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The Ultimate List of Great Books on Pricing
Individual Book Review:
The Pricing Journey: The Organizational Transformation Toward Pricing Excellence
Book Author: Stephan Liozu
The Pricing Journey provides a unified guide to the behavioral ,organizational, and social features of pricing ― making use of the priniples of socio-technical change. Building on broad qualitative and quantitative research on multiple firms around the world, Stephan M. Liozu provides a practical guideline for management teams that aim to reach a higher level in pricing power.
The Pricing Journey is one of the books selected from The Ultimate List of Great Books on Pricing we have compiled. Pick up a book or two - to help you charge the right price for your products or services.
Continue reading through our review for The Pricing Journey below!
Pricing is a crucial but often overlooked element to business success. The Pricing Journey describes the behavioural, social as well as the organizational aspects of price and based off his 20 years of experience working within global firms, Stephan provides a guide for management teams to reach pricing excellence.
Academic researchers have studied the deficiencies of cost-based pricing and have concluded that it is value-based pricing, which aligns with the interests of firms and customers, that leads to superior profits.
Stephan Liozu describes how to transition from a cost-based pricing strategy approach to that of value-based pricing, that requires new capabilities, new structures and new incentives. He introduces the 5 C model of transformation which focuses on the key dimensions of change, capabilities, champions, confidence and center-led organizational design, in order to build efficient pricing strategies.
Liozu describes pricing as a strategic tool, an integral part of a firm which should be used appropriately by management. The ability of an organization to achieve better prices should be responsibility of managers, and senior executives and the CEO, who should teach and enforce the best pricing methods and new behaviors within an organization. Therefore, Liozu argues that innovations are the result of superior management, discipline, and creativity.
The following are the key concepts introduced by Stephan in The Pricing Journey:
1) Change Capacity: Stephan describes how 70% of projects fail due to lack of focus on management science. He presents the essential change factors that are needed for any pricing transformation and introduces a transformational roadmap consisting of ten dimensions of change in pricing.
2) Capabilities: Based on academic research, Stephan describes how positively related the socio-technical change concept is in pricing capabilities and how both tangible and intangible capabilities are needed for these changes to be adopted by an organization.
3) Champions lead the Organizational Mobilization: Stephan introduces the role of the CEO, as critical, in supporting price transformation within a company. He proposes behaviours needed to increase performance and collective confidence across an organization.
3) Confidence: The author covers the concept of organizational confidence in pricing and proposes, based off academic studies, roadmaps that can be used to build collective self-esteem and confidence within teams in an organization. The programs can be easily adapted and implemented amongst various organizational functions that might be impacted by price transformation
4) Center-Led Pricing Management: Stephan reviews and discusses the pros and cons of centralized, decentralized, center supported, and center led options to set up a pricing function within an organization, finally focusing on the center-led approach to management design to positively and firmly influence firm performance.
The pricing Journey provides effective guidance and training on pricing practices. Stephan highlights the organizational strategies that are needed to reach pricing excellence. A must read for anyone involved in pricing management!
Happy reading!
Pricebeam.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephan M. Liozu
Stephan M. Liozu is Founder of Value Innoruption Advisors, a consulting boutique specializing in industrial, digital, and value-based pricing. Stephan has worked for both Fortune 500 companies and family-owned businesses, and with over 20 years of experience in business he now focuses on design and creativity in value and pricing strategies. He is a Certified Pricing Professional (CPP), a Prosci Certified Change Manager, and a Strategyzer Certified Business Model Innovation Coach. Stephan sits on the advisory boards of the Professional Pricing Society and LeveragePoint Innovation.
Stephan holds a Ph.D in management from Case Western reserve (2013) ,and MS in innovation management from Toulouse School of Management (2005), and an MBA in marketing from Cleveland State University (1991)
Stephan has authored four books, Monetizing Data (2018), Value Mindset, (2017), Dollarizing Differentiation Value (2016), The Pricing Journey (2015) and Pricing and Human Capital (2015). He also co-edited four books, Pricing Strategy Implementation (2019), Innovation in Pricing (2012) and The ROI of Pricing (2014), and Pricing and the Salesforce (2015).
He has also written many articles on Strategic pricing issues for the Journal of Revenue & Pricing Management, Business Horizons, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Industrial Marketing.
