INTOP4005 Pricing and Revenue Optimization Reading course
- Number of credits10
- Teaching semester2024 Spring
- Language of instructionEnglish
- CampusLillehammer
- Required prerequisite knowledge
Ph.d.-stipendiat eller master med B som vektet gjennomsnittskarakter
Pricing and revenue optimization have been used at airlines and hotels for a long time, while markdown management systems are in a period of rapid adoption at retailers. Dynamic and customized pricing are also being developed for a number of other industries. The PhD course “Pricing and revenue optimization” provides a comprehensive overview of how various companies should set and (frequently) adjust their prices on goods, services, and events, in order to maximize profitability.
Learning Outcome
After completing the course, the student should:
- be able to identify pricing and revenue opportunities
- understand the critical differences among different types of opportunity and the approaches needed to address them
- understand key concepts including the impact of constrained capacity, opportunity costs, customer response, demand uncertainty, and market segmentation
- be able to formulate and solve pricing and revenue optimization decisions as constrained optimization problems at the level necessary to estimate potential benefits. This implies that the focus should be on imparting a broad understanding and grasp of basic techniques rather than the technical nuances of a particular algorithm
The course is mainly based on self-study, but frequent meetings between students and lecturers will be held. Important parts of the course will be: Practical exercises, empirical analysis, interfacing econometric methods and theories and topics from finance, economics, and marketing. Additionally, the students will be trained in writing academic papers.
The students (and faculty members) will be encouraged to arrange the course as a reading circle. The members of the reading circle will have regularly (weekly) meetings, discussing textbook chapters (see below), in addition to relevant classical articles.
The course will include following sections/parts
- Introduction to pricing and revenue management
- Basic price optimization
- Price differentiation
- Pricing with constrained supply
- Revenue management
- Capacity allocation
- Network management
- Overbooking
- Markdown management
- Customized pricing
- Pricing and revenue optimization and customer acceptance
At the end of the course, there will be an oral exam with an external examiner. This exam will count 100% of the grade.
In order to take the exam, the students must write a paper within the topics of the course. This paper will also be part of the foundation for the oral exam.
| Form of assessment | Grading scale | Grouping | Duration of assessment | Support materials | Proportion | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Written examination with an adjusting oral examination | Passed - not passed | 100% |