Big data matters in today’s business world as never before. Recognizing this, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management is working to establish a strong reputation in data analytics. This fall, as part of its MBA curriculum, Kellogg will offer four new courses designed to help prepare students to interpret big data and put it to work for their organizations.
“We’re moving into a world where managers have to be conversant in analytics and in information technology,” Kellogg marketing professor Florian Zettelmeyer says. In particular, he notes, executives need to get better at learning how to establish analytics competence across all areas of an organization.
Zettelmeyer will teach one of the four new Kellogg courses, on customer analytics. His hands-on course will introduce students to sophisticated data analytics techniques firms can use to obtain and understand data about customers’ purchase decisions, as well as their pre- and post-purchase behavior. As part of the course, students will apply predictive analytics, large-scale testing and other techniques to a large consumer-level database to learn how to target consumers and understand their behavior.
As part of another course, “Digital Marketing and Commerce” taught by Professor Richard E. Wilson, students will use real-world enterprise technology to build live online stores shopped by real customers. With coaching and mentoring by senior e-commerce professionals from companies including Target, Sears and Google, students will learn how to use online customer analytics and data reporting to adjust strategies across shopping cycles.
Professor Eric Anderson will teach a third course on retail analytics, pricing and promotion, where he’ll use data to help students understand how a “sale” sign can change customer behavior, how the Internet has altered customer price sensitivity and more.
And a fourth course, “Social Dynamics and Network Analytics (Social-DNA),” will introduce students to the emerging fields of social dynamics, network science and big data analytics. Professor PJ Lamberson will cover subjects including social networks, tipping points, crowdsourcing and open innovation using hands-on interactive models, data collection and analysis.
Learn more about these and other data analytic courses at Kellogg.
