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  • Wer sich intensiver mit dem Thema Pricing beschäftigt hat, der weiß, dass das Pricing der stärkste Gewinnhebel ist. Um die Pricing-Kompetenz des eigenen Unternehmens systematisch weiter zu entwickeln, bedarf es eines überzeugenden, nicht zu komplexen methodischen Rahmens und pragmatischer Werkzeuge. Um diese Fragen geht es bei den hier vorgestellten Themen. Seit mehr als 15 Jahren bildet das Pricing einen wichtigen Beratungsschwerpunkt von UNICconsult. Geschäftsführer Dr. Hans Christian Riekhof, Professor für Internationales Marketing an der Privaten Hochschule Göttingen, gilt als ausgewiesener Pricing-Experte. Regelmäßig bietet er Pricing-Seminare an, in denen er Unternehmen praxisnah Pricing-Kompetenz vermittelt.

Pricing Strategies: Value creation through effective price design

Anyone who has dealt intensively with the topic of pricing knows that pricing is the strongest lever for profit. In order to systematically develop the pricing competence of one’s own company, a convincing, not too complex methodological framework and pragmatic tools are needed. These are the questions addressed in the topics presented here.

For more than 15 years, pricing has been an important consulting focus of UNICconsult. Managing Director Dr. Hans Christian Riekhof, Professor of International Marketing at the Private University of Göttingen, is a recognized pricing expert. He regularly offers pricing seminars in which he imparts practical pricing competence to companies.

The contents of pricing

Wer sich intensiver mit dem Thema Pricing beschäftigt hat, der weiß, dass das Pricing der stärkste Gewinnhebel ist. Um die Pricing-Kompetenz des eigenen Unternehmens systematisch weiter zu entwickeln, bedarf es eines überzeugenden, nicht zu komplexen methodischen Rahmens und pragmatischer Werkzeuge. Um diese Fragen geht es bei den hier vorgestellten Themen. Seit mehr als 15 Jahren bildet das Pricing einen wichtigen Beratungsschwerpunkt von UNICconsult. Geschäftsführer Dr. Hans Christian Riekhof, Professor für Internationales Marketing an der Privaten Hochschule Göttingen, gilt als ausgewiesener Pricing-Experte. Regelmäßig bietet er Pricing-Seminare an, in denen er Unternehmen praxisnah Pricing-Kompetenz vermittelt.

Why strategic pricing is essential for companies

We often hear complaints from entrepreneurs and executives about aggressive competitors, about a low willingness to pay on the part of customers, about the decline in prices and margins, about new discount business models and price-aggressive online competitors.

This is one side of the coin. On the other hand, our regularly conducted empirical pricing studies also show: many managers do not take the trouble to develop a pricing strategy for their own company. So there is no strategic pricing.

This is quite astonishing – after all, there is no bigger profit driver than the price.

According to neoclassical economic theory, supply and demand determine the price. With the help of price-sales functions and corresponding cost functions, companies can then determine the ‘optimal’ price. That’s the theory.

It is now well known that the internal processes in a company that is active in different business units in several countries make things a bit more complicated.

To get a somewhat more realistic view, we work in our study with the RSEC process model (see point 2), which summarizes pricing in an ideal-typical way. It consists of four core processes of pricing.

The RSEC competence model and its four core processes

The RSEC model is based on the assumption that pricing is only really successful when it is anchored as a horizontal process in the company, involving all relevant company areas. Models have the task of representing reality in a simplifying (but still accurate) way and thus reducing complexity. With supply and demand curves and corresponding equilibrium models, you don’t get any further in practice: they simplify so much that they are not really useful. That’s why we work with the RSEC process model of pricing in our pricing projects, which consists of the 4 building blocks R = Pricing Research S = Pricing Strategy E = Pricing Execution C = Pricing Controlling We use the English terms here because pricing in most of the companies we work for is internationally oriented, so the management tools should be named and aligned internationally from the outset. But what exactly is behind these 4 building blocks?

