My crazy challenge: solve 52 business cases in 52 weeks.

Welcome to the site jannoncecomplet.com!

My ambition is to popularize the profession of Revenue Management & Pricing, to put it at the service of independent real estate and hotel investors.

Who am I?

My name is Elise Ripoche. I worked for 9 years in revenue management and pricing for large advertising and tourism groups. I started as an intern in 2009 and became a manager at the age of 26 of teams ranging from 3 to 15 people.

This job fascinates me because it creates value:

1. First of all for the customer by allowing, in particular, low prices in low season
2. But it also creates value for the seller because it increases total turnover (thanks to higher prices in high season)

And all this without changing either the activity or the product offered.

Today I want to put this expertise at the service of smaller market players ( real estate investors or independent hoteliers) who offer their rooms online.

Just like large groups, they have opportunities and needs to maximize turnover.

What is Revenue Management & Pricing?

Revenue management (also called Yield management ) is an expertise that has existed since the 1960s in the United States. It was created by airlines and developed following the deregulation of the air market with the Airline deregulation act of 78. It allows free entry of competitors into the air market and freedom of price establishment .

Today, revenue management methods are used worldwide and in a large number of areas: aviation obviously, but also hotels, rail & maritime transport, advertising media, amusement parks, theaters etc.

Can we do revenue management everywhere?

What unites these services is that they all have:

• significant fixed costs
• variable demand and
• the legal possibility of varying prices.

In this context, revenue management makes it possible to answer two crucial questions for the activity:

• how to attract customers when demand is low?
• how can I maximize my turnover when demand is high?

But what is the difference with pricing you might ask? Pricing is one of the tools of revenue management. One of the strings to his bow.

Revenue Management & Pricing where are we today?

To my greatest regret, this expertise may seem today reserved for large structures. They indeed have the means to afford very advanced technical tools and to recruit one or more full-time analysts.

For a smaller structure or a real estate investor it is more difficult to have access to this type of “means”. And yet these market players need this expertise just as much to maximize their company's turnover.

My ambition is to share these methods to support real estate and hotel investors in their activity and give them the same weapons as the large tourist groups.

By doing so, I am happy to support entrepreneurship as well as provide assistance to entrepreneurs who have had the courage to take the plunge to invest and create their tourism activity.

What's better than a challenge to start together!

So today I am setting myself a challenge: to resolve 52 business cases in 52 weeks.

These business cases are real cases of independent real estate investors or hoteliers who are wondering about an aspect of their activity linked, directly or indirectly, to the management of pricing and/or inventory.

They can concern an online activity whatever the website (airbnb, booking, shelterel, etc.) and whatever the type of accommodation: apartment, hotel, gite, guest rooms, etc.

So why this challenge?

This challenge motivates me and interests me for all its positive facets.

What particularly motivates me in this challenge is to confront my current knowledge with the challenges of independent hoteliers and real estate investors. The problems will probably be partly similar to those of large groups but the solutions cannot be applied without being adapted.

Going directly and concretely through the prism of concrete cases will allow me to immediately confront my tools with this reality.

I'm going to learn a lot with this exercise and I'm already looking forward to it!

On the other hand, I want to show that it is not necessary to be called Accor or Louvre Hotels to implement revenue management & pricing methods in your business.

In addition, offering an alternative to revenue management pricing software from companies like Airbnb or Booking is, in my opinion, essential. This guarantees the autonomy and free will of investors and independents.

The advantage of my career is that I have already had the opportunity to make, or see people make, all the possible mistakes. I am therefore sparing you these 9 years of learning and providing you directly with the essence and added value of this experience.

Finally, the last interest of this challenge is more personal. Having always had a greater affinity with numbers than with letters: writing at least one article of 1000 to 1500 words per week is in itself a challenge! I hope this will familiarize me with writing.

How am I going to make it happen?

The cases are proposed to me spontaneously by professionals. I am analyzing them free of charge as part of this challenge.

They can cover the following aspects (this list is obviously not exhaustive):

First of all, everything related to price:

• Problem positioning your price
• Problem with setting cancellation fees
• Problem with positioning cleaning costs
• Problems managing promotions
• Etc

Everything related to room availability:

• Issues related to length of stay
• Issues related to the choice of distribution channel (airbnb/booking/leboncoin/direct booking etc.)
• Issues related to authorized arrival days
• Etc

What analysis method will I use?

When dealing with your question: I will call you within 30 minutes for an exchange of information. Then I will work on the subject and will call you back later. During this last call we will share together the content of my article as well as the action plan.

I am starting the challenge this month of August and will finish it in August 2019. With as much fervor as I started it. See more who knows?

If you would like to contribute to this challenge and give me a subject for analysis that could help your business: do not hesitate to write to me in the comments!

Please note: I sign a confidentiality clause with my interlocutors. Names and cities may be modified to comply with this clause.

I will obviously carry out an assessment in one year of this challenge, of what it has brought, as well as the quantified performance of the actions which were put in place following my recommendations.

Finally, I would like to thank Olivier and his professional blogger which allows me to professionalize myself in this incredible and exciting profession that is blogging.