An annual price list is a forecast. It assumes the costs inside it will sit still for twelve months. In 2025, US steel prices didn’t sit still for one: the producer price index for steel mill products moved by more…
One product, one price list, several markets. Converting your home price into a new currency is a pricing decision, even when nobody makes it. Here is what the data says, and what to do instead. When a technology company expands…
Most market entries don’t fail. They stop. Our last piece looked at four decades of trade data and found that new export flows usually end within a year or two, quietly and early. This piece asks the harder question: what…
Your first price isn’t just a price. It’s the beginning of your commercial model. Why pricing is the commercial decision technology companies find hardest to get right, and hardest to act on. The lever everyone agrees on The foundational evidence…
Market entry gets talked about as a bet. It pays off or it blows up, and everyone knows which by the end of it. The trade data describes something much duller, and much more common. Economists have spent four decades…
In three recent conversations with renewable technology businesses, the same need has surfaced. A customer pilot. One reference site. One installation running in the field and generating operating data. After that, the conversation with the next customer becomes much easier.…
Most manufacturers can describe exactly how they entered a new market. They appointed a distributor, translated the website, printed literature in the local language and took a stand at the regional trade show. What far fewer can describe is who…
Customer pricing tells you what your own customers are willing to pay. Market pricing answers a broader question. It looks at what buyers across the market value, how competing offers are priced and where there may be room to charge…
New market decisions are often driven by ambition before there is enough evidence to support them. The leadership team has a revenue target, a timeframe and perhaps a competitor already making money in a market the business has yet to…
Most pricing decisions are based on a mixture of competitor prices, historic precedent and what the business believes customers will tolerate. The problem is that customers do not all value the same things, face the same switching costs or respond…