Introduction - Companies should pay more attention to their top line

Dear Reader,

Thank you for passing by and visiting this blog! We would just like to share with you a quick introduction on our blog, its purpose and content.

We are two French students, Julien GUBIANI and Yoann PINET:

- Yoann is a MBA candidate at Pepperdine University (California): He has 2 years of experience in corporate finance and consulting, and is now focusing his career on consulting. 

- Julien just graduated from Rouen Business School's Master in Management (France): He his now consutling in the Revenue Management field with air management companies. He has 2 years of experience in business consulting. More particularly, Julien addressed yield management issues as intern at Carlson Wagonlit Travel for 7 months. 

Revenue Management is not a common topic in management science - at school or within corporations. It is widely associated with airlines companies and hotel chains. We have created this blog to cast Revenue Management in a different light.  

It seems that many corporations are primarily focused on optimizing costs. Obiously, the outcomes of the financial crisis give a good example: companies' first move was to cut costs. Even in regular economic conditions, they are clearly communicating shareholders and third parties about the successful results of cost-cutting measures, rather than actions to maximize revenue (sensitive subject or lack of tactic to drive revenue? Maybe both…). 

In corporate communication (internal and external), the reporting of actions on revenue is conducted through the P&L, as well as through the very “unique” mission statement: “We commit on delivering the best value to our customers” - which at first sight is a widespread PR or sales speech. Taking a closer look at that kind of mission statement, we could see another explanation: delivering the best value to customers can also mean achieving a price and service combination that matches expectations with regard to the limited ressources available for sale. The hospitality industry (airlines, hotels…) has been applying this principle for 25 years, with the results we know: top airlines & low cost carriers operating profits are in the top 30 list, see the 2010 IATA report. 

The optimization of supply and demand, matching constraints of profitability and available inventory on a given market, is Revenue Management.

In this blog, after a more detailed explanation of Revenue Management objectives and methods; we will try to demonstrate that this discipline is at an early stage in terms of implementation, and that it can still be implemented (partially or fully) in many sectors.