Revenue management with flexible products. Models and methods for the broadcasting industry. (Q2371528)

Revenue Management (RM) is considered to be a key success factor for airlines, hotels and car rental companies. In make-to-order manufacturing, cost cutting has been the major means to improve profits. This book demonstrates how to tap the potential of RM, in particular if flexible products are involved. Since the majority of products in broadcasting companies is flexible, this industry serves as an example. The book is organized into 7 chapters. Chapter 1 characterizes a typical RM problem based on the four prerequisites, necessity to integrate external factors, limited operational flexibility, heterogeneous valuations and behavior and standardized product range. It illustrates that RM concepts can be applied to a wealth of industries. It presents a structure of the field demonstrating the relationship of capacity control, overbooking, dynamic pricing and auctions. Chapter 2 reviews the state of the art of capacity control and overbooking. It covers novel approaches of approximate dynamic programming and simulation optimization. Recent trends in this field are highlighted in chapter 3, viz., RM in settings where customers make choices and RM with flexible products. Chapters 4 and 5 outline the necessary steps to evaluate RM models to generate instances of RM problems. For the first time in a comprehensive and systematic way, a comparison has been between different RM methods using a standard test bed. Chapter 4 introduces issues related to RM techniques, i.e., the generation of test instances. Chapter 5 deals with the most important aspect of instance generation: simulation of stochastic demand streams. Chapter 6 is based on a case study in (Spanish) broadcasting companies, for the first time. The results serve as a basis for a rigorous formal description and a mathematical model. The RM problem in this setting is thoroughly described, the importance of flexible products is clarified, appropriate models and methods are developed, and tested on 18,000 instances. Chapter 7 outlines future research opportunities. The book contains descriptions of algorithms to generate stochastic demand data streams for general RM problems. An implementation as a Microsoft Windows executable file is available, which can directly be used both by theoreticians and practitioners in their own simulation studies. The general style of presentation is consistent with the applied orientation of the field of RM. It contains a huge list of references and the pages where they are cited. Researchers, managers and students interested in RM with flexible products in general and broadcasting companies in particular, will find this book interesting and stimulating.