Probability Models for Customer-Base Analysis” to be offered November 17 -18
PHILADELPHIA — The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative (WCAI), a research center at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, is pleased to announce a new workshop for analytics professionals, “Probability Models for Customer-Base Analysis.” The two-day workshop, offered in collaboration with Wharton Executive Education, will run on November 17-18, 2011, at the Wharton San Francisco campus.
Customer-base analysis uses information on the history of customer purchase patterns to address forward-looking questions, such as which individuals are most likely to be active customers in a future period of time and what a “customer’s lifetime value” might be for a group of customers listed in the firm’s database. An increasingly large number of practitioners have been charged by senior management to obtain valid answers to these kinds of questions. This two-day workshop aims to bring sophisticated practitioners fully up to speed on the essential techniques that should underlie their customer-base forecasting activities.
The Probability Models workshop will be taught by Wharton’s Pete Fader, the Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing and Co-Director of WCAI. According to Professor Fader, “Attendees don’t need any special programming skills; everything will be done using good old Microsoft Excel. This is a one-of-a-kind workshop and a unique opportunity for participants and their companies to gain a meaningful competitive advantage in a business landscape where data analysis and predictive modeling have become essential keys to understanding customers and creating effective corporate strategies.”
The workshop has two main objectives: (1) to overview the basics of using probability models for forecasting purposes in general, and (2) to use these “building blocks” in a series of focused models/examples that illustrate several state-of-the-art approaches towards customer-base analysis. The program will benefit mid-level analytics professionals who are actively building predictive models, as well as more senior managers who want to gain a firmer grip on these emerging concepts.
The two-day workshop format is a slight departure from a typical Wharton Executive Education program, but is modeled off of Professor Fader’s award-winning full-semester course for students. “Wharton Executive Education is excited to team with WCAI to make such uniquely Wharton content from our degree programs accessible to practicing managers,” said Julienne M. Gherardi, Wharton’s director of Western Region Business Development. “Sophisticated marketers really respond to Professor Fader’s style and expertise, and participants are sure to gain valuable new techniques for forecasting the behavior of their customers.”
WCAI and Executive Education do expect the November workshop to sell out, as a limited number of seats are available. Registration is available now by visiting: http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/wcai/Probability-Models-Fall2011.cfm
About the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative
The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative is the preeminent academic research center focusing on the development and application of customer analytic methods. Acting as “matchmaker” between academia and industry, WCAI has a broad impact on the practice of data-driven business decision-making and the dissemination of relevant insights to managers, students and policy makers. Based in the Wharton School’s Marketing Department and designed to capitalize on Wharton’s longstanding strength in conducting empirical research, WCAI is an interdisciplinary effort that brings a passionate data-driven perspective unmatched by any other business school.
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 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 9,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of 88,000 graduates.
