How PROS is making RM analysts’ life easier

What’s new in PROS Revenue Management Editions

Software development is never a stagnant process and at PROS we never stop investing in our Revenue Management solutions to ensure they meet the business needs of any airline: big or small, global or regional, full-service or low-cost carrier.

The data we use, the workflows, the AI and integrations with other products that are part of the PROS Platform continue to evolve as we add new capabilities to our Revenue Management product. This is especially critical in the airline industry where demand is volatile and customer travel patterns continue to evolve. Consistent innovation and product updates ensure our airline customers can adapt to their changing markets, ultimately helping them protect and grow revenue with confidence, knowing they have the latest tools and RM advancements to support them.

Read on to learn what our devoted product team has been working on to make the life of RM analysts easier and their work more productive.

Improving Usability, Improving Efficiency

In a previous blog, I highlighted the importance of a true workflow and how it can be beneficial for RM analysts – check out how Building Best-in-Class Airlines Revenue Management Workflows can be a game-changer for your RM team.

Most recently, the product team and I focused our efforts on delivering efficient, easy to use workflows to quickly navigate between multiple data screens when analyzing many flights throughout the day. Reducing clicks and streamlining navigation between frequently used views while retaining context in large amounts of data creates a huge difference for analysts using the system.

Leveraging feedback from our airline customers, we were able to identify the areas below and improve usability and efficiency, even further within the workflows. As a result, now your RM analysts can:

• Easily access the Decision Support Center (DSC) for a selected flight from the Pivot Table and the Cluster Calendar view through single click options
• Better retain context of the flights they are analyzing by locking/freezing columns within table views
• Seamlessly see data and manage across flights and routes by adding the Pivot Table, On Demand Optimization, and DSC to the My Markets space of the Optimizer Workflow
• View richer summary information on the DSC by adding View Departure Time

360° Views for Analysts

Analysts review a lot of data to determine what actions to take in the system to help their airlines maximize revenue and meet their business goals. To support this, PROS keeps adding new features and enhancements to the workflows to provide analysts with quick access to the right data and views so they can more easily make the right decisions.

One area of general improvement is the addition of competitive data view. It allows analysts to see competitive pricing data from externally loaded data sources and create alerts on the data compared to their own fares. Analysts can now understand how competitors are behaving in their markets and be better positioned to respond based on their airline’s strategy.

Another great workflow improvement helps analysts easily view even more data in their preferred way. This allows users to quickly analyze and take actions in the RM Editions streamlined workflows, making them more efficient in their day-to-day job.

More functionality in Forecast Workflow

Having accurate forecasts is a crucial part of any revenue management system, so we invested efforts in ensuring analysts can easily access the data they are looking for. Have a look below at all the benefits analysts can take advantage of using the additions to the Forecast Workflow feature:

• Insights into expected passenger behavior, not only from bookings but also for cancellations thanks to the new view on cancellation forecasts
• Easily compare data from multiple time periods by applying multiple date ranges in the filters
• Compare how different dimensions of the forecast models drive changes and speed-up decision-making by disaggregating data in the Forecast Workflow
• Finally, gain transparency and trust in the system by learning and understanding how analyst actions impact the accuracy of the forecasts with the new views on Forecast Accuracy.

Richer Optimizer Workflow

Managing flight controls is another important area of any RM analyst workflow. Getting the optimal controls based on your airline’s business objectives helps maximize revenue and drive the airline’s success. To improve the data that analysts managing flights have access to, we added the following features to the Optimizer Workflow:

• Understand historic show-up rates and how trends may be changing to impact the show-up rate for future flights with the Show-up rate analysis from the DSC
• Easily review the data that is being used to calculate the show-up rates and make adjustments through the Show-up history in the DSC to improve accuracy

More Transparency for Non-Analyst System Users

System administrators and managers are important users of any RM system. They are the front line for ensuring that the system is configured for the airline’s business needs and that the analysts are using the system correctly and effectively. Here are some features we have added to continue improving system usage for these individuals:

• Easily validate data and make adjustments to what data should be used in the system with additional data views in the Configuration Workflow, such as Revenue Accounting Data and Pricing and Pricing Surcharge Data
• Quickly update forecast models when needed with Forecast Smart Start in My Markets
• Leverage more information with the standard extracts for RM Advantage customers
• Ensure system health and adoption through the Audit Trail, which can be used to track and review analyst actions that change system outputs. The Audit Trail can track changes in the system such as Influences to forecasts, Overbooking rules, Fare adjustments, Configuration changes and more.

The Future of RM: Adopting Willingness-to-Pay

If you have not heard about Willingness-to-Pay yet, check out this blog post to learn how Willingness-to-Pay is changing airline RM forever. At PROS, we believe that this industry-first technology that helps airlines scientifically combat buy-down and drive incremental revenue, is the future of Revenue Management.

That’s why our team continues to innovate and make improvements in our WTP forecasting technology and methodology to make it easier for airlines to implement and adopt it, and expand their use by easily rolling out WTP to more markets. For more insight into PROS WTP science, read the whitepaper Breaking Down Willingness-to-Pay in RM.

Coming Soon

Airline Revenue Management is the foundation for any airline investing in becoming a better retailer. That’s why our innovation focus is on ensuring the RM Editions are the best tool available to airlines on the market to get them to achieve continuous Offer Optimization. Stay tuned as we showcase the latest innovations across the major themes for 2023: user experience and further AI enhancements. Some cool features targeted on our roadmap include:

• Further improvements to WTP, both data visualization and to the science behind the models
• New data views and feature improvements in the analyst workflows
• More data and richer visualizations for system administrators, managers, and airline executives
• And many more!

Have feedback or want to be part of our innovation roadmap? We are always excited to hear from and collaborate with airline RM teams and analysts on how to continue building the best and most user-friendly revenue management software. You can find us at airlines(at)pros.com.