Revenue Management Systems

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Market Summary

Market Overview

Revenue Management systems (RMS) come in many forms. The functionality they offer is available from chains, brands, software companies, consultancies and service providers and in nearly any combination of these. The solutions are usually sold as a grouping of software and services from vendors and also from hotel, restaurant or golf companies. As a result, businesses in need of revenue management capabilities have multiple options to choose from and this may cause the need to review other important decisions connected to a chosen Revenue Management Solution. Affiliating with a brand or franchisor, signing a contract with a management company or franchisee, or even selecting a core system vendor may each influence or define the RM solution a property will have. As a result, buyers may need to become familiar with a marketplace that contains more than 79 prospective solutions to do proper due diligence on a purchase in this category.

Revenue Management solutions began arriving in the hospitality marketplace many years ago, but only from a limited number of companies. More recently, Capsolve has witnessed a significant amount of innovation in this category with new approaches being launched somewhat regularly for hotel, restaurant and golf companies. As buying organizations walk the learning curve of revenue management and navigate from basic to more mature business processes, the systems and services they rely upon must also deliver more sophistication. This report will explore the types of solutions common in today’s marketplace, better enabling buyers to identify, evaluate and compare these solutions in the context of their unique set of revenue management strategies, processes and objectives.

The introduction of cloud capabilities was a key change that positively affected the RM solutions in the marketplace. As cloud-based solutions mature, they continue to offer more and deeper capabilities for the benefit of all constituents and effectively support interaction with other complementary systems, specifically Property Management Systems for the hotel segment. However, RM solutions are being connected to more data, services and software than ever within all three industries. The result is businesses are able to better distribute and yield their inventory, pricing and availability across channels and business segments.

Marketplace Context

Revenue Management Solutions can play an important role in the software and technology infrastructure of a property that places value on yield management methodologies for perishable inventory. This functionality may be deployed in many forms creating opportunities for companies to formulate a revenue management strategy specific to the needs and characteristics of their company. Whether you are yielding rooms, tables, tee-times or more, revenue management principles have created significant value for many industries along the way. Even if your company doesn’t rely upon revenue management as a component of your pricing strategy, it’s likely your competition does. The marketplace has created multiple types of solution sets to address the needs of companies who are either employing RM methodologies or competing against those who are.

Capsolve has organized the RM Solutions in the market into six categories. While these categories represent the existing solutions within our industries of coverage, many of the solutions provide facets of functionality or service across more than one category as you may expect. Furthermore, the interconnectivity of these solutions is increasing with third parties, but also as a result of recent acquisition activity. Interfacing with other systems can be essential when building or modifying a marketing and technology solution map for a given property as shown in the following chart. Further to this, RM Solutions and Services that may accompany them, can include numerous capabilities in today’s marketplace. A desired set of software functionality may be purchased from one multifaceted Solution Provider or a combination of partially or fully interfaced solutions.

These systems also require people to make them work well together and thus are often packaged as a fully functional service that encompasses a set of Revenue Management capabilities extending well beyond the limits of any software. These combinations of services and capabilities may be offered by software vendors, management companies, brands or service-based companies specializing in the needs of hotels, vacation rentals, restaurants or country clubs. If multiple systems are purchased, the sophistication of integration across these systems becomes a consideration when determining the needs your organization has today. Planning for the future is crucial regardless of what solutions are selected to be part of a capability roadmap at any point in time.

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About this Report

This document details a review of the marketing information and capabilities associated with this category’s solutions and the surrounding technology ecosystem. It contains original content written by Capsolve to provide a perspective of current trends affecting one or more of the hotel, restaurant and golf & country clubs industries. The analysis covers a statistically significant portion of the previously defined category marketplace.