Le Dr. William Cohen revient dans Process Excellence Network sur une liste d’erreurs à ne pas commettre, établie il y a près de 20 ans par Peter Drucker dans le Wall Street Journal dans un article intitulé « The Five Deadly Business Sins ».
Souvent en totale contradiction avec les recommandations de théoriciens actuels, elles apparaissent pourtant dramatiquement…justes.

Sin #1: Seeking High Profit Margins and Premium Pricing

The problem is that it seems so automatic and obvious that big margins must lead to maximum profits. But this is an error. Total profit is margin times sales. So what the marketer should be seeking is an optimum profit margin which combined with sales over time equals maximum profits. Perhaps the worst part of the whole business is that the strategy of high profit margins combined with the necessary tactics of premium pricing invariably creates a market for the competition and could result in the loss of the entire market to a competitor.

Sin #2: Charging What the Market Will Bear

Let’s say you have a patent or a secret formula. Conventional wisdom is to charge as much as the market will pay. When your competition finally catches up, if ever, you can use all the extra cash you have accumulated to fight off any and all competitors that try to enter the marketplace. And then lower your price below that of your competitors. This way, they can never catch you. Charging what the market will bear is a “sure thing” marketing strategy when you enter the market before your competition and have some leverage to keep competitors away. But is it?
Drucker claimed that the only sure thing about charging what the market will bear is that you will lose your market — and a lot sooner than you might think. The problem is that a very high price creates an almost risk-free opportunity for your competitor to jump in seize your market.

Sin #3: Using Cost-Driven Pricing

Cost-driven pricing means that you simply add up all your costs, and then add a profit, and there you are — the price you should charge. It’s all very logical, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Drucker said that instead of cost-driven pricing, you needed to do price-driven costing. That is, you need to start at the other end with the right price, and then to work back from price to determine your allowable costs.

Sin #4: Focusing On Past Winners

Drucker actually called this “slaughtering tomorrow’s opportunity on the altar of yesterday” because he wanted to emphasize that managers commit this sin in the name of past successes.

Sin #5: Giving Problems Priority over Opportunities

Drucker saw that many companies put their best performing people to work solving old problems with businesses that were on the way out. Meanwhile opportunities were frequently assigned to those who lacked experience or ability.

Source : http://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/people-performance-and-change-in-process-improveme/columns/drucker-s-five-deadly-sins-in-business/