Correspondence: Garth Hoff, PROS, 300 Main Street, Suite 900, Houston, TX 77002, USA. Tel: + 1 713 335 5255; Fax: + 1 713 335 8144; E-mail: ghoff@prospricing.com

¹Garth Hoff is responsible for Product Management of RTDP real-time availability engine and RTCM customer- and product-centric segmentation applications as used across multiple product verticals at PROS.

Received 14 September 2007; Revised 14 September 2007.

Abstract

Origin and destination (O&D) revenue management systems rely upon seamless real-time availability execution tools to evaluate availability and bookings calls based on the network optimised bid price versus fare values. These real-time engines have evolved to take on an increasing level of activity including complex business rules management. These rules can influence availability based on a variety of business criteria including distribution channel; however, the next step in this evolution is to expand the distribution-centric approach to include a customer-centric approach. Real-Time Customer Management expands the power of evaluation engines to adjust availability based on inherent differences in channel costs and inherent differences in individual customers as members of a customer segment.