Deloitte Analytics to Collaborate With the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative

NEW YORK, Oct. 2 – Deloitte Analytics today announced a collaboration with the Customer Analytics Initiative at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (WCAI). As part of this two-year agreement, Deloitte will help advance the knowledge base around business problems that can be addressed with customer analytics by helping WCAI offer more student-facing programs and analytics-driven co-curricular activities beyond its existing research program.

WCAI is an academic research center focusing on the development and application of customer analytic methods. Acting as “matchmaker” between academia and industry, WCAI has had a broad impact on the practice of data-driven business decision-making, and the dissemination of relevant insights to managers, students and policy makers.

“The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative is focused on providing a robust set of programs that both educates students and exposes them to a number of key topics in the analytics space,” said Professor Peter Fader, Academic Co-Director of WCAI and Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing at Wharton. “WCAI is pleased to work with Deloitte to utilize the resources of the Wharton School to train the next generation of analytics professionals and executive leaders to advance our existing student offerings beyond our faculty-focused analytics research program.”

As part of its initiative with WCAI, Deloitte will help sponsor student and alumni events, coordinate panel discussions at Whartonconferences, and participate in exclusive forums with other WCAI corporate sponsors who are leading practitioners in analytics. Deloitte will also work with Wharton to co-develop thought leadership pieces on topics around analytics that will be released externally. The work with Wharton is part of a broader Deloitte Analytics strategy to support the maturation of business analytics education in higher education.

“Today’s businesses are faced with an enormous amount of data, but often lack well trained individuals who can sift through all that data to find the most important insights for the organization,” said Forrest Danson, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. Deloitte Analytics leader. “Deloitte’s collaboration with WCAI allows us to work with one of the leading business schools in the country to help train the next generation of analytics professionals for a successful career in the space.”