What is cost plus pricing strategy?

Why do companies pay for designed data from IDC, Gartner and Strategy Analytics?

• It doesn't seem to be doing them any favors... Strategy Analytics sells its research, like Gartner and IDC, in the form of reports that cost corporate buyers thousands of dollars. Only a tiny portion of that data is outlined in the firms' public press releases, because those firms are in business to make money, not just give away collected data. In addition to selling reports, marketing firms also offer a variety of other consulting services. As Strategy Analytics notes, "we support our clients with a variety of high-stakes projects, including: new product development and product roadmaps; driving existing products down the cost curve; bundled pricing strategies; infrastructure investment and optimization; new market penetration and market expansion; influencing consumer behavior and buying preferences, and many more short- and long-term initiatives." How exactly does reporting facts on sales result in "influencing consumer behavior and buying preferences"? Hypothetically, if one could fool the world's journalists into parroting off statistics that portrayed the most successful vendor of tablets as being in desperate straits and "failing" in a manner of speaking, it would sure take the pressure off of those who are failing to actually sell tablets, wouldn't it? http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/16/the-curious-case-of-idc-gartner-strategy-analytics-pc-phone-tablet-data-on-apple http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/05/04/apples-ipad-business-isnt-collapsing-but-the-rest-of-the-tablet-industry-sure-is UPDATE: Another year, another example of incompetence. How do they stay in business? http://fortune.com/2014/10/23/research-giant-idc-lowballed-apples-mac-sales-by-9-7/

• Answer:

  Good or bad, these are news they need to read. Access to this kind of data is mandatory in the industry.