Most of you may know Gary as a speaker at conferences and seminars. His professional engagements have touched many of you in industry. But it’s time lift the lid and find out what makes him so unique and unconventional, yet a personable leader.

We caught up with the soft-spoken and thoughtful Gary Parker recently to talk about his first job and his journey through a successful career in Revenue Management spanning 24 years.

Today, Gary not only trains large Revenue and Pricing teams at airlines, but also teaches young professionals break into the industry.

Location: Montreal, Canada.
Recent gigs: Founder and President of RMExpertise. Previously, Manager of Revenue Performance at Air Canada.
Apps/ Software you cannot live without: Excel, Word, Powerpoint at a minimum.
Random fact (editor’s pick): Gary took evening classes at university, while working.

What jobs did you do before you became an RM analyst?

Before I joined the airline industry, I was in graphic arts and magazine publishing.

Started in airline passenger marketing as an administrative clerk. Worked on traffic and revenue budget and outlooks. Worked with Lotus 123 in the days of the first desk-top PCs. Number crunching with spreadsheets was the new business analysis.

What skills did you learn during your early career that you find useful, today?

My background in graphic arts helped me to communicate and present my ideas in a visual way. My skills with Lotus 123 and later Excel allowed me to prepare data analysis, evaluate and present my findings and recommendations in a informative way. I was also able to design reports and improve on business processes using automation techniques associated with PC technology.

What inspires you to be a better person or do better work?

When my customers compliment me on my training and how I present it in a very practical and easy to understand way, I feel a tremendous satisfaction. I strive to be an expert in my subject matter, and deliver simple and straight forward concepts and theories to my clients.

I really believe:

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”. — Einstein.

Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?

Initially, I was very nervous about getting up in front of people, but I have learned through my experience teaching, that knowing my subject and being able to tell stories is a great way to capture my audience’s attention.

I always try to project my passion and enthusiasm, and although I still get anxious before my sessions, my initial nerves turn into a natural flow and comfortable feeling as I get going.

You would love to see __________ answer these same questions.

Jerry Foran @British Airways.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Many years ago, I was keen to learn more about revenue management, but frustrated over a company policy that prevented attending conferences. I was venting to my boss at the time, Dr. Hugh Dunleavy.

He recommended that I offer to present at the conferences for free access, and I was surprised to be accepted. My first presentation was a hit, and I wrote and published a paper following that. That was many conferences ago, and I have both presented and chaired since then. I have learned a tremendous amount about revenue management, and gained insight from airlines around the world.

What is the biggest challenge you faced in your career/ work life?

Two years ago last June, I had reached a cross-road and needed to decide which road to take.

“Although there was an unknown destination and I was risking my career with possible failure, I decided to take early leave from my long-time job and jump into working for myself full-time.”

Pic Credit: Grant MacDonald.

I had been speaking and chairing at revenue management conferences and teaching around the world for IATA’s International Training and Development Institute. I was well known in the revenue management circles, so I felt I could make a go of teaching and hopefully consulting on revenue management. Thanks to that background and foundation, I was immediately engaged to work and discovered that there were amazing opportunities outside of the safety of a nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday job.

I haven’t looked back over the last two years, supporting both passenger transportation companies and RM system vendors, branching out from just airlines to include rail and coach bus transportation as well.

In addition to my knowledge and experience in revenue management, my training in instructional techniques, business process innovation and project management have been extremely useful.

What’s the biggest challenge facing Revenue Management today?

Often when I visit passenger carriers to teach or consult on revenue management, I find that they are no longer using the system, or they are not realizing the advertised revenue benefits. In some cases, they bought the system perhaps thinking that the mysterious black box would generate revenues by itself. Often training has been skimped on or left to the system vendor for a basic ‘what functions do what’. In other cases, there is no systematic or disciplined application of the technology to support commercial strategies.

In order to be successful, revenue management entails a combination of system, people and processes.

Training in the system and how to apply the available levers to implement and manage on a day-to-day basis the commercial strategies, and robust business processes to support the disciplined and systematic approach to be competitive in a dynamic environment. This requires strong leadership and guidance, and a revenue management philosophy throughout the organisation.

What excites you most about where this industry (RM) is heading?

When I first started in RM, pricing was not transparent and based on rules, restrictions and fences in order to segment customers. Today, with the removal of these rules, passenger carriers are required to communicate the value proposition to the potential customer and this is actually making it more interesting from a marketing perspective. The customer experience is also coming into play, from the shopping, purchase, consumption, and post-travel point-of-view. The life-time value of the customer and customer relationship management is something that is possible now with the internet and data warehouse analytics.

Revenue management is at the heart of any service industry.

From a marketing perspective, Revenue Management covers the 4 Ps of product, price, place and promotion.

Strategy and competitive tactics are a daily focus. Strategies can be designed, implemented and measured for results. A successful strategy can be very rewarding.

What’s the toughest question you have ever been asked?

For this, I will choose a question from the revenue management world.

The one most difficult question is:

How does an airline measure revenue retention in an economic crisis?

When there is no hope to improve revenues, but just to slow down the losses. In simple terms, how can you demonstrate that you are having better results than would otherwise be the case?

What qualities do you look for in a successful RM analyst?

A successful RM analyst should be analytical, with a good grasp of the available technology and tools to support the analysis, evaluation and communication of opportunities and threats, strengths and weaknesses, and develop business cases with recommendations and actions steps, with the ability to implement them using the levers within the revenue management system, and then monitor, measure and adjust their strategy as required toward maximizing revenues.