Research: Market and Customer Analysis

Pricing Research is the first step. It should and must create the analytical basis for the pricing strategy. Among other things, the question arises as to which information the own pricing strategy should be based on:

  • on internal costs?
  • oriented towards competitive prices?
  • or on customer value?

What is noticeable in our studies: For the Pricing Research, resources are rarely directly provided and budgeted. Pricing is the most important profit lever in the company, but the Pricing Research is often treated rather stepmotherly. How can the Pricing Research be organized? First of all, the question arises whether companies should rather focus on cost-oriented, competition-oriented or customer-oriented pricing. The cost-oriented research is obviously mainly directed inwards, but the cost structures of the competition should be kept in mind as far as possible.

Other companies focus strongly on competition-oriented pricing – think of the oil companies, for example, who adjust the petrol station prices several times a day to the local market and the petrol station 200 m further. A German DIY store group has set up a multi-headed department for competition-related Pricing Research: there they seem to be convinced that the price reduction for drilling machines in Lindau on Lake Constance plays a role in the pricing for drilling machines in Flensburg. But caution is advised here: the primary orientation of the Pricing Research towards the competition leads rather to a ‘follow the competition’ behaviour. Unique selling points of the own company are then not in the foreground. The customer-oriented pricing has, in my estimation, the greatest untapped potentials. Our studies show that companies today primarily rely on costs and competition for price formation. But customer-oriented pricing often (still) has little practical significance, such as price tests or customer surveys.

Strategy: Development of the Pricing Strategy

Pricing Strategy is the second step in the RSEC model: This raises new questions, such as:

  • What are the medium to long-term price strategic statements of a company?
  • In which direction does a company develop pricing further?

Written price strategies, as our studies clarify, are still more common in large companies. In the majority of medium-sized companies and in “medium-sized groups” (up to 10,000 employees), a written fixation of the price strategy is dispensed with – from our point of view, difficult to understand. Either there is a lack of insight into how much can be achieved with professional pricing, or there is a lack of methodological competence to systematically approach the topic of price strategy.

What belongs in a document with the name “Price Strategy” and should be dealt with there, here are a few initial keywords:

Execution: Implementation of the price strategy

Pricing Execution is the third step: Here, the focus is on questions such as:

  • how is the pricing strategy implemented?
  • Which tools are used?
  • Are there pricing roadmaps?
  • Are there pricing goals?

Many managers seem to assume that the adoption of a strategy automatically leads to its implementation. Our experience shows: Far from it!

I have dealt with this topic extensively in my book “The 6 Levers of Strategy Implementation” (published by Schäffer Poeschel in Stuttgart, see under Publications/Book Publications). The implementation of strategies only succeeds if it is carefully thought out and planned.

Only those who know the implementation obstacles of everyday operations will be able to reap the fruits of strategic work. Which levers help in the implementation of a price strategy?

I would like to briefly present this in reference to the 6 levers of strategy implementation: First, an implementation roadmap is needed for each affected business area. We call this a pricing profile, which describes on about 4-6 charts where the journey in relation to the pricing area should go in the next 3 years.

This document obliges the responsible managers and generates the necessary commitment.

At the same time, the topic of resources must be discussed: Strategies cannot be implemented if necessary resources are not provided.

Another lever is strategic reporting with pricing scorecards. This is about making the successes of price strategies measurable. More on this topic under point 2.4.

Often neglected is the competence of management in relation to pricing: how often has middle management already participated in pricing seminars? Are all executives really familiar with the principles, strategies, models and processes of pricing, so that they will consider all relevant options in the specific case?

Practical examples of price communication

Extreme Preise

Extreme Preise schaffen Aufmerksamkeit - wie hier bei dieser ungewöhnlichen Luxusvariante eines Bratwurst-Angebots.

Discount-Pricing

Wer nur das Nötigste braucht und seine Bedürfnisse genau einschätzen kann, findet in ganz unterschiedlichen Bereichen echtes Discount Pricing.

