With the leverage of real-time digital platforms andmoment-to-moment connectivity to market moves and customer trends,the era of the Revenue Guru, or otherwise known as the ChiefRevenue Officer, is emerging across every customer-facing industry.Pricing adjustments for goods and services have been around for along time. Post-Christmas sales, end of season markdowns, and peakairline pricing for high travel times around holidays or discountsfor low-travel periods has been around for a long time. However,now the pricing game is focused on minute-to-minute trends. Hotelsand airlines are aggressively leading the trend dialing pricing upor down based on real-time demand and observable trends.

I recently reviewed pricing for a trip to Dallas and found aCoach “Comfort” (not really but that's what they call it), for $780round-trip. I closed out of Delta's website to take care ofsomething else and returned in about 15 minutes. A $780 fare wasnowhere to be found, and the price was now $890! Delta'sversion of Watson is lurking in the background dialing pricingbased on algorithms to predict demand, enabling pricing to themoment.