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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.

A significant amount of research in pricing has focused on price as a unidimensional construct – one consisting of a single number (e.g. $1.99). However, the evolving marketing environment, combined with notable growth in services and goods categories that require the communication of complex price information, has led to the use of multi‐dimensional prices. Multi‐dimensional prices consist of multiple numbers (e.g. $199 a month for 36 months) and as a result require the consumer to carry out specific mental computations to determine the cost of the offer. In this paper, empirical evidence on consumer difficulty in evaluating multi‐dimensional prices is examined. Then the strategic impact of such difficulties for pricing managers as well as regulators is examined. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of multi‐dimensional pricing on past research findings, and reflects on existing understanding of consumer response to price.

Assesses the extent to which environmental turbulence is affecting the pricing behavior of industrial marketers. Introduces a conceptual model, based on a review of the available literature, in which pricing behavior is the result of changing dynamics in the external environment of firms. Assumes that price itself includes multiple dimensions which combine to form an overall strategy. Describes the results of a survey of a cross‐section of firms in South Africa. Draws a number of implications for theory and practice.

A strategic response to crisis research is a critical and growing area of study in management and business literature. Consequently, the sudden rise of COVID-19, that has a substantial adverse impact on the global economy in a relatively short period of time, brings into sharp focus on the possible and most effective types of strategic responses adopted by firms. In this context, this study aims to shed light on the types of strategic responses adopted by firms and the possible outcomes.

To contribute to the advancement of knowledge around strategic responses in general for business, this study conducted a keyword bibliometric analysis reviewing 66 articles from highly ranked journals according to ABS list of journals published between the period 2006–2020 and synthesize the existing research on strategic responses.

This research enabled the identification of the novel typology of strategic responses to the crisis, such as revived stakeholders’ relationships, revived pricing mechanisms and revived organizational compliance, and their outcomes. Additionally, the analysis established many research areas for scholars who will deal with this topic in the future.

The literature review contributes to the management and business literature by providing a novel and comprehensive classification of crisis responses and synthesizing all new knowledge gained within a new conceptual framework.

Describes the major strategies used in setting prices in international markets. Emphasizes the issue of developing pricing strategies early in the development phase of new product development and discusses bundling strategies with the emphasis on adding value to mature products/services through bundling. Discusses long‐term issues in international pricing including the development of pricing parity, the concentration of buying power in international buying groups, and the increase in retaliatory measures by nations against predatory pricing by competitiors.

This paper includes an examination of two key issues on price decisions: (1) how should price decisions be made (the strategic and normative issue) within market contexts, and (2) how are price decisions actually made (the execution and implementation of price decisions). The paper closes with some observations useful for applied research and strategies for making effective pricing decisions. The propositions and literature review show that one pricing strategy does not fit a brand in all market contexts that brand executives experience annually in managing brands. Setting specific price points requires continuing deliberate management responses to dynamic market contexts. This paper provides useful sense-making conjunctive steps to accomplish such deliberate thinking effectively relevant for different market contexts.

Suggests that rapid rise of energy costs and worldwide inflation have altered pricing decisions importance. Provides an overview of the marketing literature on pricing — intending developing a conceptual framework and classification system for different types of pricing strategies in industrial markets. Strives to provide a more comprehensive basis for developing industrial pricing strategies in addition to earmarking the most relevant marketers' needs. Sectionalises the article and, in the first part, explores existing literature; the second part develops a taxonomy of purchasing situations. Closes by linking the pricing topics, identified previously, to the different purchasing situations. Lists, by topic, the articles used and these are in the Appendix to enable quick reference to potential users. Employs tables for extra emphasis to aid in explanation along with 2 Appendixes.

The purpose of this paper is to point out that most pricing organizations are not forward looking, rather they are focused on outdated price points and reviewing past negotiations. For the greatest return, pricing organizations must be strategic, and this will boost returns from 1-2 per cent (which may represent the “Hawthorne Effect”) to 5-10+% revenue growth.

The author examines best practices in the airline, hi-tech, software, chemical, diagnostic testing and manufacturing industries. Case studies show that sales and other line organizations are highly adept at subverting pricing rules not compatible with market dynamics.

Pricing organizations must be designed with broader scope of influence and situated so as to work closely with other functions. Pricing organizations require “analytic horsepower” to correctly anticipate the market, and be credible within company. The head of pricing must be sufficiently senior (VP or SVP) to be part of top-management dialogues for sufficient results.

This paper is based on examination of 20+ industries only.

The author offers guidance on organizational structure, resources and return on building a world-class pricing function, and highlights common mis-steps and best practices.

The paper also details the differences between a narrow “transactional” approval function and a strategic market-oriented function. Social implication is moving from focus on increasing price level to increasing revenues and better price structures which address needs.

This paper offers a new perspective on pricing functions within companies. Most managers are not aware that pricing organizations are focused on the past. The papers’ value is to shift management focus to future pricing challenges, new structures, price points, discounting rules and competitors.

Over the last years, powerful advances in the area of dynamic games have enriched game theory and made it more applicable to the modeling of real-world competitive strategies. The study of strategic behaviors of firms in an oligopoly market has received little attention, even though real firms have been shown to compete in output and in price in a single industry. The purpose of this study is to propose a game-theoretic approach to studying strategic behaviors of firms in an oligopoly market structure.

This approach was developed to study market dynamics and pricing strategic behavior of firms that have the possibility of deciding to be one of the two types (price-maker or price-taker) and reconsider the choice overtime on the basis of their current insights and knowledge and their experience. Firms try to improve their performance in the competitive market in a strategic way, by considering their steady-state profits and choosing the best type given the other firms’ types, actions and interactions.

The results of the present study confirm the previous study that the Cournot market is a stable market, where each firm can be a price-maker and enjoy individual learning as well as social learning. On the contrary, the market with price-takers only is never stable, and, therefore, the Walrasian equilibrium may not be supported in some instances. The Cournot market loses its stability as the number of firms in the market increases due to the fact that it will be more profitable for a firm to switch to price-taking when the number of firms is high enough. In such a situation, when the number of price-takers increases, there are no stable markets and price dynamics are destabilized.

The study and modeling of real-world competitive strategies would enhance the understanding of oligopoly markets. The study of strategic behaviors of firms in an oligopoly market has received little attention, even though real firms have been shown to compete in output and in price in a single industry as price-takers and price-makers.

Sustainable competitive advantage is recognized as a critical factor for survival in the turbulent environments of the 1990s. The limited use of pricing as a strategic tool to gain and hold competitive advantage has created an opportunity for companies willing to redesign their competitive portfolios and go with unorthodox strategy mixes. Proposes an approach to value pricing that can be used to seize and drive competitive advantage, and which yields a price that minimizes the risk that buyers will not perceive value at least equivalent to that provided by a reference product. At the same time, the risk to sellers of not achieving minimum margins is controlled. Suggests that this approach enhances the ability of management to develop dynamic and proactive strategies for pricing.