Tagesaktuelle Preise

Tagesaktuelles Pricing für die frischen Produkte vom Markt.

Luxury Pricing

Nudeln gibt es auch billiger, aber niemals schöner verpackt. Und bei Geschenken kommt es vor allem auf die Verpackung an, oder?

Zeitlich begrenzte Sonderpreise

Das zeitlich begrenzte Angebot soll zum Impulskauf (ver-)führen. Kommen Sie am Dienstag extra wegen der Wurst?

Komplett-Preise

Komplett-Preise bei IKEA: Exemplarische Komplett-Einrichtungen sollen Preiswürdigkeit demonstrieren, die Phantasie beflügeln und das kleine Budget ansprechen.

Flexible Preise

Flexible Preis-Auszeichnung: Wenn es darauf ankommt, gibt es nächste Woche per Kreide-Stift neue Preise.

Verzicht auf Preisauszeichnung

Völliger Verzicht auf Preisauszeichnung: Da wird die Orientierung schwierig. Denn der Preis ist letztlich immer auch ein Qualitätsindikator.

Preis-Elastizitäten

Manchmal sind die Zusammenhänge zwischen Preis und angebotener Menge sehr begrenzt, wie hier der Titel der Business Week nahelegt.

Smart Pricing

Impulskäufe durch attraktive Komplett- oder Paketpreise. Und der Anlass wird mitgeliefert: „Party-Starter.“
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Controlling: Monitoring and Adjustment

Pricing Controlling is finally the fourth step: The pricing managers of a company should at least answer the following questions:

  • How do we control the success of our pricing strategy?
  • Which price-related key figures do we want to measure?
  • What pricing reports do we need?
  • What do our pricing scorecards look like?

What has been agreed strategically with regard to pricing should therefore be measured. Are the expected effects occurring? Are the price increases or also the price reductions effective? Is the planned price differentiation or price spread realized? Do the actual discounts correspond to the strategic plans and guidelines? Does the expected profit improvement already occur in the first year or do you have to be patient a little longer?

MORE ABOUT THE RSEC MODEL

Insights from the PFH Pricing Studies

In the years 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2018, pricing expert Professor Hans-Christian Riekhof, in cooperation with the PFH Private University of Göttingen, presented comprehensive empirical pricing studies. The aim of the studies is to analyze the pricing processes of various companies of different sizes and from different sectors. The studies place a special focus on the formation of prices and pricing. In addition, the potentials in the individual pricing processes are clarified and the studies aim to show which remarkable approaches to pricing other companies can also apply.

Wer sich intensiver mit dem Thema Pricing beschäftigt hat, der weiß, dass das Pricing der stärkste Gewinnhebel ist. Um die Pricing-Kompetenz des eigenen Unternehmens systematisch weiter zu entwickeln, bedarf es eines überzeugenden, nicht zu komplexen methodischen Rahmens und pragmatischer Werkzeuge. Um diese Fragen geht es bei den hier vorgestellten Themen. Seit mehr als 15 Jahren bildet das Pricing einen wichtigen Beratungsschwerpunkt von UNICconsult. Geschäftsführer Dr. Hans Christian Riekhof, Professor für Internationales Marketing an der Privaten Hochschule Göttingen, gilt als ausgewiesener Pricing-Experte. Regelmäßig bietet er Pricing-Seminare an, in denen er Unternehmen praxisnah Pricing-Kompetenz vermittelt.

Results of the Pricing Study 2018

With the study conducted in 2018 “Pricing Processes in Business Practice” we present for the fourth time an empirical survey on the pricing processes of companies after 2009, 2012 and 2015. One finding in advance: Still more than 50% of the respondents see the importance of pricing as medium, low or very low. The surveyed companies have not yet created highly professional pricing processes in all areas. Pricing does not yet receive the necessary attention everywhere within the company. The empirical view of pricing in companies confirms once again that the pricing processes are not structured and controlled with the same care and intensity as is usual in other operational areas of a company. Logistical processes and processes of order processing and customer care are usually very precisely documented, and they are also measured with corresponding key figures. In view of the value creation potential that lies in pricing, a comparable approach would be advisable.

