Schooled in CRM

Embracing the reality that CRM's growth isn't just another marketplace fad, an escalating number of established universities are successfully launching CRM courses within their master's, executive, or certificate programs. Baylor University, for instance, devotes an entire curriculum to CRM, complete with core course requirements and internship opportunities. Duke is offering courses in its sponsored Teradata Center for CRM, Rutgers' CRM research center is projected for this fall, and CRM expansion to the undergraduate level is in the works at several big-name schools. Following is a list of universities, their CRM programs, and their current enrollment. Baylor University, Hankamer School of Business Jeff_Tanner@baylor.edu CRM program type : Concentration within MBA program: Customer Relationship Management Enrollment: 13 students Program leader(s): Jeff Tanner, program director and professor of marketing Curriculum: For fulfillment of the CRM concentration, students are required to complete an introductory CRM class, capstone CRM, data mining, an internship (or significant international experience), and one elective course. "This leaves them time to take one additional class," Tanner says. "Depending on their interest, they'll either go into something else in marketing or data warehousing, or one of the IT classes." The CRM students' most recent project has been the development of a business case with a data strategy for the university's athletic department. Although the student internship program is not affiliated with a specific industry or company, Tanner will often call on companies that he believes would benefit from a CRM program. "A lot of the times these kids go out and they are the CRM department," Tanner says. Often, he attests, "they really are involved in change management initiatives, and that's why they're brought in." Baylor plans to roll out a CRM-based curriculum for its undergraduate level within the next year. Currently Baylor offers an undergraduate sports marketing curriculum, and intends to focus the CRM program on the sports industry upon inauguration. Sponsors: Microsoft, Salesforce.com, Global Enterprise Management Systems, NCR's Teradata, SAS, and Martha Daniel Dartmouth University, Amos Tuck School of Business www.dartmouth.edu/tuck/mba/choose/index.html CRM program type: MBA program: Database Marketing Enrollment: 30--50 students per semester Program leader(s): Scott Neslin, professor of marketing Curriculum: An elective for second-year MBA students--there are no formal majors at the university, so there is no formal concentration in marketing or CRM--the objective of this course is to introduce students to the concepts and methods of database marketing. Neslin emphasizes the three tools used in customer database translation for productive marketing activities: predictive modeling, lifetime value of the customer, and experiments. The class incorporates lectures, case studies, and guest speakers into the learning process, with students required to conduct in-depth quantitative analyses of database marketing problems. Students use real data and professional software to examine industries including retail, financial services, software, catalog, and consumer electronics. A case study in the churn management arena, for example, asks students to develop a model to predict whether cell phone company customers will leave or not. Using the model they create a CRM strategy to retain customers who are would-be churners, incorporating neural nets and logistic regression, and taking into consideration more than 70 potential predictor variables. Sponsors: See list of sponsors at http://www.dartmouth.edu/tuck/business/corp_rel.html Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business web.gsia.cmu.edu/default.aspx?id=142025 CRM program type: MBA program track: Computational Marketing Enrollment: 12 students Program leader(s): Alan Montgomery, associate professor of marketing Curriculum: Launched in the fall 2003 semester, the Computational Marketing track is designed to prepare students on the fundamentals of key decision-making in marketing through comprehensive data analysis. Emphasis is placed on market research, database mining and marketing, statistical modeling, analytical technology tools, point of purchase dynamics, pricing strategies, marketing decision support systems, and consumer behavior applications. "We are not just training our students in the principles of CRM," Montgomery says, "but they are [also] able to execute a CRM strategy and implement it." The series of courses that students take are often accompanied by internships. Students are currently engaged in a computational marketing project being executed as a comprehensive study; targeting a managerial problem, they are expected to search through large data sets to identify specific types of customers. Sponsors: Caterpillar, IBM, Ford, General Motors, H.J. Heinz