| The Rainmaker Group |
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| Download (PDF, 106 KB) |
| Industry: |
Travel and hospitality |
| Solution: |
Business forecasting |
| Products: |
ILOG CPLEX |
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- Forecasts business demand
- Optimizes product availability
- Maximizes revenue streams
- Captures incremental revenue
- Enhances operational planning
- Reduces workload
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| "ILOG CPLEX is a bomb-proof, high-performance optimization engine. It enables us to consistently deliver high-quality results to our demanding customers in very tight time windows. Our customers, in turn, have reaped increased revenues on the order of 5-10%." |
Tom Walker
Vice President, Business Consulting
The Rainmaker Group
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Business
The Rainmaker Group provides software development and consulting services for the travel, hospitality and gaming industries. Solutions maximize revenue by forecasting demand and optimizing product availability. Projections facilitate management of availability and pricing for airline seats, hotel rooms and other services.
Goal
Travel and hospitality companies require fast and reliable data forecasting to plan complex operations and capture incremental revenue. Solutions must account for multiple variables, including customer segment, seasonal variations, day of week, length of stay and associated value. Rainmaker�s revenue management solution needed to optimize pricing and determine staffing needs over given time horizons.
Application
Rainmaker employed ILOG CPLEX to forecast customer demand and determine appropriate pricing strategies based on demand projections and capacity constraints. The optimization component considers an average of 800 constraints, generating a set of optimal availability restrictions that customers can accept or modify.
Results
Faster and more accurate forecasting enabled travel and hospitality companies to employ price restrictions during high-demand periods and discounts during slower times. Rainmaker's availability recommendations increased customer revenue by more than 10%. A recent customer estimates an increase of 8% or about $50 million. Another reports 13% increased revenue per available room.
Technical
ILOG CPLEX can be integrated with any computer environment, including UNIX and SQL. A forecasting and optimization process can take as few as three hours for customers with 40 or more properties. The process is accomplished on a per-property basis and takes between 3-5 minutes per property.
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