pareto Principle, with an ever-smaller percentage of customers willing to spend an ever-increasing amount of money with your company. Start with finding the 20% of your existing customers that will spend more money with you. Then, define their needs and offer a premium option.

...

4. Don't Lower Your Value

Know your own worth and don't be afraid to charge accordingly. Do not lower your value just because a lead says you should.

...

5. Go After Quality Versus Quantity

Know your customer and don’t be scared to go after quality versus quantity.

...

12. Make Their Investments Worthwhile

Whatever your ultimate pricing structure is, make sure you position your products, services and company overall to not be in a race to the bottom. No matter how commoditized your offering might seem or actually be, you can wrap a value-added set of features, services and approaches around them to make paying a premium worthwhile."

segunda-feira, janeiro 24, 2022

O quanto dinheiro se deixa em cima da mesa ...

Num livro que li em 2008, "“The social atom – Why the rich get richer, cheaters get caught, and your neighbor usually looks like you”" de Mark Buchanan, fixei uma coisa que já tinha reparado. Quando estamos em grupo agimos de uma forma muita parecida com as leis da física. Na altura visualizei logo a circulação da mole humana nos corredores da Estação de Campanhã em hora de ponta, tão parecida com o perfil de velocidades de um fluido dentro e um tubo, como aprendi nas aulas de Mecânica de Fluidos. Nesse livro sublinhei, e escrevi aqui em, "O animal adaptativo":

“… the way people make most decisions has little to do with logic, and a lot to do with using simple rules and learning by trial and error. In particular, people try to recognize patterns in the world and use them to predict what might come next.”

“… people tend to hold a number of hypotheses in their heads at once, and to act on whichever seems to be making the most sense at the time.”

O tema do preço e do contexto é um tema que gosto de seguir. Por exemplo:

"This article examines how proximity to high-status neighbors enables lower-status firms to engage in aspirational pricing. While prior studies have focused on associations based on bilateral agreements, we argue that mere spatial proximity to other high-status firms creates perceived associations, which positively affects the focal firm's aspirational pricing. Furthermore, middle-status firms are most likely to engage in aspirational pricing because they are sufficiently similar to high-status neighbors to expect assimilation, not contrast, effects."
O quanto dinheiro se deixa em cima da mesa ao acreditar que preço é custo mais uma margem "científica" 

quinta-feira, janeiro 13, 2022

Customers, value and revenue

"What is the problem? Why is commerce still so wasteful? In our mind, the issue is not that customer focus is somehow flawed or broken. To the contrary, the issue is that most organizations fail to take the promise of customer focus to its logical conclusion. That is, the typical company today may well obsess over customers when it comes to designing offerings and positioning them in the market. In fact, we struggle to find a business that doesn't praise its customers, and boast of the attention paid to them, on its corporate website. But then the same company pays hardly any attention to customers when it decides how to earn revenue from them. This lapse shrinks the opportunity in the market.

...

John Wanamaker invented the price tag in 1861.

...

Price tags quickly became the norm because they greatly facilitated the ongoing push for customer focus in production, distribution, and communication.

...

Accordingly, organizations gradually shifted their pricing decisions away from customers and what they value, which was the focus of haggling, to the one piece of information they could trust and readily collect: information on the cost of making an offering and bringing it to market.

In essence, prices became a mere bystander in a company's efforts to build closer ties with customers. Rather than considering how the process of generating revenue could assist in this endeavor, the company concerned itself with how to cover its costs and minimize any interference. The price tag went along for the ride, treated as a tactical afterthought, but this in turn cemented the idea that a company's only logical move is to earn revenue from selling the "stuff" it makes."

Trechos retirados de "The ends game : how smart companies stop selling products and start delivering value" de Marco Bertini e Oded Koenigsberg.   

terça-feira, novembro 09, 2021

"las empresas están actuando como dique de contención"

 

"“Pricing power”, the ability to pass costs to customers without harming sales, has long been prized by investors. Warren Buffett has described it as “the single most important decision in evaluating a business”. It is easy to see why. When hit with an unexpected expense, firms without pricing power are forced to cut costs, boost productivity or simply absorb the costs through lower profit margins. Those with pricing power can push costs onto customers, keeping margins steady."(fonte) [Moi ici: McDonald’s , PepsiCO, Procter and Gamble, ... tudo a subir preços nesta altura]

Entretanto, as empresas industriais portuguesas e espanholas:

"Los productos industriales se están encareciendo a ritmos de casi el 25%, un nivel no visto desde la Transición. El precio del petróleo se ha disparado un 101% en el último año; el del aluminio, un 62% y el del cobre se ha encarecido un 45%. Esta es la situación generalizada de las materias primas y los bienes intermedios, pero no es la realidad de la cesta de la compra de los españoles. El motivo es que las empresas están actuando como dique de contención de esta subida de los precios y trasladan a los consumidores finales solo una parte de la inflación real de los mercados mayoristas. Están absorbiendo la inflación en sus márgenes, lo que evita que los datos del IPC sean mucho peores y que se generen más efectos de segunda ronda.

