Revenue management: the impact on business-to-business relationships

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the links between revenue management and business‐to‐business (B2B) relationships and explains how revenue management can both support and damage B2B relationships.Design/methodology/approach – A single case study method was employed to conduct qualitative research into a company and its key accounts. In‐depth data were collected from three divergent sources (company revenue managers, company account managers and nine of the company's key accounts) through semi‐structured interviews, observations and document studies.Findings – The research findings reveal that from the company's perspective, managers acknowledge that revenue management has positively influenced the process of identifying and analysing key account activities and conducting contractual decision making with key accounts. However, from the key accounts' perspective, revenue management practices were found to have significant negative consequences which damage trust and undermine long‐term relationships an...

[1]  Richard H. Hycner Some guidelines for the phenomenological analysis of interview data , 1985 .

[2]  B. Brotherton,et al.  Introducing yield management systems in hotels: getting the technical/human balance right. , 2001 .

[3]  S. Kimes Yield management: A tool for capacity-considered service firms , 1989 .

[4]  Peter Cheverton,et al.  Key account management : the route to profitable key supplier status , 1999 .

[5]  M. T. Cunningham,et al.  Customer analysis for strategy development in industrial markets , 1983 .

[6]  Malcolm McDonald,et al.  Key Customers: How to manage them profitably , 2000 .

[7]  Sheryl E. Kimes,et al.  Revenue Management on the Links , 2000 .

[8]  Robert C. Blattberg,et al.  Managing Marketing by the Customer Equity Criterion , 1995 .

[9]  Ian Mitchell,et al.  The meaning and management of yield in hotels , 1995 .

[10]  Arun Sharma,et al.  Efficacy of financial measures of marketing: It depends on markets and marketing strategies , 2001 .

[11]  A. Ingold Revenue management: Hard-core tactics for market domination , 2002 .

[12]  Warren H. Lieberman,et al.  Debunking the Myths of Yield Management , 1993 .

[13]  G. Piccoli Web-site marketing for the Tourism Industry: Another view , 2001 .

[14]  Jochen Wirtz,et al.  Perceived Fairness of Demand-Based Pricing for Restaurants , 2002 .

[15]  G. James FARES MUST YIELD TO THE MARKET , 1987 .

[16]  M. Patton Qualitative research and evaluation methods , 1980 .

[17]  Matthew B. Miles,et al.  Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook , 1994 .

[18]  N. Denzin The art and politics of interpretation. , 1994 .

[19]  V. Baláž Book Review: Tourism today. A geographical analysis (second edition) by Douglas Pearce. Longman, Harlow, 1995. No. of pages: 202. Price £16.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 582 22822. , 1998 .

[20]  Robert K. Griffin A categorization scheme for critical success factors of lodging yield management systems , 1995 .

[21]  Philip E. T. Lewis,et al.  Research Methods for Business Students , 2006 .

[22]  C. Grönroos,et al.  Managing Customer Relationships for Profit: The Dynamics of Relationship Quality , 1994 .

[23]  Kaj Storbacka,et al.  Segmentation based on customer profitability — retrospective analysis of retail bank customer bases , 1997 .

[24]  A. Strauss,et al.  The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research aldine de gruyter , 1968 .

[25]  A. Strauss,et al.  The Discovery of Grounded Theory , 1967 .

[26]  F. Buttle Customer Relationship Management : Concepts and tools , 2004 .

[27]  Kevin Wilson,et al.  Processual issues in key account management: underpinning the customer‐facing organisation , 1999 .

[28]  S. Kimes,et al.  Integrating customer relationship management and revenue management: A hotel perspective , 2003 .

[29]  C. Narasimhan,et al.  Customer Profitability in a Supply Chain , 2001 .

[30]  Malcolm McDonald,et al.  Key account management: Theory, practice and challenges , 1997 .

[31]  Kevin Donaghy,et al.  Managing yield: a marketing perspective , 1995 .

[32]  H. Bussell Qualitative Methods and Analysis in Organizational Research: A Practical Guide , 2000 .

[33]  F. F. Reichheld,et al.  Zero defections: quality comes to services. , 1990, Harvard business review.

[34]  J. Hoseason,et al.  The numbers game: the role of yield management in the tour operations industry , 1998 .

[35]  D. Leonard-Barton,et al.  Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation , 1995 .

[36]  Peter Jones,et al.  Yield management: Putting people in the big picture , 1992 .

[37]  Kevin Donaghy,et al.  Yield Management: An Overview , 1995 .

[38]  T. Millman,et al.  Key Account Management , 1994 .

[39]  S. Fockler The US domestic airline industry. , 1991 .

[40]  Roger A. Dickinson,et al.  Service Management and Marketing: Managing the Moments of Truth in Service Competition , 1991 .

[41]  L. Berry Relationship marketing of services—growing interest, emerging perspectives , 1995 .

[42]  Chad Perry,et al.  Thinking about relationship marketing: where are we now? , 2002 .

[43]  Frederick F. Reichheld,et al.  The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value (Эффект лояльности: скрытая движущая сила роста, прибыли и постоянной ценности) , 1996 .

[44]  Sheryl E. Kimes,et al.  Perceived Fairness of Yield Management , 2002 .

[45]  Jukka Ojasalo,et al.  Key account management at company and individual levels in business‐to‐business relationships , 2001 .

[46]  Peter Jones,et al.  An investigation of the key criteria affecting the adoption of yield management in UK hotels , 1998 .

[47]  Sheryl E. Kimes,et al.  Forecasting for Hotel Revenue Management: Testing Aggregation Against Disaggregation , 2001 .

[48]  Kate D. Dunn,et al.  Profit analysis , 1990 .

[49]  von Hermann Diller Euro-Key-Account-Management , 1992 .

[50]  Jochen Wirtz,et al.  Revenue management: Resolving potential customer conflicts , 2003 .

[51]  Sheryl E. Kimes,et al.  The Basics of Yield Management , 1989 .

[52]  Peter Jones Introduction to Hospitality Operations , 1995 .

[53]  M. McDonald,et al.  Key Account Management: Learning from supplier and customer perspectives , 1998 .

[54]  Eric B. Orkin Boosting Your Bottom Line with Yield Management , 1988 .

[55]  J. Lattin All customers are not created equal , 2008 .

[56]  Bob Brotherton,et al.  Yield management—progress and prospects , 1992 .

[57]  ScienceDirect Cornell hotel and restaurant administration quarterly , 1960 .