先有价格，后有产品

Over the second half of the 1990s, Porsche hatched plans for a new car. Annual sales were a third of what they’d been the decade prior, so the company badly needed a turnaround. The car hit the market in 2003. A decade later, Porsche sold 100,000 of the model in one year — nearly five times as many as it did in its launch year — which accounted for half the company’s total profit. This enabled Porsche to eventually pay down its debt, increase its cash reserves and generate the highest profit per car in the automobile industry. What was this impactful, new product?

在20世纪90年代的后半期，保时捷制定了新车的计划。当时的年销售量只有十年前的三分之一，所以公司迫切需要一个转机。该车于2003年投放市场。十年后，保时捷在一年内卖出了100,000辆该车型--几乎是其上市年份的五倍--这占了公司总利润的一半。这使保时捷最终能够偿还债务，增加现金储备，并在汽车行业中创造出最高的单车利润。这个有影响力的新产品是什么？

It wasn’t a sports car, for which Porsche is famed – not, for example, the sexy Porsche 911 that can effortlessly hit 200mph. Instead, it was the Cayenne: Porsche’s family-friendly SUV. How did the carmaker find this degree of impact with a vehicle so counterintuitive to its brand? In this case, it wasn’t Porsche’s engineering prowess or manufacturing efficiency, but how it designed the car around what customers needed, valued and were willing to pay for – in short, around its price.

这不是一辆跑车，因为保时捷以其闻名 - 例如，不是性感的保时捷911，可以毫不费力地达到200英里/小时。相反，它是卡宴：保时捷的家庭友好型SUV。这家汽车制造商是如何通过一款对其品牌而言如此反常的汽车找到这种程度的影响的呢？在这种情况下，这不是保时捷的工程能力或制造效率，而是它如何围绕客户需要、重视和愿意支付的东西来设计汽车--简而言之，围绕其价格。

Building around price is the best path forward according to Madhavan Ramanujam****, a board member and partner at consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners. When it comes to this pricing expert, investor Bill Gurley may capture it best: Madhavan Ramanujam is to monetization strategy what Bob Marley is to reggae music. He’s managed over 125 projects for companies ranging from hot startups to the Fortune 500, many of which he writes about in his recently published book Monetizing Innovation. He advises companies on several topics including new product monetization, acquisition and growth strategy, pricing strategy, packaging and bund...