Elevating the cost of doing nothing: an interview with Mark Shafer

Abstract

This interview discusses the implementation of pricing and revenue management in a large, diversified company—Disney. The interview explores success factors to improve profitability by leveraging the role of analytics in the discipline of revenue management and pricing. The interview also illuminates the characteristics at the level of individual revenue and pricing managers that discriminate between high and average performers. The interview finally points towards the existence of biases in revenue management implementation and reminds that the inability to perceive the inevitable biases severely undermines the ability to improve profitability.