Chair of Operations, Economics & Strategy

Robust pricing when the demand curve is unknown

Published:23.05.24 — When trying to price a new product a firm may have only a vague idea about the demand it is facing. In fact, many demand curves may be plausible. Prof. Weber’s forthcoming research paper on “Robust Monopoly Pricing with Unknown Demand” addresses this problem when the firm’s unknown demand may be nonlinear. The approach can be made entirely data-driven and it provides performance guarantees relative to the “ex post optimal profit” which could have been obtained if the demand curve was in fact perfectly known. The paper is forthcoming in the Scandinavian Journal of Economics, established over 125 years ago.

Eco-mouse wins student prize of innovation and entrepreneurship

Published:20.02.24 — In the fifth anniversary edition of the graduate course “Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Engineering,” students across many disciplines at EPFL tackled prototyping challenges related to the development of energy-efficient devices. Led by Prof. Véronique Michaud and Prof. Thomas Weber, and supported by a diverse group of additional faculty, nine student teams engaged in various industrial challenges, in collaboration with this year’s industry sponsors Boschung Mecatronic, Datwyler, Logitech, Schindler, and ZF Group. In addition to finding an innovative technological solution with a viable business model, the challenge included a quest for energy efficiency. This year’s winning team provided a bio-based alternative to conventional plastic used in the manufacturing of Logitech computer mice.

Renewed directorship for Thomas Weber at the head of the EDMT program

Published:06.02.24 — The College of Management of Technology is pleased to announce that Prof. Thomas Weber has been reappointed for a third term as the director of the Doctoral Program in Management of Technology (EDMT), ensuring continued leadership and excellence in the program.