TO THE PRICING STUDY 2018

The Study Pricing in Automotive Suppliers 2018

With this empirical study the focus is for the first time on automotive suppliers. Due to often long-standing supplier relationships between OEMs and suppliers and due to very different power constellations and dependencies, it was to be expected that pricing in this area involves special challenges. Especially for automotive suppliers, a professional approach to pricing is extremely important. One striking result should be mentioned here in advance: As the pricing studies from the years 2009 (Riekhof/Lohaus), 2012 (Riekhof/Wurr) and 2015 (Riekhof/Ha) could show, many automotive suppliers have not yet recognized that pricing is the most important profit driver in the company – at least pricing surprisingly does not consistently receive a very high internal status. The price is given the lowest importance compared to the other profit drivers (in addition to the price, the variable and fixed costs as well as the sales volume). Our study shows that not all of the surveyed suppliers have recognized the potential that they can tap into by designing the pricing processes more carefully.

STUDY AUTOMOTIVE SUPPLIERS

Publications on the topic of Pricing

WEITERE PRICING-STUDIEN

Interviews with Pricing Experts: Best Practices

What we can learn from pricing experts

We regularly talk to pricing experts from a wide range of industries and invite them to give lectures in Göttingen. Read here what these pricing managers have to say about special pricing strategic questions.

Musical “King of the Lions”: Interview on Pricing with Sönke Scobel

Sönke Scobel is Analytics and Optimization Director at Stage Entertainment
Conducted as part of the empirical Pricing Study 2018

Wer sich intensiver mit dem Thema Pricing beschäftigt hat, der weiß, dass das Pricing der stärkste Gewinnhebel ist. Um die Pricing-Kompetenz des eigenen Unternehmens systematisch weiter zu entwickeln, bedarf es eines überzeugenden, nicht zu komplexen methodischen Rahmens und pragmatischer Werkzeuge. Um diese Fragen geht es bei den hier vorgestellten Themen. Seit mehr als 15 Jahren bildet das Pricing einen wichtigen Beratungsschwerpunkt von UNICconsult. Geschäftsführer Dr. Hans Christian Riekhof, Professor für Internationales Marketing an der Privaten Hochschule Göttingen, gilt als ausgewiesener Pricing-Experte. Regelmäßig bietet er Pricing-Seminare an, in denen er Unternehmen praxisnah Pricing-Kompetenz vermittelt.

In the run-up to the study, pricing expert Dr. Hans-Christian Riekhof conducted an interview with Sönke Scobel (photo), Analytics and Optimization Director at Stage Entertainment in Hamburg. This interview provides insightful insights into the pricing of the “King of the Lions”, one of the greatest successes in the history of musicals.

The pricing for the ‘King of the Lions’ is highly professional based on standardized analyses and a permanent learning process that systematically takes into account the findings from many years of practical pricing decisions.

READ INTERVIEW

ZF: Interview on Pricing with Ronald Schreiber

Ronald Schreiber, Regional Pricing Manager DACH Services at ZF
Conducted as part of the Study Pricing Processes in the Automotive Supplier Industry 2018

Wer sich intensiver mit dem Thema Pricing beschäftigt hat, der weiß, dass das Pricing der stärkste Gewinnhebel ist. Um die Pricing-Kompetenz des eigenen Unternehmens systematisch weiter zu entwickeln, bedarf es eines überzeugenden, nicht zu komplexen methodischen Rahmens und pragmatischer Werkzeuge. Um diese Fragen geht es bei den hier vorgestellten Themen. Seit mehr als 15 Jahren bildet das Pricing einen wichtigen Beratungsschwerpunkt von UNICconsult. Geschäftsführer Dr. Hans Christian Riekhof, Professor für Internationales Marketing an der Privaten Hochschule Göttingen, gilt als ausgewiesener Pricing-Experte. Regelmäßig bietet er Pricing-Seminare an, in denen er Unternehmen praxisnah Pricing-Kompetenz vermittelt.

