John: When I ran a P&L of a larger corporation that was a large security system integrator, when OEM RSM's would offer to wine and dine our team, I'd ask, if instead we could just get an extra 0.5% discount to make the point you are making. They often understood my point and I believed it helped me and my team to have better conversations about deeper discounts for individual larger enterprise level deals - though that's just my personal opinion, I have no real numbers from that period in my career to substantiate my gut feel.
Also re: the comment "Pelco was the most lavish of all."
My experience there was Pelco was indeed lavish. Lavish in helping to train our staff on their products and would indeed roll out the red carpet to us, when we'd bring large customer prospects to see their factory, etc. My point is those were Marketing/Sales G&A expenses that mutually helped us and them directly with large potential or existing customers - a clear business purpose. In other words while I found them more than willing to help me help them, they did so in a manner that clearly built brand loyalty from both us as a large integrator and and key customers throughout their focus markets.
That all said re your statement: "It can be good business to wine and dine but it's not good business if you need to wine and dine and drop your prices at the same time."
It's also not necessarily foolhardy business to consistently drop your prices, run sales, or deeply discount to further mortally wound your real competitors. I am clearly seeing Hikvision and other Chinese manufacturers and suppliers win and maintain marketshare now against other large non-Chinese OEMs, including other OEMs in the Asia-Pacific region. So while this may or may not be sustainable they seem to have the margin spreads to be able to afford it and this consistant sales tactic is IMO factored, intelligently into their short term and long term pricing strategies.
As long as their are no regulatory impediments to them in the marketplace, it seems clear to me, other OEMs need to figure out how to compete on closer par to their prices, in particular to the lower and mid-tier capability cameras.