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Pricing management is part of farm management with the purpose of increasing profitability and competitiveness. It is based on the production cost and purchase price which difference affects to the financial result. The aim of this research is to identify milk price volatility at the Croatian and EU level, international trade, as well as to identify trends for the period from 2016 to 2020 and to simulate changes for the next period from 2021 to 2025. The analyzed data were taken from the Eurostat and processed using time and harmonized index. Milk production in the EU-27 for 2020 is 23 mil. tons of milk and averages 65 kilograms milk consumption per capita. The lowest average production price of milk in the analyzed period at the EU-27 level was in 2016 (28 € per 100 kg of milk) and in following years it is up to 35 € per 100 kg. The market situation reflects the consequence of the abolition of quotas in the dairy industry (2015) and the impact of the COVID- 19 pandemic. In period from 2021 to 2025, a slight growth and slowdown in milk production of 2.83% compared to 2020 and an increase in the average producer milk prices in 2025 by 9.6% compared to 2020 are projected. This research contributes to identifying the sources of difficulties in managing prices. The guidelines have been developed for more efficient price management in order to improve the competitiveness and market positioning.

As the stainless steel industry continues to grow, so does the environmental impacts generated by the various production processes. Such impacts not only affect the environment but pose great health concerns for humans and other living things. Therefore, it is necessary for all stakeholders to continuously improve their sustainability work. Metal recovery is one of the ways this can be done. There exists different organisations within the stainless steel industry, all of which are likely to benefit from metal recycling solutions. However, it is not obvious what models for value capture are most appropriate regarding such new technology. Adopting an appropriate value capture model is crucial for any organisation offering a service or a product. It is what ultimately determines an organisation’s revenues, profits as well as the amounts reinvested in the organisation’s growth for its long-term survival. By considering a case company offering a metal recycling solution, this study investigates how such a company may best leverage the value created by their technology. This is achieved by implementing a qualitative approach consisting of an extant literature review, accompanied by empirical findings through interviews with potential customers. Different factors affecting the formulation of an offering, as well as a value-based pricing model for that offering, are analysed. The study proposes a framework for how organisations can efficiently and effectively implement a value-based pricing model for a certain offering. This framework is put into context in regard to the empirical findings. Moreover, the empirical study identifies the potential customers’ perceived value as a result of the metal recycling solution as; opportunities for material reuse and circular economy in production, enhanced waste management, improved brand and the corporate image, and increased operational efficiency. Lastly, identified key determining factors of value realisation from the customer perspective were; payback time, operational aspects, organisational and operational size, type of offering of a metal recycling solution, regulations and public process surveillance and views on pricing strategy. Medans den rostfria stålindustrin fortsätter att växa ökar även miljöpåverkan från dess olika produktionsprocesser. Sådana effekter påverkar inte bara miljön, utan utgör även stora hälsoproblem för människor och andra levande organismer. För att minska dess miljöpåverkan är det nödvändigt för alla parter inom industrin att kontinuerligt förbättra sitt hållbarhetsarbete. Ett alternativt sätt detta kan göras på är med hjälp av metallåtervinning. Det finns olika företag och organisationer inom den rostfria stålindustrin, som alla troligen kan dra nytta av metallåtervinningslösningar. Det är dock inte uppenbart vilka modeller för värdefångst som är mest lämpliga för en sådan teknik, vilket är problematiskt för de som erbjuder en sådan lösning. Att bestämma en lämplig modell för värdefångst är dock avgörande för alla organisationer som erbjuder en tjänst eller produkt. Det är det som i slutändan avgör en organisations intäkter, vinster samt de belopp som återinvesteras i organisationens tillväxt för dess långvariga överlevnad. Genom att studera ett företag som erbjuder en metallåtervinningslösning har denna studie som syfte att undersöka hur ett sådant företag bäst kan utnyttja det värde som skapas av deras teknik. Detta uppnås genom att implementera en kvalitativ metod som består av en litteraturstudie, följt av empiriska resultat från intervjuer med potentiella kunder till företaget. Olika faktorer som påverkar formuleringen av en produkt/tjänst och en värdebaserad prissättningsmodell för den produkten/tjänsten analyseras. Detta arbete tar fram och föreslår ett ramverk för hur organisationer effektivt kan implementera en värdebaserad prissättningsmodell för ett visst erbjudande. Detta ramverk sätts sedan i sammanhang i samband med de empiriska resultaten. Den empiriska studien identifierar även de potentiella kundernas upplevda värde till följd av metallåtervinningslösningen som; möjligheter för materialanvändning och cirkulär ekonomi i produktionen, förbättrad avfallshantering, förbättrat varumärke och företagsimage och ökad operativ effektivitet. Slutligen identifierades viktiga avgörande faktorer för värdeförverkligande ur kundperspektivet som; återbetalningstid, operativa aspekter, organisatorisk och operativ storlek, typ av erbjudande av metallåtervinningslösning, regler och offentlig processövervakning och syn på prisstrategi.

In the Internet age, e-commerce provides customers global reach to a wide variety of products and plays a dominant role in business activity and competition. Competition is especially aggressive in the online travel domain where wholesalers, e.g. brokerage companies, contract through their contract managers with thousands of hotel brands and trade hotel products (usually hotel nights) for travel businesses or end customers. In order to conclude a profitable contract, a contract manager should be able to compare all the particulars of the prospective partner hotel with those of the competing hotels in the target city. Given that the number of contract managers is comparatively small compared to the large number of hotels, the possible knowledge base is limited. Thus, the hotel brokerage companies are only able to bargain with a relatively limited number of hotels, and the contract profitability relies heavily on the contract managers’ expertise and communication skills. In this paper we present a price management decision support system (DSS) for hotel brokers that allows analysis of hotel prices using spatial and non-spatial characteristics, estimation of the objective relative hotel prices, and determination of the profitability of the existing or future contracts. We built our system using free and open source tools including geographic information system and data mining frameworks that allow companies with limited money resources or manpower to implement such a prototype. We show the effectiveness of our tool by covering all the major components of the DSS such as data selection and integration, model management and user interface. We demonstrate our tool on the area of Barcelona, Spain using a real data of 168 hotels provided by one of the travel service providers.