Your company's success depends on sound pricing strategies. The prices you charge for your products affect demand, which in turn affect output, revenue, costs, and income. Without a sensible pricing strategy, your company will be unable to react to competitive price moves, launch new products, adapt to seasonal fluctuations, or evaluate special-order bids.

After you understand key pricing data, including customer needs, competitors, product roles, and the full costs of your products, you can select and implement a pricing strategy that best meets your company's needs. Pricing strategies include cost-plus pricing, target pricing, activity-based pricing, life-cycle pricing, and special-order pricing. You can use Solver, a Microsoft Office Excel 2003 add-in program, to help you determine optimal product prices for simple or complex scenarios.

Use the following articles and tools to develop a product-pricing strategy that will help prepare your company for success.

• Develop a pricing strategy (Article)
  Understand the strategy and tactics of pricing, and develop a sound pricing strategy that prepares your company for success.
• Use Excel Solver to determine optimal price points (Article)
  Use Solver, an add-in program for Excel 2003, to evaluate the impact of different pricing scenarios for your product.
• Special-order pricing (Template)
  Use this Excel 2003 template to evaluate the attractiveness of a special-order bid.