Pricing methods for industrial products are sometimes (as in France for instance) less sophisticated than methods used for pricing consumer goods. There are a number of reasons for this difference, one of which is the specificity of each industrial product; another, the difficulty in forecasting consumer reactions. The purpose of the present article is to present methods generally used in France for pricing industrial products. Difficulties and limitations of these methods are succinctly outlined. It is possible to make progress if one takes into account: - that there are relatively few totally new products, as a new product is at least partially a substitution for another; - that the purchaser acquires a service/product entirety, and not just an isolated product. These considerations are basic to the price equivalence method. A practical application of this theory, pricing of natural gas for industrial use, makes up the essential part of the speech and the second part of the present article. Difficulties encountered, precautions taken, and principal results have been described and illustrated with diagrams and charts. Numerous maps, diagrams and tables, presented on epidiascope, accompany this paper.
Pricing methods for industrial products are sometimes (as in France for instance) less sophisticated than methods used for pricing consumer goods. There are a number of reasons for this difference, one of which is the specificity of each industrial product; another, the difficulty in forecasting consumer reactions. The purpose of the present article is to present methods generally used in France for pricing industrial products. Difficulties and limitations of these methods are succinctly outlined. It is possible to make progress if one takes into account: - that there are relatively few totally new products, as a new product is at least partially a substitution for another; - that the purchaser acquires a service/product entirety, and not just an isolated product. These considerations are basic to the price equivalence method. A practical application of this theory, pricing of natural gas for industrial use, makes up the essential part of the speech and the second part of the present article. Difficulties encountered, precautions taken, and principal results have been described and illustrated with diagrams and charts. Numerous maps, diagrams and tables, presented on epidiascope, accompany this paper.
Informatics and integrated data processing are foremost in the minds of company managers who want to keep on making their decisions in a quickly changing business world. The use of the electronic computer has added a new dimension to the possibilities of analysing and processing the information which the company has at its disposal. However, although the technical possibilities available to the company manager are vast, only very little use is actually made in Europe of these possibilities and particularly in marketing this field has been insufficiently explored. The aim of this paper will be to survey the present situation and to make an assessment of the future prospects for the use of electronic computers in marketing: - the first part will deal with the informatics tools which to our knowledge are now constantly used to solve marketing problems; - the second part will deal with the development prospects for these tools and with the problems which have to be overcome before arriving at an integrated system of "commercial management".
Informatics and integrated data processing are foremost in the minds of company managers who want to keep on making their decisions in a quickly changing business world. The use of the electronic computer has added a new dimension to the possibilities of analysing and processing the information which the company has at its disposal. However, although the technical possibilities available to the company manager are vast, only very little use is actually made in Europe of these possibilities and particularly in marketing this field has been insufficiently explored. The aim of this paper will be to survey the present situation and to make an assessment of the future prospects for the use of electronic computers in marketing: - the first part will deal with the informatics tools which to our knowledge are now constantly used to solve marketing problems; - the second part will deal with the development prospects for these tools and with the problems which have to be overcome before arriving at an integrated system of "commercial management".