Value-based Pricing in Austrian Medium-sized Companies

This article deals with the topic of value-based pricing and its role in medium-sized Austrian companies. The topic is interesting, as pricing is known to be the variable with the most influence on financial success or failure in this highly competitive business environment. The effects of choosing an adequate pricing strategy can, or most certainly will have a distinct impact on competitiveness and contribute to a company's long - term success. In recent years, growing importance has been placed on term value as the fundamental determination affecting customer satisfaction and has been increasingly considered in the discipline of pricing. Customer value pricing does not rely heavily on costs incurred, competitors' prices or the product's historical price. It rather reveals the fact, that each customer evaluates products or services differently and attaches either more or less importance or value to them, which results in different degrees of willingness to pay. But still this method is a prerequisite for the other methods (cost and competitive focus) as well and therefore it can be seen as the only integrated pricing approach. In order to learn the details of the Austrian pricing situation in medium - sized B2B companies a quantitative study with 180 respondents was compiled. The study's aim was to find out how firms using the value-based approach differ from those, using conventional pricing methods in terms of profitability, customer relationship, customer satisfaction and so forth. The export rate of Austrian-based companies is in general higher than 50%; value-based pricing (and the integrated approach) is even more important in an interconnected world than in the local market.