Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price

A Revolutionary Challenge to Traditional Thinking About Innovation

"In a world in which nearly three–quarters of all new products or services miss their revenue and profit goals, Monetizing Innovation should be required reading for all product and marketing leaders. I cannot overstate the importance of this groundbreaking new work."
Leela Srinivasan, Chief Marketing Officer, Lever

"I must really compliment the authors on writing a first–rate book. They stress the importance of starting an innovation project with marketing and pricing in mind before building anything. More specifically, they show how companies need to carefully identify the target market and the price that the target customers would be willing to pay for the innovation, as if it were already available."
Philip Kotler, S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing, Kellogg Graduate School of Management and author of "Winning at Innovation"

"Madhavan Ramanujam is to monetization strategy is what Bob Marley is to reggae music. You must read this book."
Bill Gurley, Board member of Uber and General Partner at Benchmark

"We launch a new collection twice a year, so a systematic approach to monetizing these innovations is critical for us. The practical, effective and counterintuitive guidance in Monetizing Innovation has helped us tremendously."
Christoph Kargruber, Executive Vice President of Innovation & Product Management, Swarovski

"The lessons in this book are highly relevant for the automotive industry, where we can expect to see more change in the next 5 10 years than we saw in the last 50. As General Motors continues to lead this change in the industry, Monetizing Innovation will be an excellent blueprint for maintaining competitive advantage."
Stefan Jacoby, Executive Vice President & President International, General Motors

"Optimizely uses the principles outlined in this book, which remind us that the products we deliver to our customers must align to their willingness to pay for them. This book offers invaluable lessons for growth companies at all stages."
Dan Siroker, Co–Founder and CEO, Optimizely

Chapter 1: How Innovators Leave Billions on the Table: A Tale of Two Cars

Chapter 2: Feature Shocks, Minivations, Hidden Gems and Undeads: The Four Flavors of Monetizing Innovation Failure

Chapter 3: Why Good People Get It Wrong

Chapter 4: Have the Willingness to Pay Talk Early: You Can t Prioritize Without It

Chapter 5: Don t Default to a One–Price–Fits–All Solution: Like it or Not, Your Customers are Different

Chapter 6: In Designing Products, Don t Regard Packaging and Bundling as Afterthoughts

Chapter 7: Go Beyond the Flat Price: 5 Powerful Monetization Models

Chapter 8: Price Low for Market Share or High for Premium Branding? Pick the Winning Pricing Strategy

Chapter 9: From Hoping to Knowing: Build an Outside–In Business Case

Chapter 10: The Innovation Won t Speak for Itself: You Must Communicate the Value

Chapter 11: Use Behavioral Pricing Tactics to Persuade and Sell: Sometimes Your Customers Will Behave Irrationally

Chapter 12: Maintain Your Price Integrity: Avoid Knee–Jerk Re–Pricing

Chapter 13: Learning from the Best: Successful Innovations Designed Around the Price

Chapter 14: Implementing the Designing the Product Around the Price Innovation Process

Index

MADHAVAN RAMANUJAM is a Board Member and Partner at Simon–Kucher & Partners, based in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley office. He has provided advice to companies of all sizes, ranging from Fortune 500s to startups. He has led more than 125 monetization projects for Internet, Software and Technology clients, and has helped bring numerous new products to market.

GEORG TACKE is co–CEO of Simon–Kucher & Partners. Over the last 25 years he has helped develop the firm from a small boutique to a global consultancy with over 900 employees. Georg is regarded as one of the leading international pricing and monetization experts. In this area he also acts as a personal consultant to C–level executives in various industries.

SIMON–KUCHER & PARTNERS is the world′s largest pricing consultancy. For more than 30 years it has been helping companies boost their sales and profits through superior monetization strategies. Simon–Kucher is active in all major markets; currently the global network spans 32 offices in 22 countries.