| dc.description.abstract | In early part of this decade, the RFL management realized that although RFL was the largest
PVC company in the Bangladesh in terms of turnover; when it came to profitability, RFL
ranked a mere 1st. This, for the management, was not simply good enough. So efforts were put
in as to find out what could be done to better improve profitability for the group. As expected,
the price of its products became the key factor which could impact profitability. However, the
solution was not as simple as to just to increase the price and have greater margin. In a very
competitive market environment where the awareness level of consumers is increasing day by
day, raising price did not provide an easy way out. Consumers, shoppers and customers and in
many cases, the government would react unfavorably to any price increase which they would
consider as not value for money; the result of which would be loss of sales volume and market
share. Therefore, the issue of optimum pricing became a goal for every brand manager and
subsequently company management all over the country for RFL. So RFL developed a pricing
toolkit called, “Marketing & Promotional Strategies of RFL”, which would provide through
guidelines and Strategies substance to the complicated task of pricing. This toolkit provides a
5 step exercise before any pricing decisions are made and involves almost all possible factors
which are related to price. RFL Bangladesh has been operating in Bangladesh for more than
decade and pricing for its products has become very important in the ever increasing
competitive market place. However, as we find out in the report, not all the aspects of the
“Marketing & Promotional Strategies of RFL” is followed here. The reasons are many fold-
including non-mandatory nature of the toolkit, over- emphasis on certain business goals such
as EBIT, RIG (Real Internal Growth) and OG (Organic growth) and less emphasis on other
score cards such as market share and brand equity. The recommendation of the report is that
RFL should be a bit more consumer driven in pricing decision. This is not to say that the price
should always be as less as possible, but merely means that more research and study should be
done to understand the pricing impact from the consumers end. Another recommendation was
that some of the exercises of the “Marketing & Promotional Strategies of RFL” should be
made mandatory and not just a fancy exercise which is “Good to have”. | en_US |