Company Duke University, Fuqua School of Business www.fuqua.duke.edu/admin/wemba/index.html CRM program type: Executive MBA program: Customer Relationship Management Enrollment: 45 students per semester (out of a class of 120 weekend MBA students) Program leader(s): Julie Britton, associate professor of marketing; William Boulding, professor of marketing and associate dean for the daytime MBA program; Martha Rogers, Ph.D., adjunct professor of marketing Curriculum: This course is a summer elective for MBA weekend executive students. According to Britton, it is "more [strategy-]focused; we really look at why a company wants to build a customer relationship, and what are the steps necessary...things like what kinds of metrics would we like to use to see if we're making progress." The curriculum is executed through lectures and guest speakers, spanning industries from financial services to telecommunications to retail, who have significant experience with "large databases and the benefits that come from understanding customer relationships over time," Britton says. There is also a session on analytics where a member of the university's Teradata Center for CRM--a research and learning center established in 2001--educates students on what types of tools are available to assist them with their database activities. The major project of the course is to design a CRM plan to move students' respective companies to the next stage in their long-term CRM goals--regardless of whether they have yet implemented a CRM strategy. Sponsors: The Teradata Center for CRM is sponsored by Teradata, a division of NCR Duke University, Fuqua School of Business www.fuqua.duke.edu/admin/executive CRM program type: Regular (daytime) MBA and Cross-Continent MBA programs: Customer Relationship Management Enrollment: 50--60 students per semester Program leader(s): Wagner Kamakura, Ford Motor Company professor of global marketing; William Boulding; Martha Rogers, Ph.D. Curriculum: This course is an elective that students ordinarily choose to take during the second year of their education. "While I cover most of the marketing aspects of CRM, I place some emphasis on analytical CRM, having students develop analytical models for customer acquisition campaigns, cross-selling, loyalty program management, and churn detection," Kamakura says. The Duke Cross-Continent MBA program gives managers with three to nine years of professional work experience the opportunity to earn an MBA degree in the daytime program in less than two years. New York University, School of Continuing and Professional Studies www.scps.nyu.edu/tischcenter (Graduate certificate); www.scps.nyu.edu/departments/course.jsp?courseid=44664 (Sports Industry CRM) CRM program type: Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management: Graduate Certificate in CRM; CRM concentration within MS; Certificate in Sports Industry CRM Program leader(s): Angela Sherbenou, associate director of professional programs and conferences; Mark Warner, Ph.D., director of graduate programs Curriculum: Under the graduate hospitality and tourism programs students may work toward a graduate certificate in CRM by taking 12 credits worth of applicable courses. As an alternative, students pursuing a master's degree in either Hospitality Industry Studies or Tourism and Travel Management may also opt for a concentration in CRM. Courses offered through the program, valid toward either the CRM certificate or concentration, are Customer Behavior, Customer Relationship Management, Customer Relationship Training and Evaluation, Electronic Customer Relationship Management, and Managing the Human Asset. The Preston Robert Tisch Center is also offering a seminar-based certificate program for midlevel professionals called Sports Industry CRM. An intensive five-day program, this course is designed to provide sports and business professionals with the knowledge of customer and fan needs essential to creating and maintaining a strategic customer and fan base. The students participate in creating a global "experience" for customers and fans, focusing on CRM principles, consumer behavior, and electronic CRM. Completion of the course leads to a Certificate in Sports Industry CRM. New York University, School of Continuing and Professional Studies www.scps.nyu.edu/departments/course.jsp?courseId=46813 CRM program type: MS in Direct and Interactive Marketing: Customer Relationship Management Enrollment: 12--18 students each semester Program leader(s): Marjorie Kalter, Ph.D., clinical professor and graduate program director Curriculum: Offered as an elective once or twice each year, this course provides students with fundamental information within the theoretical and the practical spheres of CRM. Although elements of CRM and customer retention are incorporated in every class offered under the Direct and Interactive Marketing program, this course hones in on the