Faculty of Management at Comenius University uses SAS^® Business Intelligence in its marketing lectures

In the current, continual financial crises and a highly competitive labor market, universities also feel increased pressure to provide – in addition to theoretical background – more practical skills using innovative information technologies that help graduates gain higher-paying jobs. Applicants for advanced vocational training and university studies are aware of the need for this skill set. Therefore, potential students target universities and educational institutions that are connected to the business market, cooperate intensively with the private sector and are able to provide practical skills.

SAS^® Global Academic Program  
Collaboration between SAS and Comenius University began in 1999, when the university acquired 50 SAS software licenses as part of the SAS Global Academic Program, an initiative that makes software available to students, researchers and professors in more than 3,400 academic institutions worldwide.

Within the first three undergraduate compulsory lectures (Introduction to Statistics, Statistics on the PC and Statistical Methods), the Faculty of Management at Comenius University added SAS to a new undergraduate lecture called Marketing Analytics. The new lecture allows students to acquire practical skills using customer data pertaining to customer segmentation, cross-sell and up-sell, customer retention, planning, management and campaign optimization. With the help of SAS software (SAS^® Enterprise Miner^TM ), students learn to build and manage their own campaigns in a simulated, enterprise environment.

Using analytics, the students learn ways to enhance customer relationship management in different industries, such as banking, insurance or telecommunications.

Peter Štarchoň, PhD, Head of Department of Marketing, Faculty of Management at Comenius University in Bratislava, discusses the cooperation between SAS, the faculty and its use of SAS solutions during lectures, "Nowadays, the challenge is to find ways to comprehensively integrate the use of software in university lectures. Therefore, we started an initiative that provided a new lecture, Marketing Analytics, within our undergraduate lectures. The main purpose of this lecture is to teach data mining by using SAS Enterprise Miner. We also extend the students' practical skills in marketing studies by enabling access to the latest information, delivering interactive lectures and fostering creativity, invention and stimulation of students' independent thinking."

The results of students' work during lectures have been published in Marketing Inspiration, an academic-professional magazine.

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