BCG and Darden School of Business develop online pricing courses
Pricing continues to play a key role tn the currently high-charged M&A environment. To better prepare those within the business world on valuations, The Boston Consulting Group and the Darden School of Business have joined forces to deliver four online pricing courses through the Coursera platform.
Pricing companies’ operations and assets remains a key part of the wider business ecosystem, particularly in a time in which organic growth is relatively fleeting and mergers and acquisitions, as well as buyouts, continue to trend. Getting it right, whether for internal or external teams, is therefore as important, if not more important, than ever.
To develop the skills needed in the current business environment, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business have joined forces to offer four online pricing strategy courses, titled ‘Cost and Economics in Pricing Strategy’, ‘Customer Value in Pricing Strategy’, ‘Market and Competition in Pricing Strategy’, and ‘Pricing Strategy Optimization’.
Three of the offered courses focus on supporting students’ development of tools needed to accurately assess the value of a range of tangible and non-tangible assets, while the fourth course is project-based, offering students the opportunity to demonstrate their pricing expertise. The courses, which will be part of the wider Coursera platform*, will be offered on an individual bases, and in their whole as a pricing strategy specialisation certificate programme.
Remarking about the programme, Thomas Kohler, an Associate Director in BCG’s Boston office, remarks, “This effort enables our firm to better serve our clients on building pricing capabilities while increasing access to pricing content we believe has wide applicability throughout the business world.”
Ron Wilcox, Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean for Degree Programs at Darden says, “We’re pleased with the opportunity to partner with an industry leader on a global platform. This is an exciting new collaborative model, and one that has myriad benefits for Darden both in and out of the classroom.”
According to a recent study by Simon-Kucher & Partners, pricing pressures are on the rise globally.
* The Coursera platform is a joint offering between the Darden School of Business and Coursera, an online course provider. The course will be part of the wider massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered through the platform, in among others, entrepreneurship, design thinking, business strategy, and project management.