concepts, principles, and practices of best-case CRM. Kalter says that students are taught "how to assess a business in terms of whether CRM is appropriate, what level is appropriate, and how to implement the best practices of CRM without necessarily investing in an infrastructure that is more costly than it needs to be." New York University, School of Continuing and Professional Studies www.scps.nyu.edu/departments/certificate.jsp?certId=22 (Marketing); www.scps.nyu.edu/departments/certificate.jsp?certId=33 (Marketing Management) CRM program type: Direct and Interactive Marketing Program (for Certificates) Enrollment: 12--18 students each semester Program leader(s): Renee Harris, director of the Center for Marketing Curriculum: Individuals may work toward obtaining a certificate in Marketing or Marketing Management by completing some of the following CRM-centric courses: Customer Retention and Winback, which concentrates on the identification of customers who are receptive to "winback" and who will be profitable if won back; Strategic Marketing Management, which focuses on the concepts and techniques central to creating winning marketing strategies; Prospecting and Qualifying, designed to direct salespeople at all levels toward learning the essential attitudes, strategies, and tactics to find and engage prospective customers; and Data Analytics, Interpretation, and Reporting, which examines the linkage of research data to specific marketing questions. New York University, School of Continuing and Professional Studies www.scps.nyu.edu/departments/department.jsp?deptId=16 CRM program type: Information Technologies Institute: Certificate in Electronic Commerce; Certificate in Enterprise Management; professional seminars Program leader(s): Howard Deckelbaum, director of the Information Technologies Institute Curriculum: The following courses are offered via the Information Technologies Institute: CRM Technology (www.scps.nyu.edu/departments/course.jsp?catId=77&courseId=43462): Applicable towards a certificate in electronic commerce, this course runs through 10 sessions during the summer semester. Using real-world examples, students work toward the goal of creating the ideal customer-centric company. The curriculum includes both unautomated fundamentals and their computerized counterparts, personal customer interaction and service, fully automated lead generation, and help desks, as well as the review of marketing segments, research, marketing, sales, customer service, merchandising, database management, and telemarketing. CRM Fundamentals (www.scps.nyu.edu/departments/course.jsp?courseid=43463): Applicable towards a certificate in either electronic commerce or enterprise management, the course targets the development of basic technical and practical applications in CRM and personalization through lectures and lab experience. Topics covered include CRM implementation, e-customer service, e-support, best practices, call centers/help desk/knowledge base/Internet integration, outsourcing, interrelationship selling, and partner relationship management. CRM Strategies (www.scps.nyu.edu/departments/course.jsp?courseId=44421): A three-day seminar for managers and executives, this class uses a CRM tool called CIRCAMS to help learn about CRM technology's development, the analytics and pattern recognition it uses, and the means of communications it provides. After capturing data, building data warehouses, and formulating strategic projections and estimates, teams of students structure and test their own marketing campaign based on the tool. Georgia Tech Business School, College of Management www.mgt.gatech.edu CRM program type: Executive Education Program: Marketing Strategy and Tactics: The Power of CRM Enrollment: approximately 30 students per class Program leader(s): Dan Stotz, director of executive program Curriculum: Slated to launch in September 2004, this one-week program will be offered through five sessions--three that will run at the university's Atlanta campus, and two at its Savannah location. This course draws on the link between developing an effective email campaign and how it can work dynamically with a CRM database to build strategic, committed relationships. For the first two-and-a-half days of the program students are trained in marketing and CRM tactics. They then return to work for five to six weeks, where they are expected to develop a project that addresses a challenge or opportunity specific to their company. Students return to the university for the remainder of the program, executing their team presentations on the final day. The university also offers a six-month coaching option, where experienced Georgia Tech alumni can customize coaching methods for executives who request training within a particular concentration. Georgia Tech also plans to expand CRM education into its Executive MBA program by 2005, and eventually, into its traditional MBA curriculum. San