Pricing strategies and price politics in the key account enterprise business

Diploma Thesis from the year 2002 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1,3, Kiel University of Applied Sciences (IBET), language: English, abstract: Among the critical factors in the go-to-market strategy for key customers, pricing has a significant importance for the financial results of a company and a direct impact on profit. This thesis 'Pricingstrategies and price politics in the key account enterprise business'compares theoretical pricing strategies identified in leading scientific literature with the pricing methods used in the HP Europe Sales Development environment. With the knowledge gained of this analysis, case studies with typical deal scenarios are documented and pricing strategies as an example recommended. A further result of this research is the recommended redesign of the deal escalation request forms (Big Deal Request Form, Global Pricing Approval Request and War Room Request Form) for key customers used in Sales Development. For collecting the necessary information an extensive research in English, French and German literature, in the HP Intranet and documented interviews as well as continuous discussions with managers and the German Sales Team were done. All theoretical pricing methods found in literature already exist in the HP Sales Development business environment or exist as a slightly modified method except the fixed pricing (4.5). The case studies and deal scenarios with pricing recommendation are an input to the Sales Development Team for future pricing. The deal escalation request forms are redesigned for the purpose of efficiency, information sharing, and risk management. It can be used for all European countries for regional, global and special escalated HP pricing requests from the country based Sales force to the Sales Development.