In the last ten years, a lot has happened in the automotive supplier industry in terms of pricing. Pricing today has a much higher value, the management attention for this topic has really increased, explains Ronald Schreiber, Regional Pricing Manager DACH Services at ZF, in an interview conducted by Professor Hans-Christian Riekhof.

Value-Based Pricing, for example, is an absolute must for this big player in the automotive supplier industry in order to maintain the competitive advantage. It is important to define a global pricing strategy in order to maximize the price point with the help of market intelligence and value-creating product attributes for all business channels.

READ INTERVIEW

Leoni: Interview on Pricing with Peter Becker

Peter Becker, Head of Business Unit VW Group at Leoni
Conducted as part of the Study Pricing Processes in the Automotive Supplier Industry 2018

Wer sich intensiver mit dem Thema Pricing beschäftigt hat, der weiß, dass das Pricing der stärkste Gewinnhebel ist. Um die Pricing-Kompetenz des eigenen Unternehmens systematisch weiter zu entwickeln, bedarf es eines überzeugenden, nicht zu komplexen methodischen Rahmens und pragmatischer Werkzeuge. Um diese Fragen geht es bei den hier vorgestellten Themen. Seit mehr als 15 Jahren bildet das Pricing einen wichtigen Beratungsschwerpunkt von UNICconsult. Geschäftsführer Dr. Hans Christian Riekhof, Professor für Internationales Marketing an der Privaten Hochschule Göttingen, gilt als ausgewiesener Pricing-Experte. Regelmäßig bietet er Pricing-Seminare an, in denen er Unternehmen praxisnah Pricing-Kompetenz vermittelt.

A profound change towards the expansion of electromobility in its various forms is currently taking place in the automotive industry. Do the framework conditions for strategic pricing also change as a result? For example, will it become easier for suppliers to differentiate themselves in their value contribution, so that price pressure may also decrease? These and other questions posed by Professor Hans-Christian Riekhof are answered by Peter Becker, Head of Business Unit VW Group at Leoni, in this interview.

READ INTERVIEW

L’TUR: Interview on Pricing with Stefan Baumert

Stefan Baumert is a member of the board of L’TUR Tourismus AG

Wer sich intensiver mit dem Thema Pricing beschäftigt hat, der weiß, dass das Pricing der stärkste Gewinnhebel ist. Um die Pricing-Kompetenz des eigenen Unternehmens systematisch weiter zu entwickeln, bedarf es eines überzeugenden, nicht zu komplexen methodischen Rahmens und pragmatischer Werkzeuge. Um diese Fragen geht es bei den hier vorgestellten Themen. Seit mehr als 15 Jahren bildet das Pricing einen wichtigen Beratungsschwerpunkt von UNICconsult. Geschäftsführer Dr. Hans Christian Riekhof, Professor für Internationales Marketing an der Privaten Hochschule Göttingen, gilt als ausgewiesener Pricing-Experte. Regelmäßig bietet er Pricing-Seminare an, in denen er Unternehmen praxisnah Pricing-Kompetenz vermittelt.

As part of the empirical pricing study 2015, Professor Hans-Christian Riekhof conducted an interview with Stefan Baumert, Board Member L’TUR. The pricing at the tourism group is characterized by very high price transparency for the consumer due to various price comparison portals for package tours. Therefore, competitive comparisons play an even greater role than in other industries. Another special feature is that tour operators usually work with travel agencies in the sales representative model. This means that the sales outlets usually do not have pricing competence and there are the same sales prices in all sales channels.

