Case Overview Pringly Divison A meeting of senior managers at the Pringly Division has been called to discuss the pricing strategy for a new product. Part of the discussion will focus on estimating sales for the new product. Over the past years, a number of new products have failed to meet their sales targets. It appears that the company's profit for the year will be lower than budget and the main reason for this is the disappointing sales of new products. A new technique for estimating the probability of achieving target sales and profits will be discussed. This requires managers to estimate demand for the new product and assign probabilities. A range, rather than only one goal will be established. The first strategy is to set a selling price of $170 with annual fixed costs at $20,000,000. A number of managers are in favour of this strategy, as they believe it is important to reduce costs. The second strategy is to increase spending on advertising and promotions and set a selling price of $200. With the higher selling price the annual fixed costs would increase to $25,000,000. The marketing department are adamant that increased emphasis on advertising and promotions is essential. Scenario 1 Proposed Scenario - One Selling price of $170 Annual fixed costs at $20,000,000 Variable costs are $30 per unit Target Profit is $4,000,000 A number of managers are in favor of this strategy, as they believe it is important to reduce costs. Price $170.00 Fixed Costs
The price increase must be enough to cover the additional fixed cost, so we just need to know what that fixed cost is per copy sold. This equals the additional fixed costs / number of copies sold.
The company started off producing 20,000 units of mountain bikes. We did not change the production quantity. Last year our forecast sales were 24,000 when we only sold 19,866; therefore we thought it would be best to leave production at 20,000 bikes. Having excess inventory, we concluded that 20,000 units should be enough considering our quality has not changed and our advertising will not increase the sales dramatically. Although we had the choice to produce as much as 30,000 units, we felt as though we did not have sufficient money to increase production. We were interested in allocating the money towards marketing as opposed to production. We realized that without awareness, no matter how many units we make, sales would be inefficient.
2.) What is the ‘relevant range’ for the cost structure? In other words, at what volume might you expect the fixed and variable costs to change appreciably?
3. Marketing expenses increased by $0.05 per unit due to the new advertising campaign to boost lagging sales. While it was indeed a higher expense, sales were boosted in the last quarter.
Owens & Minor is a distributor of surgical and medical supplies to hospitals and other health care facilities. Due to changing demand from customers, the company is facing increased operating costs, which has resulted in lower profit margins and even losses. In 1993, O&M recorded an $18 million profit, which was reduced to a loss of $11 million in 1995. The entire industry is experiencing similar difficulties. In an effort to resume profitability, O&M is evaluating alternatives to “cost-plus pricing”. Cost-plus pricing does not reflect the true cost of the services provided by O&M. Customers are demanding more of O&M while
Although the company did show an increased gross profit of $8,255,000 with $6,358,000 less Net Sales in 2013 versus 2012, that increase is due to the reduction in product Cost of Goods Sold by $14,613,000. Since increases in product price will negatively affect sales, one of management’s primary goals is to keep prices stable. This objective is achieved through implementation of cost cutting programs, investing in more efficient equipment, and automation of more steps in the production process.
While it is true that Ms. Forthright had always exceeded her budgeted sales, the extent to which she diverts away from the managers projections does not necessarily means that she is violating honesty and integrity. Her decision on what her budgeted sales for the year is highly relevant to the data available to her. Her projections tends to lie between the field manager and the marketing manager’s predictions, which can be reasonable because in the past years, the field manager’s projections tend to be over what the actual sales of the year will be.
Thank you for the opportunity to assess your sales data in order to provide recommendations for increasing your sales. The analysis and recommendations below are based on the data you provided, which covers a period from May 2004 through June 2006. The analysis below is based on this data alone. Therefore, our recommendations should be tempered by your knowledge of business realities and your market. Please let us know if we can answer any questions concerning the analysis or the recommendations provided.
This seeks to satisfy to some extent Gordon’s idea that a price increase may induce short-term profits, but should not exacerbate Nick Vlahos’ concern that a price increase will have a negative impact on the firm’s desire to drive out the Royal Oak brand.
The $320,000, on the other hand, is a fixed cost associated with the proposed addition.
* How to develop a new marketing plan so that it will be more cost-effective. (unnecessary marketing expenses will decrease by approximately $550 per year)
Thanks to a lucky series of events, Atomic Company has enjoyed a sharp increase in sales of their Tiger Pants line. The most obvious and immediate pains being felt by management is the inability to predict future sales and the high amount being paid out in sales commissions. While these are legitimate concerns, I believe deeper problems exist.
After analyzing the results from the previous quarter, it was determined that the prices set for each segment were not sufficient. Product sales priority were also not properly adjusted. With the R&D investments, sales priorities needed to be changed for the main focus to become the most profitable market segments. Prices were not competitive which in turned decreased revenue, market share, and profitability. To become more competitive we altered the prices in each market segment. The Workhorse product was the first to change, the price was lowered to $2500 in an attempt to increase sales; at this price Team 4 was still making a profit on this product, as well as making the price much more competitive. The Workhorse sales priority was also lowered to 3rd in Americas and 4th in APAC and EMEA. This product was not selling as well as we had hoped, and was no longer as profitable as it once was which led to this decision. Next, the Innovator product’s price was adjusted; this involved a price increase to $4100. This price was adjusted to include the new
This has the effect of regarding the desired profit as an increase in the fixed costs to be covered by sales of the product. As the
penetration pricing strategy. All indications are that sales will continue to grow. In response to a