Important notice: Please read the syllabus carefully before enrolling and/or contacting the instructors. E-mails that can be answered by reading the syllabus will not receive a response.

The data-rich marketing environment of today's business practice combined with the facilitated availability (and employability) of sophisticated decision making tools give rise to the emerging popularity of the marketing engineering approach to decision making. In this course, we focus on a very specific, but crucial aspect of marketing decision making, namely the efficient management of customer-firm relationships.

For many companies, the growing importance of "customer relationship management" (CRM) entailed a shift from a product-centric firm strategy towards focusing on the individual customer as the most critical unit of marketing decision making. Such customer-centric view sees customers as intangible assets of a firm, which need to be valued and managed carefully. CRM has therefore become a crucial focus for many companies as it promises to be a key determinant of future profitability.

However, one of the major difficulties in driving this shift from a product-centric approach towards a customer-centric mindset is the lack of technical skills. The topic of CRM entails a broad set of concepts that could not possibly be covered in one single course, which is why this course focuses on exploring the basic principles behind such concepts. More specifically, the course of Marketing Engineering and Marketing Models will expose students to the problems associated with customer-centricity and cover some of the models that can be used in studying and solving such problems.

In this course we address the strategic and operational principles that are at the heart of every successful CRM implementation. We will develop an understanding of concepts such as customer centricity, customer lifetime value, customer equity, or customer retention, and discuss how data-rich environments and data science (will) impact marketing practice. CRM strategy implementation in the areas of loyalty programs, services, and complaint management will be examined. The course will expose participants to an integrated view of CRM theory and practice, with case study analyses and a customer centricity simulation game constituting major course elements.

The aim of this course is to develop an understanding of a customer-centric view of the firm and implications for CRM applications and marketing practice. More specifically, the course will provide students with insights on:

• What are the fundamental differences between product- and customer-centricity?
• How can customer centricity be translated in to practice?
• What is the idea and the specific managerial value of building and sustaining long term customer relationships?
• What is the role of measuring and managing customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, customer profitability, and lifetime value?
• What concepts, metrics, and tools help marketing "engineers" to successfully manage their customer base?
• What is the strategic importance of CRM, and how are CRM strategies implemented?

• To get prepared for in-class case discussions a reading package will be provided.
• Daily student packages including reading assignments, course slides, datasets, case questions for the respective day will be provided via the learn@wu platform in due course.
• It is recommended that students have access to SPSS, R, or any statistical software they feel comfortable with.

Grading will be based on a ranking approach. For each and every component, the best student(s) will be awarded full points and the remaining students will be graded in proportion to their performance in comparison to the best student. Grading will be based on the following components:

• In-class participation (10%)
• Case Study Capital One (20%)
• Case Study Store24 (20%)
• Simulation Game: Performance and Presentation (40% + 10%)

Full attendance is required. Students will be deducted 2 points (out of 100) for every hour missed. A zero tolerance policy applies.

Case studies (20% + 20%)
The case studies should be solved in groups and discussed in class. The groups will be assessed based on a short report (2000 words maximum).

Simulation Game: Performance and Presentation (40% + 10%)
Students will play a simulation game that mimics some of the challenges faced by CMOs and other executives in today's business environment. Each group will be graded according to its performance against its peers. This performance will be measured by the market valuation achieved by the end of the 9 rounds that constitute the game. 
In order to improve the  learning outcomes, students will be given the opportunity to present and discuss their strategies and subsequent results.

Peer evaluation
Students will be asked to assess their colleagues’ performance by assigning 100 points among all the group members (including themselves) for the activities concerning the simulation game and the case study. The distribution of the points will determine the proportion of the points awarded to the respective group members. This means that the peer evaluation can affect a student’s performance both positively and negatively.
If there is an unequal distribution of the points in a group, the group members will be asked to write an exposé stating their reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with the final distribution of the points. If at least one of the members disagrees with the final distribution of the points, all students will be subjected to an individual oral exam which will replace the entire grading on their group performance for that specific task.

Minimum criteria for passing the course
To maximize indiviudual learnings and take-aways from this course, we expect every student to actively participate in the group works and course discussions. The minimum requirements to successfully pass the course are: (i) Attendance higher that 80% of the time devoted for in-class sessions, (ii) submission of the written case studies' reports in due time, (iii) submitting group-decisions for ALL 10 rounds of the simulation game, (iv) being assessed with non-zero points in the peer evaluation component. Adherence of all these criteria is strict and cannot be compensated. Fraud and plagiarism will be punished by failing the course.
 

This course is designed for students of the WU Master's Program (MSc) in Marketing. Admittance to the program is a prerequisite for successful participation of the course. Furthermore, the successful completion of the course "Marketing Research Design and Analysis" taught in the first year of the Master's program is required.

Students are expected to have a good understanding of marketing basics and basic statistical methods, such as ANOVA and linear regression. Some fluency in Excel, as well as, R, Python, or any other statistical programming language is recommended.

Univ.Prof. Dr. Thomas Reutterer: thomas.reutterer@wu.ac.at

Filipe Sengo Furtado, MSc (WU): filipe.sengo.furtado@wu.ac.at