Special Issue: Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences: NBC's Optimization Systems Increase Revenues and Productivity

The NBC television network, a subsidiary of the General Electric Company (GE), uses optimization-based sales systems to improve its revenues and productivity. GE’s corporate research and development center (CRD) developed these systems using operations research and management science techniques to improve NBC’s sales processes. These systems remove bottlenecks caused by manual development of sales plans, helping NBC to respond quickly to client requests with sales plans that meet their requirements. These systems also enable NBC to make the most profitable use of its limited inventory of valuable advertising slots by estimating demands for airtime by show and by week and to schedule commercials. Between 1996 and 2000, the systems increased revenues by over $200 million, improved sales-force productivity, reduced rework by over 80 percent, and improved customer satisfaction. They have become an integral and essential part of NBC’s sales process. (Industries: communications, journalism. Programming: multiple criteria.)