Kellogg World

 

 

The Application of Data

Kellogg expands analytics courses and trains managers to interpret big data

Kellogg has established a strong reputation in data analytics — a recognition of the importance of analytics to the next wave of executives in the 21st century business environment. But according to Florian Zettelmeyer, professor of marketing, there is still work to be done in figuring out how to diffuse analytics competence across all areas of an organization.

"We're moving into a world where managers have to be conversant in analytics and in information technology, he said. "We at Kellogg have thought very hard about how to train the next generation of managers in analytics."

The Kellogg curriculum is constantly developing to keep pace with the marketplace. Here, we preview a sampling of courses Kellogg offers around the ever-evolving subject of data analytics.

Course: Customer Analytics
Professor: Florian Zettelmeyer
details: Firms are increasingly obtaining data not just about purchase decisions, but also about individual consumers' pre- and post-purchase behavior. But few firms have the managerial and data analytics expertise to act intelligently on such data. For the key marketing problems in customer acquisition, development and retention, Zettelmeyer's hands-on course introduces sophisticated data analytics techniques tailored to those problems, including predictive analytics and large-scale testing. Students apply each technique to a large consumer-level database, learning how to target consumers individually and how to derive customer insights.

Course: Digital Marketing and Commerce
Professor: Richard E. Wilson
details: Students gain hands-on experience in digital marketing and e-commerce by developing competing business strategies around brand position, product mix, user experience, store design, and pricing and promotion optimization. Real-world enterprise technology is used to build live online stores shopped by real consumers. Online customer analytics and data reporting are used to adjust strategies across shopping cycles. Senior e-commerce professionals from companies such as Target, IBM, Sears, OfficeMax, Google and Walgreens provide mentoring and coaching.

Course: Retail Analytics, Pricing and Promotion
Professor: Eric Anderson
details: How does a "sale" sign change customer behavior? How has the Internet changed customer price sensitivity? How has expansion of retail stores, factory stores and the Internet changed customer behavior? Eric Anderson's data-driven course seeks to answer these questions and provides a cohesive framework for studying consumer behavior. Most of the data is from real-world managerial problems, and students learn how to make informed pricing and retailing decisions using data.

Course: Social Dynamics and Network Analytics (Social-DNA)
Professor: PJ Lamberson
details: To help students meet the challenges presented by a world of unparalleled connectedness, Social-DNA provides an in-depth introduction to the emerging fields of social dynamics, network science and big data analytics. PJ Lamberson covers both theory and applications of social dynamics using hands-on interactive models, data collection and analysis. The course tackles subjects including: social networks, tipping points, crowdsourcing and open innovation.