Whitepapers (English)

Simon-Kucher & Partners provides a number of white papers covering a broad range of different topics:

Pharma-/Life-Science Industry
	10 Indispensable Characteristics of a Successful Pharmaceutical Pricing Function How should pharmaceutical companies organize their pricing structure and process in order to fully exploit their profit potentials? A new study identifies the industry's benchmarks and shows that even the best-in-class companies can further optimize their pricing function.
Telecommunications
	Make Money with Services For many mobile network operators, MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) is one of the biggest sources of hope for increasing ARPU within a short period of time. The start already looks very promising: Vodafone Group just published a statement that 200,000 MMS are sent by their German customers weekly, which sums up to about 2 Euro additional ARPU per month.
	How to win the WLAN game Wireless LAN has increasingly become the hot topic of discussions thanks above all to the uncertain future of UMTS. The ways established telecom companies have tried to understand and to take advantage of this opportunity, however, could not be more different.
	Mobile internet The German government’s auction of UMTS licenses was so costly that it will make the carriers’ current business models unsustainable. Most business models on the Internet are already questionable, and many have already collapsed.
	SKP on UMTS In the words of the UMTS Forum, the new system will ”enable tomorrow’s wireless Information Society (by) delivering high-value broadband information, commerce and entertainment services to mobile users.” Carriers in Europe are so convinced of UMTS’s future that they have already bid around US$80 bill. for licenses in the United Kingdom and Germany alone.
Internet
	Selling content online Selling content online Making money from content on the internet is the business world´s equivalent of cold fusion: a really fun idea which - while theoretically possible has yet to be proven.
	Goodbye flatrate Flatrate pricing is a temptation many corporate managers find hard to resist. And why not? It makes life much simpler. A flat rate is easy to communicate, easy to understand, and easy to plan around. It is also economic nonsense.
E-Business
	E-Commerce We are not trying to dismiss or underestimate the market potential of E-Commerce, as people have shortsightedly done in the past with breakthroughs such as personal computers and wireless communications. E-Commerce obviously has many important uses and benefits.
	Selling music online Distributing music files has quickly become one of the Internet’s largest and busiest consumer markets, as Napster’s community of 38 million users will proudly attest. And why not? Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff was right when he said that music – more than any other media content – is predestined for sale over the Internet.
	Selling music online (Version 2) When Napster made the headlines a year ago, it turned online music distribution into one of the most hotly debated issues in the news. In the months since the publication of our widely cited white paper ‘Selling Music Online’ in October 2000, the five major record labels - and the resulting media attention - have focused primarily on the legal issues surrounding Napster and MP3.com ....
	Strategy forum In less than a year the term ”E-Business” has disappeared from the vanguard of corporate strategy, dragged down by lingering uncertainty about whether it will trigger the vast but unpredictable change it promised in the late 1990’s.
Logistics
	Discounting in the CEP Industry - The Discrepancy between Theory and Reality Anyone who analyzes the exisitng discount structures in the CEP industry will encounter quite systematic discount guidlines.
	Escaping the Air Cargo Bazaar - How to Enforce Price Structures Price wars have in common that hardly anyone ever wins and almost everyone loses a lot of money.
	Pricing Opportunities for Freight Carriers: How Pricing Can Increase Revenue and Profits for Freight Carriers Freight carriers frequently make the mistake of passing on cost advantages to the customer instead of retaining the earned margins.
	Realising Profit Potentials in the Car Rental Industry The current profit situation for most car rental companies in the UK is by no means satisfactory. Why is this? On the one hand, such factors as increasing car fleet costs (a weaker used car market, deteriorating purchasing conditions from manufacturers) and on the other hand the drawn out price war between the car rental companies are to blame.
	Pricing Mistakes in the CEP Market: Lost Profit Despite a drop in margins, optimistic forecasts are giving transportation and e-commerce experts a reason to expect enormous profit increase for distribution specialists in the courier, express and parcel markets (CEP market).
	Profit Pressure in the Cargo Industry Despite a drop in margins, optimistic forecasts are giving transportation and e-commerce experts a reason to expect enormous profit increase for distribution specialists in the courier, express and parcel markets (CEP market).
Channel Management
	Channel Management The introduction of the Euro and the anticipated growth of electronic commerce are forcing companies to rethink their European strategies. Many multinationals have formed internal ‘Euro teams’ to examine the pricing and administrative problems these events will create. But these teams are rarely asked to examine distribution strategy.
Marketing-Mix
	Pricing Where is it heading? Pricing has traditionally played a tactical rather than a strategic role. Most companies based their prices on cost-plus considerations or competitive comparisons, not concrete strategic goals. But the role of pricing is rapidly changing.
	Power Pricing in the Private Banking Sector The private banking sector is still quite healthy. The question is, for how much longer? In fact, the digital age is presenting traditional banks with a colossal challenge. The information transparency offered by the Internet together with a host of new competitors spawned by it, have begun to erode traditional sources of revenue.
Software
	Profits: Pricing for Software distribution Most companies do not realize their products´sales and profit potentials because they do not exploit pricing opportunities.
Trade Fair and Exhibition Industry
	Challenges for the trade fair industry The European trade fair industry is experiencing a period of turbulence. As traditional markets are stagnating and new competitors emerging, trade fairs and exihibition companies are looking to international expansion for additional growth. We show you what this means for marketing and product strategies as well as organizational structures.
Tourism
	Bargain Airline Pricing. How Should the Majors Respond ? Can an airline offer flights for next to nothing and make a huge profit out of it ?
	Pricing in the Swiss Hotel Industry Knowing how critical pricing is for a company's profit situation, you would expect that pricing is given a particularly high priority in the hotel industry.
Sports
	The Admission of Price. What is Wrong with Sports Tickets? When you think of the ‘big business’ of sports, forget about television contracts, souvenirs, sponsorships and jerseys. The economic glue of professional sports all over the world is still the ticket.
Consumer Electronics
	Putting Pricing on Fast Forward - Getting the Price Right in Consumer Electronics Maßgeschneiderte Konzepte sind kostenintensiv. Ist jedoch der Wert eines jeden Kunden bekannt, werden sie nur dort eingesetzt, wo sie sich lohnen.
Chemicals and Construction
	Pricing Professionally How to strategically determine, tactically differentiate and operatively implement prices.