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An Introduction to Pricing Strategy and Revenue Management

Learn how to use pricing strategies to increase revenue, and set the right price for the right person at the right time.

13,839 enrolled on this course

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  • Duration

    4 weeks
  • Weekly study

    3 hours

Demystify differential pricing and revenue management

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?

On this course you’ll answer these questions and more. You will consider the pricing strategies of different industries and explore the mechanisms at the core of differential pricing and revenue management.

Through the course you will apply your learning to practical pricing problems, pricing simulation games and interactive case studies.

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Skip to 0 minutes and 7 seconds While planning your future holidays, have you ever wondered how to get the best prices for your airplane ticket or accommodation? How do airlines, hotels, car rentals, theme parks or even a small Bed & Breakfast set prices which can vary overnight and be quite different from one customer to another? Their secret recipe is known as Revenue Management, or Yield Management. Thanks to a subtle understanding of customer behavior, firms are able to sell their products to the right client, at the right time, for the right price and in so doing, dramatically increase profits. Nowadays, Revenue Management techniques have been adopted by entire sectors of the service industry, such as transport, hospitality and catering, rental, sport and leisure… and even the arts!

Skip to 0 minutes and 57 seconds And that’s not to mention the so-called sharing economy, whose business is forecast to multiply by 20 within the next 10 years. Hi. I’m Christophe Bontemps. I will be your lead professor for this course, and I’m inviting you to a four week journey of experiments and discoveries into the secret world of revenue management and dynamic pricing. My objective here is to enable you to gain real operational skills, so we’ll focus on practice all along the trip. You will have to take decisions during real-life case studies, play online sessions of dynamic business games,

Skip to 1 minute and 35 seconds solve problems and discuss all issues with your pals. At the end of the day, you should be able to put into place solid revenue management techniques for any kind of applicable business, and also to play the game as a “clever” consumer. Apart from knowing how to read a curve, attending this course does not require any academic prerequisites. So, whatever your background and motivation, this course should be easy for you to follow and it should even be fun! Well… are you ready to join in? If so, see you soon on the course!

What topics will you cover?

  • Basic economic concepts : supply and demand, consumer welfare, demand elasticity
  • Economic foundations of Price discrimination
  • The three types of price discrimination and product differentiation
  • Pricing under uncertainty
  • EMSR (Expected Marginal Seat Revenue)
  • Risk analysis, overbooking
  • Dynamic pricing strategies in various competitive environments
  • History of revenue management
  • Features of revenue management techniques Strategic decisions in revenue management Implementation of revenue management techniques in various businesses

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the economic concepts of efficient pricing
  • Implement price discrimination in any applicable business
  • Apply strategic pricing and quota allocation in an environment of limited competition
  • Manage pricing schemes under uncertainty
  • Design a framework of price discrimination and revenue management

Who is the course for?

This course is for any professionals looking to apply pricing strategy and revenue management techniques to their organisation. It will also be useful to students of economics and business as well as everyday consumers keen to understand why and how prices vary.

What do people say about this course?

"Thank you for a very interesting course. I now understand more about the supply-demand theory and the principles of RM in practice. Hope to see you again in other courses."

Who will you learn with?

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, but has still a lot to learn!

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.

Who developed the course?

École Nationale de l'Aviation Civile

ENAC (Ecole Nationale de l’Aviation Civile) – is a university specialising in aeronautics and aviation, the industry where revenue management originated.

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

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