Rice University marketing symposium connects researchers and practitioners

Rice University marketing symposium connects researchers and practitioners

BY JULIA NGUYEN
Special to the Rice News

Rice University’s Jones School Marketing Club hosted the inaugural ”Making Research Relevant” symposium April 29-30 in conjunction with TRC, a marketing research and consulting firm in Philadelphia. The gathering at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management represented a unique collaboration of practitioners and academics with a common goal of increasing the effectiveness of research by making it more relevant to decision makers.
 
Presentations were given by Jones School faculty Vikas Mittal, the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Management and Paul Dholakia, associate professor of management. Rajan Sambandam, TRC’s chief research officer, also gave a presentation.
 
Sessions, which focused on connecting research with business outcomes, included “Maximizing the Value of Research,” “Financial Payoffs from Customer Satisfaction Measurement Programs,” “Effects of Responding to Customer Satisfaction Surveys” and  “Net Promoter Score: How valuable is it?”
 
This symposium provided an interactive forum for a diverse group of marketing leaders interested in better understanding their customers. Conference participants came from various industries including health care, telecommunications, banking, insurance, energy and hospitality and represented companies like AIG, Amegy Bank, Baker Hughes, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, The Methodist Hospital, Schlumberger, Southwest Airlines, Texas Children’s Hospital, The Health Museum of Houston and Wyndham Worldwide.
 
The marketing club’s president, graduate student Patrick Santangelo, hopes the event will continue to be held annually. He said of the symposium, ”As a result of the collaboration, Rice MBAs will benefit from learning industry-based insights, invaluable networking with industry leaders, and being at the forefront of academic research. The business community will learn about the superb faculty and student body of the Jones school.”