Core for the Store: Pricing, Promotion and Markdown Management

Accenture research has determined how a pricing organization can be optimized to achieve high performance.

Pricing is at the heart of retail strategy. Yet pricing decisions are often fragmented across departments. Complicating the situation: there is little data available to support fact-based pricing recommendations and little—to no—visibility into the impact of pricing on the customer both short and long term. With increased competitive pressure, many retailers have resorted to simply copying the moves of their competitors. The problem: what if competitors’ strategies are wrong?

Accenture’s research reveals that the following are the characteristics of a pricing organization that is playing a role in driving high performance.

• A dedicated pricing organization that understands relevant market competition, customer behavior and creates pricing strategies centrally.
  
  
• Innovative technology that empowers the organization with deep insights into consumer behavior and price impact.
  
  
• Integrated process architecture to enable pricing strategy to be executed across channels in streamlined, repeatable processes.
  
  
• Cross-functional stakeholders comprising retail, marketing, financing, category managers and local store management.
  
  

Our approach has helped retailers gain two to five percent on margins and five to ten percent on revenue and achieve greater levels of business performance.

High-performance retailers are those that treat pricing as a distinct capability. Accenture’s Pricing, Promotion and Markdown Management approach helps clients transform their pricing capabilities and drive new levels of performance in their retail operations.