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Despite its increased adoption by small, medium and large firms, pricing continues to be ignored in the C-suite. C-suite executives have minimal understanding of what pricing can do and how it impacts a firm’s performance. After two years in the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis, consultants agree that the next wave of strategies and business models will require the development of strategic pricing capabilities, including analytics and software.

The authors conducted 49 interviews with CXOs, VPs of pricing and CEOs of pricing software vendors to understand how the best-performing companies use pricing to drive profits and select pricing technologies. Then, supported by the Professional Pricing Society, the world’s largest organization dedicated to pricing, the authors conducted a 2020 survey of 540 pricing professionals to understand the perceptions of pricing in the C-suite and how top executives prioritize pricing investments. The authors complemented their own research with analysis of publicly available data, analyst presentations and public comments by CEOs on pricing.

The authors propose a portfolio of 15 activities to include in the CEO’s strategic agenda and 10 actions to get started with in the short term. The next normal will not be based on business-as-usual. For the next three to five years, developing strategic pricing capabilities will give firms a competitive advantage over those who continue to neglect this hidden gem.

In the context of the accelerating economic recovery, the authors address one of the most pressing priority for the C-suite. The authors focus on a series of actions and activities that the C-suite can take to accelerate recovery and focus on profitable growth.

Decision-making plays a vital role in business. Yet as a trait, it is often overlooked when identifying, assessing, onboarding and empowering leadership talent. This study, therefore, aims to focus on the dimensions of organisational decision-making and investigate whether it should be an integral factor in the hiring process. The survey also looks at the relationships between decision-making and executive leadership, talent strategy and employee satisfaction. Could good decision-making as a trait be a factor when it comes to retention, improving organisational thinking and thriving leadership?

A quantitative and qualitative survey was commissioned and conducted by FT Longitude, part of the Financial Times Group. This included a questionnaire sent out to 400 senior executives at C-suite, C-1 and C-2 levels. The respondents were from companies with more than 1,000 employees in 13 industries and from five countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. This was also accompanied by in-depth interviews with three experts from both the public and private sector.

Almost two-thirds (63%) of senior executives have resigned or considered resigning due to frustration with organisational decision-making, while 29% have considered quitting because they were frustrated with the way a company makes decisions. More than a third (34%) resigned for this reason. Yet, a quarter of senior executives say that their decision-making experience was not explicitly discussed before starting their job. Senior executives who were asked about decision-making in interviews were 1.4 times more likely to be satisfied with their jobs. The ability to make decisions should therefore play a central role in hiring senior executives.

Decision-making as a trait has been neglected when hiring executives. For the first time, this research shows how significant it is for leadership teams. If senior executives are to improve organisational decision-making, this trait needs codifying in HR processes. This has led Kingsley Gate to embed it in recruitment profiling.

Despite widespread interest in the resources and people of Alaska, few libraries outside of the state maintain extensive collections on these subjects. In this article, David A. Hales reviews a multifarious sample of informative materials.