A real-time yield management framework for e-services

Abstract

Yield management for e-services is an exciting extension of the traditional yield management techniques employed in hotel and airline industry. We propose a framework for real-time yield mangement of e-services. The framework employs demand forecasting, yield managament and customer behavior monitoring modules. Yield management is used to optimize resource allocation with market segmentation in prices. In e-services an important service measure is the perceived delay. We use queueing theory to model the dependence of the perceived delay on the demand and providers' capacity. Using numerical examples we show the gain in revenue that can be realised by firms in different types of markets with different buying power of customers. © 2006 IEEE.