The European Pricing Platform is pleased to announce that they have added Navetti AB as a new Expert Partner

The European pricing Platform (ePP) is pleased to announce that they have added Navetti AB, a global expert on pricing know-how and pricing software solutions, as a new Expert Partner. Our new partner will be an exhibitor, and sponsor of upcoming ePP events throughout Europe.

Navetti will offer ePP participants with experience from true customer cases where participants will recognize its own situation and understand the value of implementing a global pricing strategy. Navetti has a strong track record of successful implementations of value based and market driven pricing strategies, methods and processes all supported in the Navetti PricePoint™. The main objectives from previous implementation projects have been;

·        Improved price quality

·        Improved customer trust

·        Improved Profitability

·        Improved efficiency,

all supported in Navetti PricePoint™ to secure sustainability.

“International companies have recognized the importance of implementing a global pricing strategy to secure profit optimization and manage all aspects of the price waterfall in a global business.” said ‘Andreas Westling, Senior Partner, Navetti AB.

“Partnering with ePP puts us in a position to reach a wider audience and provide guidelines to international manufacturing companies on the journey to pricing excellence.”

Navetti is an industry-leading pricing software supplier toward the manufacturing industry. Navetti offers both management consultancy services and license its own developed software solution Navetti PricePoint™.

“Navetti has been carefully selected to join our group of pricing experts worldwide because of their proven track record, experience, and pricing knowledge,” said Pol Vanaerde, ePP president. “We are pleased to have Navetti included on our expert list, and look forward to working closely with them to better serve our participants.”

ePP serves as the first ‘Not-for-profit’ network for cross-industrial pricing decision makers in Europe. Through various on- and offline media, ePP is dedicated to develop and share pricing best practices, effective tools, methodologies and populate technological solutions assisting in successful definition and implementation of Strategic Pricing.

About Navetti

Navetti has received recognition for its domain expertise in the field of pricing for international manufacturing companies, where price optimisation between markets and product families are critical.  Navetti has over the years developed a solid value and- market driven based pricing methodology, that has delivered increased profit and pricing quality to its clients.  The methodology in combination with Navetti PricePoint™, has clearly increased profit, customer trust and sustainability.

About European Pricing Platform

The ePP offers your company to have the right pricing tactics in place to guarantee customer loyalty and deliver sustained margin growth to your business. Enhance your pricing know-how and be successful in it by joining this dynamic and yet resourceful pricing platform.

Source: Britt Dejager - European Pricing Platform & Andreas Westling - Navetti AB

When Advisors Add Value, Pricing Power Follows

As the expression goes, when you settle for less than what you’re worth, you get less than what you settled for. Yet there's reluctance among many financial advisors to raise their prices for the services they offer, particularly after the 2008 crash damaged so many portfolios. Asset-based fees dominate the industry’s revenue stream, accounting for 85 percent of the total, according to the consulting firm FA Insight. Yet median fees as a percentage of assets under management were virtually unchanged between 2009 and 2010, the firm said.

Eliza De Pardo, principal and director of consulting at FA Insight, said just 31 percent of firms review their pricing strategy annually. It’s too bad, since there’s data showing that firms that review their pricing each year tend to have higher profitability per client. She understands the reluctance some advisors have about telling clients they want to charge more. “If the markets are declining, it’s a tough conversation to have with clients, obviously,” she told advisors during a pricing workshop at a recent Pershing Advisor Solutions conference in Manhattan. “The real question is, how do you deliver value, and can you communicate that to the client? If you can communicate it effectively, I don’t think anything’s off the table.”

One of the first places to start when reviewing what you charge is the condition of your local market, and the size of the fees your competitors are levying. De Pardo warns against placing too much weight on the latter, however, since all practices are unique. Advisors need to decide what pricing method is best for their practice—fees based on percentage of assets; flat or variable fees based on the advice needs of the client; hourly fees; or a fee that varies with the value delivered. Many advisors use a combination—an asset-based fee coupled, for example, with a flat fee for producing a financial plan. (Such fees may vary with the level of complexity required to produce the plan.)

Minimum fees help maintain profits; 57 percent of firms use them, FA Insight found. The median minimums range from $2,000 for firms with annual revenue of $75,000 to $500,000, to $5,000 for firms with revenues from over $500,000 to $3 million; firms with revenues greater than $3 million had median minimum fees of $9,000, the consultant said. Value-based pricing strategies are employed by 70 percent of the largest and most successful firms. Under those strategies, an advisor documents the financial savings that a client accrues through, say, lower insurance premiums or a reduction in personal tax liabilities through the advisor’s recommendations. The advisor would keep a percentage of the savings—maybe 20 percent—and add it to the regular fee that’s charged.

When preparing to raise prices, sit down beforehand and outline each argument that an unhappy client is likely to raise, De Pardo said, and prepare your counterarguments that demonstrate the value you’re providing. In addition to clarifying the case for your added value, she said, the exercise will help you feel less nervous when sitting down with particularly difficult clients. And be sure to share your value story with the rest of your staff, so they’re on board.

