Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

Operations Research in Marketing (OM-219)

Term IV Elective Course for PGDM, PGDCM & FP Participants
Course Instructor & Co-ordinator: Prof. Megha Sharma
Course Outline (2015-16)
Pre-requisite: Participant must have completed the PGP-I Operations Research
course (Offered in Term II).
Course Objective: The objective of this course is to enable participants to apply the
knowledge gathered during the PGP-I Operations Research course to various problems
in Marketing. This interdisciplinary course aims to expose the students to existing
applications and future possibilities for Operations Research applications in marketing
related problems such as those arising in Pricing, Promotion, Managing Customers,
Analysing the data collected through Market Research, Media Planning, Customer
Relationship Management, and Distribution across Multiple Channels. The expected
learning outcomes of this course include developing the ability to apply the knowledge
and skills developed in one discipline to solve the problems in another discipline.
Pedagogy: The course delivery would include a mix of lectures, casediscussions,
simulation exercises and interactive secondary data based exercises. Two sessions
would be taken by industry experts wherein they will share real life experience of
applying Operations Research Models to Marketing problems.
Evaluation Scheme:
Component
Class Participation (Evaluated through case analysis
and short in-class quizzes on cases)
Assignments/ Exercises (In-class & Take-home)
Simulation
Project
End-term Examination

Weightage
20%
15%
5%
30%
30%

Session Plan (Tentative)

Session
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Topic
Operations Research in Marketing: Why & Where?
Introduction to Pricing
Reading: Robert J. Dolan, How do you know when the price is Right?,
HBR, Sept-Oct, 1995
Module 1 Pricing: Optimization and Analytics
Market Research for Pricing Feedback
Case: Hyrule Cinemas: Pricing Movies and Popcorns
Reading: Ronald T. Wilcox, A Practical Guide to Conjoint Analysis,
Darden Business Publishing.
Pricing Analytics: Theory
Reading: Tudor Bodea and Mark Ferguson, Pricing Segmentation and
Analytics, Business Expert Press (Chapter 1)
Introduction to R Programming
Reading: To be distributed
R Programming for Marketing Analytics
Reading: To be distributed
Pricing Analytics: Practice
Reading: Tudor Bodea and Mark Ferguson, Pricing Segmentation and
Analytics, Business Expert Press (Chapter 2)
Dynamic Pricing and Markdown Optimization
Reading: Tudor Bodea and Mark Ferguson, Pricing Segmentation and
Analytics, Business Expert Press (Chapter 3)
Module 2 Promotion
Coupon Promotion
Case: SC Johnson: Planning Coupon Promotion
Reading: Rajkumar Venkatesan and Paul Farris, Unused coupons still
pay off, HBR, May 2012
Evaluating Promotion Performance
Case: Giant Consumer Products: The Sales Promotion Resource
Allocation Decision
Reading: Betsy Gelb, Demetra Andrews, and Son K. Lam, A strategic
perspective on sales promotion, SMR 248
Marketing Expenditure Allocation
Case: Reliance Baking Soda: Optimizing Promotional Spending
Module 3 Managing Customer
Demand Forecasting
Case: Marriott Room Forecasting
Reading: David M. Georgoff, Robert G. Murdick, Managers Guide to
Forecasting, HBR, Jan-Feb 1986
Reading: Forecasting with regression analysis, HBS Note
Forecasting for Innovative Products
Case: Forecasting the Adoption of eBooks
Reading: Kennet B. Kahn, Solving the problems of new product
forecasting, Business Horizons (2014), 57, 607-615

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Estimating the Market Potential

Case: Zenith: Market Research for HDTV
Customer Segmentation
Case: Preferred Customer Service at US Airways
Reading: Das Narayandas, Building loyalty in business markets, HBR
0509H
Customer Relationship Management
Case: Olympic Rent-a-Car US: Customer Loyalty Battles
Reading: Werner Reinartz and V. Kumar, The Mismanagement of
Customer Loyalty, HBR Reprint R0207F
Marketing Data Mining
Case: Customer Care at ETOTS
Reading: To be distributed
Marketing Analytics: Customer Acquisition and Retention
Case: Dunia Finance
Reading: To be distributed
Module 4 Managing Channel Partners
Benefits of Big Data Analytics
Case: CDK Digital Marketing: Addressing Channel Conflict with Data
Analytics
Reading: To be distributed
Industry Insights
(Guest Lecture)
Industry Insights
(Guest Lecture)
Project Presentations
Project Presentations

Suggested Texts:
Reference Books:
1. Lilien, G.L., Kotler, P., and Moorthy, K.S. (2006), Marketing Models, Prentice-Hall
of India Private Limited, New Delhi.
2. Wierenga, B. (2008), Handbook of Marketing Decision Models, Springer