Jose State University http://iesweb.sjsu.edu/profdev/tsm/about.html CRM program type: Professional Development Continuing Education for Adults program: Technical Support Management (TSM) Certificate Program Enrollment: approximately 10 students per class offered per semester Program leader(s): Amita Dev, program consultant; Robert Greenleaf, program manager Curriculum: The program teaches CRM best practices, as well as service management skills including strategy, planning, marketing, and supervision. Some of the CRM-centric courses available include Strategic Planning for Service and Support, Organizing and Managing Contact Centers, Keys to Successful Global Outsourcing, Customer-Focused Project Management, and How to Get from Zero to CRM. "Some students will only take a single class that is applicable to the work that they are doing," Greenleaf says, highlighting the variety of options available to prospective students. "Others will go ahead and complete the entire certificate program." Many of the courses are also currently offered online, and by the end of this summer, SJSU expects to deliver the entire certificate program online. Sponsors:: Soffront Software, Aspect Communications, ASMI, ASP, Cisco Systems, and Webex Stevens Institute of Technology, Howe School of Technology Management http://howe.stevens.edu/msis CRM program type: Information System (IS) MBA/Master of Science program: Enterprise Systems Management Enrollment: about 300 students per year Program leader(s): Jerry Luftman, Stevens Institute professor, and executive director and founder of graduate IS programs Curriculum: Within its Information Systems MBA or Master of Science program the school offers 15 concentrations, including a required course called Enterprise Systems Management that addresses CRM fundamentals. All students work on a project to create an integrated set of applications--more often than not, a CRM program. The course is one of four integration courses designed to examine the larger IT picture across different lines of business and of technologies and architectures. "CRM is fundamental," Luftman says. "IT can't do it alone, and business can't do it alone." Sponsors: See list of sponsors at http://howe.stevens.edu/msis/Sponsors.html Rutgers University, Rutgers Business School www.business.rutgers.edu CRM program type: Marketing MBA program: Customer Relationship Management Enrollment: 18 students Program leader(s): Eric Greenberg, professor of marketing Curriculum: The course offers a general overview of CRM, highlighting both its practical and theoretical strategies, as well as functions of database modeling. Using case studies, lectures, and lab work, students learn all the CRM basics and put them into action by designing a CRM project for their existing employers as a final assignment. Launched this past spring semester, the course is just the beginning of a plan to propel Rutgers further into CRM-focused research and learning activities. "We are seeking to establish a world-class research association," Greenberg says. The school has initiated the formation of an advisory board for its CRM research center, slated to be in place by fall 2004, to develop research projects with local businesses and CRM faculty. "What we envision doing with the center is funding seminars and executive workshops so corporations will be able to send executives to our center for a weekend 'crash course' in CRM," Greenberg says. The university also expects to expand its CRM curriculum to the undergraduate level, either as a marketing elective or as a concentration all its own. Sponsors: Oracle, Siebel, Unisys, Salesforce.com University of Michigan, University of Michigan Business School www.bus.umich.edu/Academics/Departments/Marketing CRM program type: MBA in Business Administration: Customer Asset Management; Retailer Behavior and Customer Management Enrollment: approximately 100 students in each course Program leader(s): Rajeev Batra, department chairman Curriculum: Among the MBA electives is the Customer Asset Management class, which handles the idea of CRM from an investment perspective--focusing on its measurement, management, growth, and economic returns. Analyzing the role of customer satisfaction in the context of the market economy, the course also explores material developed for the American Customer Satisfaction Index at the National Quality Research Center. Retailer Behavior and Customer Management covers the management of retail companies, spotlighting the aspects that are most relevant to marketers selling to and through them. It also highlights the relationship that develops between retailers and marketing companies. Both courses incorporate the CRM-centric concepts of what drives lifetime value of the customer; measurement of the impact of marketing activity on lifetime value; and the best way to use that information within an organization for ideal management on a one-to-one basis.