Revenue management and the analytics explosion: Perspectives from industry experts

On 2nd–3rd October, 2007, the third annual Revenue Management and Price Optimization conference was held at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The conference explored how multiple factors, including fragmentation of customer markets, transparency in markets, and globalisation, have spurred a transformation from intuition–based to analytical–based decision making across many industries. Panellists included representatives from industries spanning airline, hotel, gaming, grocery, jewellery, package delivery, consumer goods, manufacturing, and consulting. This paper summarises key discussions that emerged from the conference and highlights success stories portrayed in keynote addresses given by James Whitehurst, former chief operating officer of Delta Air Lines; Rick Campana, vice president of Corporate Marketing of the United Parcel Service; and Chuck Neville, executive director of Finance of General Motors Service and Parts Operations.