Arnab K. Laha

Key Note Speaker: Dr. Arnab K. Laha, Professor, Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad)

Abstract for MAC:

In the last two decades the increased penetration of the internet in both developed and emerging economies have changed the face of marketing. The consumers now have greater access to information about the product, increased ability to compare with similar products from other companies, read feedback on the product from other customers, voice their concerns and queries on the products, seek opinion etc. This has made the job of the digital age marketer much more challenging than before. The promises made in the marketing communications for a product or service need to be strictly met failing which strong negative sentiments can sweep through the cyber space enhancing future customer acquisition costs substantially and negatively impacting customer retention. The dynamic nature of the consumer needs and a competitive market place require that the product or service be made available at the right time, at the right place and at an affordable cost. Companies need to invest for developing enhanced capabilities in capturing and analyzing data from all relevant sources. Over the last five years we have seen an exponential growth of interest in “Big Data” amongst marketers. The improved distributed data storage capabilities using technologies such as Hadoop and availability of superior data mining software have encouraged many organizations to adopt “Big Data” methods. The “Big Data” poses major challenges to the conventional way of doing marketing data analysis. Not only are these data sets “Big” but they are dynamic often changing by the day or by the hour. These datasets need to be analysed in real time to tell the marketer what would be her optimal next step. Should she allow the discount that the customer is asking for? Should she unbundle the product and service components for this customer? Should she stress upon the functionalities of the product or focus on its cheaper cost? Should she make a personal call to a customer or allow the call centre to contact? The marketer now decides on most of these matters based on her personal experience or gut feeling. However a deeper understanding of the customer behaviour captured through analysis of customer databases and internet forums would allow optimal guidelines to be prepared for each customer allowing the marketer to do what is best in each case. The dynamic nature of customer needs and value propositions further require creation of delivery mechanisms which can meet the customer needs within the shortest possible time. The use of analytics can help capturing (or deriving) the information about customer needs and the subsequent triggering of a highly responsive outbound supply chain that can fulfil the need. All this needs to be done at a cost which delivers value to the customer and allows for some profit to the producer.  In this talk I will discuss many of the above issues and some other related topics which are of interest to the 21^st century marketing academics and professionals.

Speaker Profile

Dr. Arnab K Laha is a member of the faculty of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.  He received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from the Indian Statistical Institute. He has wide ranging interest in statistics and its applications to various disciplines. His current research interests are in the areas of Robust Statistics, Analysis of Directional Data, Analysis of Rank Data, Business Analytics, Statistical Quality Control, Quantitative Finance, and Risk Modeling.  He has published several papers in national and international journals of repute in statistics and quantitative finance. Two of his papers have received “best paper” awards in two major conferences. He was featured among India’s best business school professors by Business Today in 2006 and by Business India in 2012. He is also the convener of the biennial IIMA International Conference on Advanced Data Analysis, Business Analytics and Intelligence.

Dr. Laha has been associated with several reputed organizations as a statistical consultant. He has several years of industry experience which includes a stint as Technical Training Leader and Vice President in the analytics division of a global company. He has also conducted large number of training programmes on the use of statistical and decision making tools for managers and senior executives.

See his Linked In Profile