Customer Analytics Initiative Launches at The Wharton School

The Wharton Interactive Media Initiative Broadens Focus to Customer Analytics

PHILADELPHIA, Jan 11, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Wharton Interactive Media Initiative (WIMI), a research center at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, announces its expansion to become the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative (WCAI). Through the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative, world-class researchers collaborate with leading-edge businesses to ask and answer critical data-driven questions. Many businesses have come to the recent realization that customer analytics is at the heart of what will give them a meaningful competitive edge; WCAI will help them understand how to leverage the individual-level data that they collect about their customers' online and offline behaviors.

As a whole, the topic of analytics is red hot, as evidenced by the explosion of books, blogs and webinars on related topics. Analytics will also be one of the distinguishing aspects of Wharton's new MBA curriculum, and many Wharton faculty have a natural interest in this area of analytics. Likewise there are numerous organic connections with faculty across schools and departments at the University of Pennsylvania, which will facilitate the creation of cross-discipline concentrations for students at the University at both the MBA and undergraduate levels.

According to Pete Fader, Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing and Co-Director of WCAI, "This new initiative clearly defines what we really aspire to do as a center, specifically data-driven customer-level analytics, opening our research to a much broader set of industry sectors. This audience, of course, includes interactive media but we want our initiative to be equally attractive to other data-driven businesses, such as financial services, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, nonprofits and other leading firms that recognize the key role of customer-level data in determining future strategies and tactics."

WCAI will continue to work with its existing corporate partners, such as Omnicom, ESPN, Expedia and StubHub, on existing research projects and developing new areas of study. The new Director of Corporate and Institutional Relationships, yet to be hired, will work to expand WCAI's corporate partner base and to deepen existing relationships around emerging customer analytics issues.

"Many leading firms are starting to hire top talent in this area," says Eric Bradlow, the K.P. Chao Professor of Marketing, Statistics and Education, Vice-Dean of Wharton Doctoral Programs and Co-Director of WCAI. "We will not only be poised to meet this growing demand, but to shape it. We will create interest among prospective applicants to Wharton and Penn, and will work with firms to encourage the hiring of top Wharton and Penn talent for these emerging positions."

About the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative

The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative strives to become the preeminent academic research center focusing on the development and application of customer analytic methods.  Acting as "matchmaker" between academia and industry, WCAI will have a broad impact on the practice of business decision-making, and provide opportunities for a real-world "testing-ground" for academic scholars.

About the Wharton School

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania— founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school — is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The School has more than 4,900 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 9,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of 86,000 graduates.

CONTACT: Rebecca Alig, +1-215-746-4160, [email protected]

SOURCE Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative