Conceptual Model and Operational Processes of Customer Value-Based Revenue Management in Transport and Logistics

The approach presented in this article addresses the shortcomings of transaction-based revenue management and proposes a conceptual model of customer value-based revenue management to allow for both an efficient utilization of limited capacity resources and the establishment of profitable customer relationships. Furthermore, process models are developed for the operational tasks as well as results of a prototypical implementation are presented. Finally, some concluding remarks and an outlook on remaining research are given. 1. Problem Statement and Research Design The efficient use of limited capacity resources, e. g. passenger seats or cargo space on transport vehicles, is a prevalent success factor for service providers in transport and logistics [1]. Therefore, revenue management applies methods of operations research to control the acceptance of booking requests in different industries, e. g. airlines, car rental agencies and cruises. Although successful in the short-term, revenue management is transaction based so far by focusing only on short-term willingness-to-pay [13] and neglecting the establishment of relationships with long-term profitable customers that are crucial particularly in B2B markets of transport and logistics. This article aims to develop a conceptual model of customer value-based revenue management which regards the tasks required on different management levels. Hence, an introduction into transaction-based revenue management and its shortcomings in regard to relationship-focused marketing is given, before the basic idea as well as the strategical and tactical tasks of customer value-based revenue management are described. Afterwards, this article applies modeling methods of information science to specify the operational processes and presents some results of a prototypical implementation as well as a conclusion and an outlook on remaining research. 2. Transaction-Based Revenue Management This section introduces the basic idea and instruments of transaction-based revenue management as commonly applied so far and identifies its shortcomings regarding the inability to establish relationships with customers whose value derives from indirect or long-term contributions. 1 TU Dresden, Germany