...

Se está produciendo un escenario que es excepcional y, además, insostenible en el tiempo, ya que las empresas salen de la crisis del coronavirus en una situación financiera complicada y difícilmente podrán soportar en sus márgenes el encarecimiento de los costes sin trasladarlos a los precios finales."

Parece que estou em Punxsutawney a viver o mesmo dia repetido, dia após dia.

Entretanto, uma cana sacudida pelo vento:

sábado, outubro 30, 2021

Subam os preços!

Vivemos tempos que eu nunca pensei viver. Parece que voltamos ao tempo em que a oferta é menor do que a procura. Ontem estive numa empresa que está a triplicar as vendas de 2020 e 2020 tinha sido melhor do que 2019. Outra, está a ser inundada de pedidos de clientes novos de Espanha. A minha reacção instintiva foi: subam os preços!!! 

E o que senti em resposta foi um olhar de receio: 

"Reasons not to raise prices.

Most businesses will go through extreme measures to delay or avoid raising prices. There are several reasons for this:

...

Competitive pressure

In hyper-competitive markets with ample supply, raising prices may drive away customers. This is common in transportation, hospitality, and commodities. However, if your industry is currently experiencing supply shortages, you are more likely to lose market share from product shortages than from price increases. In that case, you are better off governing demand through price increases.

...

Fear

The #1 reason small businesses do not raise prices is fear. People are uncomfortable with change, and altering pricing is a big change. Pricing is more than a financial decision: pricing changes your brand, marketing, operations, and sales. It alienates some customers and attracts others. To change pricing is so scary, most businesses will go years between price adjustments.

How price increases impact your business.

Pricing affects nearly every part of your business. Small price increases of less than 5% may not cause much disruption

...

Your branding shifts to a premium focus.

With higher prices, you signal to the market your goods or services are higher quality than the competition. Your marketing needs to shift to embrace this positioning. 

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You lose cheap customers.

Every business has customers who expect a lot but want to pay little. Raising your prices naturally weeds out the cheap customers, saving your customer service and sales team many headaches! The downside is you might also weed out a small business customer you love to work with who now can no longer afford your brand.

Operations shifts from volume-focus to quality-focus. [Moi ici: Esta é, talvez, a mudança mais difícil de entranhar... recordar os anfíbios]

Low-price businesses are focused on volume and efficiency. High-price businesses are focused on quality, timeliness, and experience. To meet the expectations of your new premium customers, you will need to shift your staff's focus. [Moi ici: Eu concentrar-me-ia mais nos decisores, antes de ir aos operacionais

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Should you raise your prices?

The right pricing strategy will depend on your business and your industry. I recommend performing a full competitive pricing analysis to determine the best course of action. If you do not have the time or resources for a full pricing analysis, here's a rule of thumb:

If there are shortages in your industry, you should raise prices."

BTW, não pretendo passar a mensagem, julgo que este blogue com quase 20 anos é testemunha disso, de que a relação entre fornecedor e cliente/consumidor tem de ser uma guerra, mas o mindset da imprensa é a favor dos clientes/consumidores. Recordar o que recomendo aos agricultores: deixar de pensar que existem para aliviar a fome no mundo, ninguém lhes paga por isso.

Trechos retirados de "Why it's Time to Think About Raising Your Prices"

quarta-feira, setembro 15, 2021

Uma sistematização interessante

Um artigo, "Three Ways to Sell Value in B2B Markets" publicado no número de Outono da revista MIT Sloan Management Review:

"we suggest that rather than viewing VBS as a single strategy, vendors should choose from three different approaches. Our findings suggest that vendors can adopt either a product-centric, customer process-centric, or performance-centric VBS approach.

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VBS is based on demonstrating and documenting the monetary worth of the economic, technical, service, and social benefits a specific customer receives in exchange for the price that customer pays. This is a powerful marketing approach, because ultimately, B2B customers purchase goods and services to reduce their costs or boost their own revenues."

Uma sistematização interessante.