How do airlines, hotels, resorts and other organisations manage their prices? Why are these prices apparently unrelated to costs and different for each consumer? And what are the underlying reasons and processes behind these prices? Find the answers to these questions with this free online course “Manage Your Prices: an Introduction to Pricing Strategy and Revenue Management”.
About the course
This course will open the black box of revenue management – the widespread pricing strategy that the travel, leisure and other industries use to generate additional revenue, by setting prices according to people’s preferences and willingness to pay.
You will explore the methods at the core of many revenue management systems, discovering the answers to questions such as:
- Do all customers have the same sensitivity to price?
- How can a firm use its knowledge on demand to charge different people different prices for the same product?
- Why do the prices vary over time?
- How can a firm slightly differentiate its product in order to charge widely different prices to different people?
- How can you define the right set of prices to increase the firm’s profit?
- What is the outcome for the individual consumer? And for consumers as a whole?
Throughout the course you will practice what you learn through practical pricing problems, pricing simulation games and interactive case studies. For example, you will step into the shoes of a pricer and set an airline’s pricing strategy over a period of time.
The course has been developed by ENAC (Ecole Nationale de l’Aviation Civile) – a university specialising in the economics and strategy of the aviation industry, where revenue management originated.
The ENAC educators will also be joined by experts from other sectors that are successfully using revenue management techniques, thereby giving you a variety of perspectives and experiences throughout the course.
What you will learn
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
- Demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of pricing strategies;
- Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the economic concepts of efficient pricing;
- Compare and evaluate different pricing schemes in different sectors of industry;
- Apply strategic pricing and quota allocation in an environment of limited competition;
- Implement revenue management in your business, and experiment with price setting and capacity allocation;
- Design a pricing framework in a real-life revenue optimisation situation;
- Design a framework of price discrimination and revenue management;
- Implement price discrimination in any applicable business;
- Manage pricing schemes under uncertainty.
Requirements
This course is designed for professionals who want to adopt new pricing strategy and revenue management techniques in their organisation. You could be working in an industry where this practice is already common – such as travel, rental, catering or leisure business – or in a sector where it is just emerging – such as a mobile app developer or an e-commerce retailer.
The course is open to anyone, so may also interest consumers who are keen to understand why prices vary and how revenue management – which gives discounts to many and high prices to a few – works in many areas of their everyday life.
About the instructors
Christophe Bontemps is a faculty member of the Toulouse School of Economics and professor at ENAC. He holds a PhD in applied mathematics and a Master in computer science.
Nathalie Lenoir is a researcher and professor at ENAC. She has been teaching revenue management for more than 15 years. She holds a Master in transportation and a PhD in economics.
Starting date: 24 April 2017
Duration: 4 weeks, 3 hours per week
Language: English
Instructors: Christophe Bontemps, Nathalie Lenoir
Institution: ENAC - Ecole Nationale de l'Aviation Civile
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