Smeal College Spin-Off Company Offers Analytical Decision-Making Tools For Better Marketing

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA -- Gary L. Lilien and Arvind Rangaswamy, Professors in Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business, have launched DecisionPro, Inc., an independent spin-off company based in State College, Pa, that provides software and services for corporate professionals to improve the bottom-line impact of their marketing programs.

DecisionPro builds on developments described in Lilien’s and Rangaswamy’s new book, Marketing Engineering: Computer-Assisted Marketing Planning and Analysis (Prentice Hall), which provides students with the concepts and software tools—often referred to as marketing analytics—to address important and recurring marketing problems. More details about the book are available at www.mktgeng.com .

Lilien and Rangaswamy are longtime leaders of the field of marketing engineering, which shifts the practice of marketing from opinions-driven to data-driven decision making via the use of sophisticated analytical technologies.

Lilien, Distinguished Research Professor of Management Science and Research Director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM), will provide highlights of the marketing engineering solutions offered by DecisionPro at a breakfast meeting from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. on June 10 at Philadelphia’s Pyramid Club. For more information, visit www.10june03.isbm.org .

“DecisionPro is equipped with the intellectual foundation and necessary tools to help small companies have the same type of sophistication as many of today’s leading companies in their marketing decision-making,” says Lilien. “Marketing does not have to be based on gut feel alone. In fact, it can be put through its analytical paces with measurable and demonstrable results that help the bottom line.”

DecisionPro ( www.decisionpro.biz ) offers customers a variety of services and consulting expertise to address specific marketing problems such as segmentation, targeting, resource allocation, and product design. Its offerings include professional versions of the software developed by Lilien and Rangaswamy for student use, available both offline and through the web.

DecisionPro also acts as a business service provider for clients looking to address specific and recurring marketing issues that can be informed through marketing analytics. Their services include model development, software implementation on local area networks, interpretation of analyses and automatic report generation.

“Marketers today need answers twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week,” says Rangaswamy, Jonas H. Anchel Professor of Marketing and Research Director of the eBusiness Research Center. “DecisionPro provides the platform and services to make real-time marketing decision making a reality.”

DecisionPro was launched with the support of Penn State's Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) in the Smeal College, which provides business-to-business marketing solutions to ISBM-member firms. Additional support for the spin-off was provided by Penn State’s Intellectual Property Office and the Penn State Research Foundation.

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