SAN FRANCISCO, May 11, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In order to help marketing executives make better predictions about customer behavior, Wharton | San Francisco and the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative have partnered to present "Probability Models for Customer-Base Analysis," a two-day study of the essential techniques underlying customer-base forecasting activities.
Held at Wharton | San Francisco from June 20-21, the workshop will allow participants to master the kind of sophisticated marketing data analysis that is typically outsourced. Workshop instructor Peter Fader, the Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing and the Co-director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, will teach participants how to develop and implement customer-base analysis tools that can be immediately applied to their own data. Using Excel and proprietary probability models, participants will achieve better control, cost savings, a higher level of flexibility, and greater confidence in the results of information analysis.
"Many companies don't know that they already have the software to do complex data analysis, and can gain the ability to do it themselves," says Fader. "It's sophisticated. You can't push a simple button on the calculator. But I demystify the process, exposing people to what's under the hood when it comes to forecasting and analyzing customer behavior."
By the end of the workshop, participants will understand how to make accurate, meaningful predictions about customer purchasing patterns. In addition to learning the skills to build models themselves, participants will know how to ask the right questions of consultants and IT vendors who offer services in this important area.
Fader's expertise centers on the analysis of behavioral data to understand and forecast customer shopping/purchasing activities. He works with firms from a wide range of industries, such as consumer packaged goods, interactive media, financial services, retailing, and pharmaceuticals. Managerial applications focus on topics such as customer relationship management, lifetime value of the customer, and sales forecasting for new products. Much of his research highlights the consistent (but often surprising) behavioral patterns that exist across these industries and other seemingly different domains.
For more information and to register, contact Rebecca Alig at ralig@wharton.upenn.edu or visit http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/wcai/
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 4,800 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.
About The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative:
The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative (WCAI) 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.