Summary
The view from the top of business. Presented by Evan Davis, The Bottom Line cuts through confusion, statistics and spin to present a clearer view of the business world, through discussion with people running leading and emerging companies.
Evan and his guests discuss the science of pricing goods and services. How do companies decide what to charge - and how much of it is educated guesswork as to what they can get away with?
In the studio are Roger Mavity, chief executive of the Conran Group; Rita Clifton, branding expert and former chairman of Interbrand; Scott Malkin, founder and chairman of Value Retail which owns the outlet shopping centre Bicester Village.
Producer: Ben Crighton Editor: Innes Bowen.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading this program. In this edition of the bottom line, Evan Davis and guests discuss the science and psychology of pricing. |
| 0:09.2 | Hello and welcome to the program. We talk about prices today. You might think that means we'll give voice to the chorus of complaints that prices are too high. But no, we're going to try to understand how they're set. |
| 0:22.9 | We might have a little bit of complaining. I don't rule it out, but our goal is to ask, |
| 0:27.0 | when goods are put on the store shelf, what is the right price to charge? |
| 0:32.3 | But, as always, we'll start by spending a few minutes to just meet my guests. |
| 0:36.7 | And first up is Roger Mavity, who's chief executive of the Conran Holdings, the parent company of Terence Conran's business empire. |
| 0:45.5 | Terence Conran being the designer and restaurateur. |
| 0:49.4 | Roger, it is quite a mixture of businesses that are in there, then. |
| 0:53.1 | It is. It's's shops it's restaurants |
| 0:55.3 | it's architecture design companies so i look so tired and um how much do you actually work with |
| 1:02.5 | the great man himself terence conrad are you is he that involved is he very hands on he has an office |
| 1:08.1 | and his mansion in the country where he is about three and a half days a week and he's in London the other three and a half. |
| 1:13.8 | So when he's in the country, I run the business. |
| 1:17.4 | And when he isn't, I help him with the door of the bentley, hold his briefcase, stuff like that. |
| 1:23.0 | How much is the retail, the shop, the Conran's shop, is that a big portion of the whole thing? |
| 1:48.8 | It certainly isn't everybody else's mind because it's the one which is on the high street and visible. If we design a huge tower block in the middle of London, which our architects do, it doesn't have Conran written on the front door, so you're not aware of it. But all of the parts of the business matter to me, obviously. Right. Well, also with us is something of a bottom line regular. Rita Clifton, who until earlier this year was chairman of the branding consultancy interbrand. Rita, you have now left |
| 1:54.3 | interbrand. I have to ask why. Did they push you or did you jump? I did jump. I had done a 10-year |
| 2:00.7 | term of chairmanship. and that feels like the |
| 2:04.1 | top end of decent corporate governance. So portfolio life has a lot to commend it. And I've also |
| 2:11.0 | made some investments in other businesses. So I have to say, I found it very rejuvenating, having |
| 2:16.6 | gone from the corporate to the sort of wide spectrum. |
| 2:20.7 | So I'm really loving it. |
... |
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