Yield Management
Yield management may be defined differently. Basically, it is the process of allocating the right type of resources to the right kind of customer at the right price in order to maximise revenue. This process underlines understanding and reacting to consumer behaviour. The term is used in many service industries to describe techniques to allocate limited resources among a variety of customers. By adjusting this allocation a firm can optimize the total revenue, or yield on the investment in capacity. These techniques are often used by firms with extremely perishable goods,
or by firms with services that cannot be stored at all. 
Yield management comprises both a business philosophy that touches on a wide range of areas and a methodology that can be implemented in a variety of ways. Yield management techniques appeared less than 20 years ago. Airline industry gave birth to yield management. Before year 1978, all airlines offered the same government-approved prices, discounts were just for night and weekend flights. In 1978 People's Express decided to introduce the industry's first low fares nationwide. Other companies had to react, and that is when American Airlines practiced the first true yield management system, which allowed it to track fares and bookings systemwide and adjust fares based on historical and current booking patterns. Later, in 1990s, hotel chains started to apply yield management as they have realized the prospectives provided by flexible new philosophy. Investments were put into computerized systems to track sources of data. So, yield management has been an important innovation for service industries. Now, yield management practices vary from company to company. Some use yield management system as a main tool of managing, some rely more on classical models. 
In order to identify whether it is appropriate for the business to apply yield management, it should possess certain characteristics: it is expensive or impossible to store excess resource; commitments need to be made when future demand is uncertain; the firm can differentiate among customer segments, and each segment has a different demand curve; the same unit of capacity can be used to deliver many different products or services; producers are profit-oriented and have broad
freedom of action. Now we should see how yield management works. In order to achieve maximum profit, a yield management system needs to evaluate the prior and present situation and use this data to predict what may happen in future. So, the procedure of yield management is to review transactions between consumer and a business unit from time to time. External information may include statistical data, public events, competitors` price information. Predictor, then, tries to forecast demand for a certain period for the services offered by market segment and price point. In order to find the solution of the problem using yield management the emphasized aspects to consider are operating constraints and time frame. The aim is the maximum profit. The process of yield management optimisation helps an organisation to adjust its prices so that they meet the total demand characteristics of its markets. In order to maximise the revenue, prices can be determined by: service, group of services, market, or the combination of those. In addition, yield management models are most effective where the service being supplied is capital intensive or perishable, and demand is characterized with either variability of demand or variability of value.  So, as a result many companies which enhance yield management capabilities find that their procedures become more systemized and they are able to improve their business and capture those revenues which previously could have gone to competitor companies.  
It is important to mention that the full range of yield management benefits will not be achieved without computer-based tools that forecast demand, cancellation, and no-show activity (as appropriate); evaluate the ideal number of discounted rates to sell; estimate the revenue displacement of transient demand caused by a group or other large-volume business transaction; provide sales personnel with up-to-date information on inventory that remains available for sale; and perform many other actions that cannot be effectively carried out manually.
Yield management is a business process which can always be improved. It is true that some companies may fail in implying yield management and some may prosper. It is because yield management is more than a system designed for an enhancement of variety of business functions. Yield management involves education and training of staff, appropriately delivered product sold according to yield management principles, corporate policies and regulations that force profit maximization, an understanding of customer needs and bying behaviors. Yield management works best when pricing, sales, operating, and marketing departments understand how and why it is being used. When members of staff do not possess a complete understanding of what yield management is and how it is applied by the business, the system may experience great difficulties.
Now I would like to introduce examples of successful yield management. 
American Airlines credits yield management techniques for a revenue increase of $500 million/year and Delta Airlines uses similar systems to generate additional revenues of $300 million per year. While the airlines are the oldest and most sophisticated users of yield management, these practices also appear in other service industries. For example, Marriott Hotels credits its yield management system for additional revenues of $100 million per year, with relatively small increases in capacity and costs. Broadcasting companies use yield management to determine how much inventory (advertising slots) to sell now to the "upfront market" and how much to reserve and perhaps sell later at a higher price to the "scatter market." Even manufacturers are using yield management techniques to increase profits. After all,
manufacturing capacity is as perishable as an airline seat or an advertising slot - if it is not used when it is available, that opportunity to use the capacity is gone forever.
There are definitely pluses as well as minuses as to yield management. Of course, it is a profitable method but it cannot be used by greater variety of companies as it is suitable for specific spheres of business. Mainly, companies which choose yield management are big ones, so the difficulty is to introduce yield management system, get used to it, keep track of it  it and make it understandable to a big quantity of employees. Yield management may also be a risky technique as it demands contstant prognosing and calculations which require professional assistance. Consequently, once a company implements yield management, it should constantly take into account it`s policies.
In conclusion I would say that it is proved by practice and examples that successful yield management implementation gives profits to companies and improves the system. What is important here is that yield management implementation should be coordinated among various departments of the company. The more companies get aqcuainted with the usage of yield management and the more they impove their ability in it, the more success they will attain. More and more firms would explore how they can benefit from developing yield management program for themselves. The global implementation of yield management my lead to economical improvement. Otherwise, yield management may be “left on the edge” just as another compulsory business process.