Advisors who want to charge more for their services have to differentiate themselves from their competitors, she said. Some regularly distribute e-mail newsletters on economic topics of interest to their clients, or organize luncheons for clients at which experts might speak about a particular topic. Investors recognize the value these things provide, De Pardo said. “Very rarely will a client say, ‘You know what? Keep the educational stuff.’ ”

Registered . Rep. The Source for Financial Advisors:  By Jerry Gleeson

Disney pricing strategy: Seeking more profits out of long-term visitors

Six years after Walt Disney World radically redesigned its ticket prices to steer guests toward longer stays, the resort is now aiming to wring more money out of passes once priced as irresistibly cheap.

During the past 10 months, the giant resort has begun increasing the premium it charges for longer ticket options — its five-, six- and seven-day passes — relative to the resort's single-day and shorter-term tickets.

It is a shift from the strategy behind Disney World's "Magic Your Way," the revamped pricing structure that Disney introduced at the start of 2005. That pricing scheme was designed to persuade travelers to make repeat visits to Disney World's four theme parks during their vacations by making the added cost for extra visits negligible — particularly when compared with the price of a one-day ticket charged by competitors Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando.

The effect is subtle but significant. For nearly six years, even as it consistently raised its base ticket prices, Disney kept the added charge for upgrading from a five-day ticket to a six-day ticket — the point at which a traveler may be debating whether to visit a Disney theme park for a second time or visit Universal's Islands of Adventure for the first time — to no more than $3.But last summer, Disney raised that premium to $5. And this month, the resort boosted it further, to $8. That works out to a 167 percent increase in less than a year.The charge to add a seventh day has also jumped from $3 to $8 during the same period.Starting with the first adjustment to Magic Your Way in 2006, the difference between a four-day and a five-day pass also remained relatively constant — at $3 or $4 — until last year.


But it, too, has now jumped to $8.The figures are based on an Orlando Sentinel analysis of historical price data compiled by AllEars.net, a consumer website for Disney vacationers.Disney declined to discuss its pricing strategy. But other experts called the company's changes shrewd.With Magic Your Way prices now well-established, Disney appears to have successfully conditioned customers to seek out longer passes. Four-, five- and seven-day tickets are Disney World's most popular passes, according to industry analysts and former theme-park officials. Concentrating price increases on those ticket options now gives Disney the most revenue bang for its buck.In addition, "you assume that folks who are down [in Orlando] over a longer time frame are both more price elastic and dedicated to Disney," said Michael Nathanson, a stock analyst who follows theWalt Disney Co. for Nomura Securities.Focusing on its longer passes also allows Disney to ease off on the price increases for its basic, single-day tickets, which are rapidly approaching $100 — potentially a psychologically significant threshold. Although single-day tickets account for only a small percentage of Disney's total ticket sales, they are a widely used barometer of the industry's pricing overall and can affect travelers' perception of theme parks' affordability.


Disney World has made seven rounds of price increases since beginning Magic Your Way. During each of the first five, single-day prices rose by an average of 5.7 percent. But during the past two, they have climbed an average of only 3.8 percent. One-day prices are now at $85 before tax.Experts say Disney likely has other motivations for the shift, as well. Company executives are under pressure to boost theme-park profit margins, which shriveled during the global recession as Disney used steep discounts to continue luring travelers to its resorts.Lifting prices for the later days of Magic Your Way passes is an obvious target."If ticket prices are almost giving [the] park away beyond the four- or five-day products, at some point the financial model may not work," said Joseph Couceiro, a former chief marketing officer for SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment.There is a limit to how much Disney can squeeze out of such increases without undermining the overarching goal of Magic Your Way. 


The ticket structure was designed, after all, to make it a no-brainer for guests to add extra days to their Disney passes rather than go somewhere else.Raising prices for those additional days could threaten that consumer calculus — just as Disney faces stiffening competition from other parks, particularly Universal with its year-old Wizarding World of Harry Potter."You have to walk gingerly to see how far you can reasonably push the envelope before you get consumer pushback," Couceiro said.For now, though, $8 for an extra day at Disney remains a tiny fraction of the one-day entry price to Universal or SeaWorld. And it's possible those other parks could face financial pressure of their own if Disney continues concentrating its price increases on its longer passes.Like Disney, both of the smaller parks have reshaped ticket prices in recent years to encourage multiple visits. Universal just last year launched a new price structure modeled after Magic Your Way, while SeaWorld has expanded multi-day ticket options with the opening of Aquatica, its 3-year-old water park.


But sales of single-day tickets remain a far more important revenue source for the smaller parks than for Disney. So if Disney makes only modest increases to its single-day ticket price — or even opts to hold it steady — it could put a disproportionate squeeze on Universal and SeaWorld, which typically match Disney's one-day price.Representatives for Universal and SeaWorld declined to comment on Disney's pricing strategy.

Publisher:  Orlando Sentinel