The use of job costing as a tool for the pricing and cost control decisions in the printing industry: the case of Société de Presse et d'Editions (SOPECAM)

III. PRICING DECISIONS BASED ON COST INFORMATION

After having determined the unit cost of its products or services, analysed other factors such as the expected demand or the market structure, the company focuses on establishing a price that will lead the maximisation of the profits. This is the essence of the pricing decision.

Pricing simply means setting a price for a product or service as stated by Kotler and Dubois^18(*) (1997). When setting a price for its products, a company is surely seeking to achieve certain goals and for this to be done, the company must follow some principles and techniques.

1. Pricing objectives

The objectives of the pricing policy which are also outlined by the afore-mentioned book are as follows:

a) Survival:

Any company must set prices that will at least help it to remain in the market even if the company is operating in a highly competitive environment.

b) Profit maximisation

The main objective of any business enterprise is to maximise profits and as such any policy or method used by a company must first be aimed at maximising these profits.

c) Turn over maximisation

Since this is an indication of healthiness for companies where it is difficult to evaluate costs, it must therefore be maximised to be sure that the company is safely operating.

d) Growth maximisation

This objective is mainly derived from the economies of scale concept of the economists; this concept states that higher sales lead to long term cost reductions and therefore greater profits.

e) Goodwill and image preservation

This stems from the desire of the company to be regarded as one maintaining a certain standard or policy in pricing; this standard or image surely relate to the quality of the products or services offered by the company.

* ¹⁸ Kotler, P. & Dubois, B. (1997), Marketing Management (9th edition), Publi-Union Editions, Paris.