Implementation of revenue management in the process industry of North America and Europe

Previous research has extensively studied the application of revenue management (RM) in the service industry, but has given little attention to its application in the manufacturing industry. This article provides results of a quantitative study based on 479 firms of the process industry (PI) in North America and Europe. The results show that the overall importance of RM within the PI is regarded as high and that the importance is positively correlated with turnover, period of use and the extent of IT integration. The type of RM system used depends on its period of use: with increasing period of use, RM systems shift from capacity to price and capacity control. Barriers to the implementation of RM systems are seen in the absence of a clearly defined pricing strategy, lack of experience and lack of adequate approaches. Comparisons between North America and Europe indicate differences in the application of RM: In North America, RM is considered as more important, has been introduced earlier and is more price based.