The aim of the current project is to model these issues as hierarchical games where a company (the leader) anticipates the reaction of customers (the followers) to both its strategy and that of the competition.
Dr. Patrice Marcotte , Universtié de Montréal & Dr. Gilles Savard , École Polytechnique
Several companies, such as major airlines, faced with the stiff competition resulting from globalization and free trade, have embraced "Revenue Management", a set of tools aimed at optimizing the pricing and usage of current resources. The aim of the current project is to model these issues as hierarchical games where a company (the leader) anticipates the reaction of customers (the followers) to both its strategy and that of the competition. While quite natural, this approach leads to formidable computational and mathematical challenges that have been in part tackled by this team of researchers and students. On the theoretical side, major advances have been made in the understanding of the basic network structures of the problem and the design of efficient solution algorithms. On the practical side, MITACS support has been instrumental in the launch of a spin-off company whose software products are currently being implemented in Canada and in France.