READ INTERVIEW

Media Saturn: Interview on Pricing with Florian Welz

Florian Welz is COO of Media Saturn MultiChannel / E-Business GmbH

Wer sich intensiver mit dem Thema Pricing beschäftigt hat, der weiß, dass das Pricing der stärkste Gewinnhebel ist. Um die Pricing-Kompetenz des eigenen Unternehmens systematisch weiter zu entwickeln, bedarf es eines überzeugenden, nicht zu komplexen methodischen Rahmens und pragmatischer Werkzeuge. Um diese Fragen geht es bei den hier vorgestellten Themen. Seit mehr als 15 Jahren bildet das Pricing einen wichtigen Beratungsschwerpunkt von UNICconsult. Geschäftsführer Dr. Hans Christian Riekhof, Professor für Internationales Marketing an der Privaten Hochschule Göttingen, gilt als ausgewiesener Pricing-Experte. Regelmäßig bietet er Pricing-Seminare an, in denen er Unternehmen praxisnah Pricing-Kompetenz vermittelt.

Florian Welz, who conducted the interview with Professor Riekhof, is responsible for the overall project of the Roll Out Electronic Price Tags (ESL) and the associated pricing topics of Media Saturn. The electronics giant is striving for basic price equality online and in stores – everything that can be ordered online is available at the same price in the market. Saturn Media adjusts its prices once a day in the morning for relevant parts of the range.

READ INTERVIEWMORE INTERVIEWS

Pricing Seminars: Current Dates and Contents

You can systematically increase the pricing competence of your management team by sending it to our proven pricing seminar.

Our Recommendation

The Pricing Seminar with Prof. Riekhof

In this two-day intensive seminar of the pricing expert Prof. Dr. Riekhof, the 4 levers for increasing the pricing competence of companies are taught. These levers are not only explained theoretically, but are applied using practical examples from the participants’ everyday work.

We recommend participants to bring concrete pricing questions from their own work area into the seminar to work on them there.

MORE INFO RESERVE YOUR PLACE NOW
The Pricing Seminar Dates 2025

Dates for 2025 (in Hamburg): 20. / 21.02.2025 (fully booked) 26. / 27.06.2025 (fully booked) 09. / 10.10.2025 04. / 05.12.2025

Participant Voices on the Pricing Seminar

Read here what participants say who have attended our pricing seminar.

Dennis Monzka

MAN Truck & Bus AG

“I am positively overwhelmed by the multitude of suggestions after these two days. This has triggered a thought process (…)”

Jeannine Kempf

SPIEGEL-Verlag Rudolf Augstein GmbH & Co. KG

“Practical examples – great! I take many impulses with me and look forward to implementing them.”

Wer sich intensiver mit dem Thema Pricing beschäftigt hat, der weiß, dass das Pricing der stärkste Gewinnhebel ist. Um die Pricing-Kompetenz des eigenen Unternehmens systematisch weiter zu entwickeln, bedarf es eines überzeugenden, nicht zu komplexen methodischen Rahmens und pragmatischer Werkzeuge. Um diese Fragen geht es bei den hier vorgestellten Themen. Seit mehr als 15 Jahren bildet das Pricing einen wichtigen Beratungsschwerpunkt von UNICconsult. Geschäftsführer Dr. Hans Christian Riekhof, Professor für Internationales Marketing an der Privaten Hochschule Göttingen, gilt als ausgewiesener Pricing-Experte. Regelmäßig bietet er Pricing-Seminare an, in denen er Unternehmen praxisnah Pricing-Kompetenz vermittelt.

LAP Laser, Lüneburg

“The seminar was a real eye opener for us – the importance of pricing has been clearly demonstrated to us (…)”

MORE VOICESDOWNLOAD SEMINAR BROCHURE

The Pricing Newsletter: Practical and compact information

Our insights into pricing and pricing strategies are summarized in our monthly free pricing newsletter. Here you will find an overview of topics and the opportunity to subscribe for free.

Pricing Newsletter on Research

Pricing Newsletter on Strategy

Pricing-Newsletter on the topic of Execution

Pricing-Newsletter on the topic of Controlling

Further contributions on the topic of Pricing

In our daily work with pricing consultations, studies, lectures and pricing seminars, many aspects of the topic of pricing come to the table. Read here further articles that are published in the context of our reporting.

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