WHAT CAN O.R. DO FOR YOU?

Testimonials

Leading executives at organisations worldwide have used operational research techniques to make better decisions. Here are testimonials from some of O.R.'s satisfied customers.

Robert C. Wright

Vice Chairman & Executive Officer, General Electric

Chairman & CEO, National Broadcasting Company

"Operational research techniques have given us a significant competitive advantage during the 'Up Front Market.' All the hard work and creativity that went into this project definitely has paid off. In fact, these new systems have an impact of over $50 million in annual revenues and have greatly boosted the productivity of the NBC sales staff. Thanks to GE's corporate research and development center, our network sales organization has seen firsthand how operations research methodologies can revolutionize how we work. We will continue to deploy these technologies across all functions as we grow and improve our business."

Robert L. Crandall

Chairman, President, & CEO

AMR and American Airlines

"I believe that yield management [an O.R. driven process] is the single most important technical development in transportation management since we entered the era of airline deregulation in 1979.... The development of yield management was a key to American Airlines’ survival in the post-deregulation environment.

"Without yield management, we were often faced with two unsatisfactory responses in a price competitive marketplace. We could match deeply discounted fares and risk diluting our entire inventory, or we could not match and certainly lose market share. Yield management gave us a third alternative — match deeply discounted fares on a portion of our inventory and close deeply discounted inventory when it is profitable to save space for later booking higher value customers. By adjusting the number of reservations which are available to these discounts, we can adjust our minimum available fare to account for differences in demand. This creates a pricing structure which responds to demand on a flight-by-flight basis. As a result, we can more effectively match our demand to supply.

"The development of the American Airlines’ yield-management system has been long and sometimes difficult, but this investment has paid off. We estimate that yield management has generated $1.4 billion in incremental revenue in the last three years alone. This is not a one-time benefit. We expect yield management to generate at least $500 million annually for the foreseeable future. As we continue to invest in the enhancement of DINAMO, we expect to capture an even larger revenue premium."

Launny Steffens

President, US Private Client

Vice Chairman, Merrill Lynch and Company

"The decision to implement Integrated Choice was an unprecedented change in strategy for us. Operational Research provided the modelling and analyses that enabled me and my executive management team to better understand the revenue risks. The overall risk ranged from $200 million to $1 billion in revenues. This is the kind of thing that kept me up nights! The risks were also very critical at the individual financial advisor levels.

"Analysis of many scenarios, with different pricing points and how the offering should be structured in terms of open vs. closed architecture, blended vs. asset-specific pricing, and across the universe of securities and services, helped us to mitigate these risks. This helped me and the board of directors to make the final decision to proceed with both Unlimited Advantage and Direct offerings. It was also used to help convince the sales force that Integrated Choice was the right strategy for the long term.

"ML Unlimited Advantage has been an unqualified success. To our clients, it delivers the total financial relationship for one simple fee. For us, it puts renewed power into our asset gathering engine. MLUA had leaped to $83 billion under management by the end of 2000 and accounted for $22 billion of net new money. And it allowed us to seize the initiative in the marketplace. We have moved forward like a bullet train and it is our competitors that are scrambling not to get run over."

Nick Donofrio

Senior Vice President, Technology and Manufacturing

IBM

"Operations research professionals are the key to harnessing the opportunity created by e-business and deep computing. I'm convinced that organizations that make the best use of decision technology [operations research] are those that will be the most successful from now on."

Robert Ritchie

President & CEO

Canadian Pacific Railroad

"We have developed the best scheduled railway model in the industry.... The result has been huge gains in efficiency and productivity and better service for our customers. Our job, however, is never over ...I learned that an awful lot of opportunities still exist for us in the area of revenue management and contract negotiations. We're continuously looking for new ways to improve, and operations research... [is] going to be crucial to our success in the future."

Looking for more examples of the value operations research has delivered for organizations worldwide? Go to Success Stories.