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Collaborating on Customer Analytics

Scotiabank Centre for Customer Analytics

The Scotiabank Centre for Customer Analytics at Smith School of Business was initially founded in February, 2016 and named in recognition of a generous contribution of $2.2 million from Scotiabank. In 2019, Scotiabank pledged an additional $2 million in support for the Centre that will see its research continue through to 2025.

Our Goals

To bring together professors, graduate students and analytics practitioners to collaborate on applied research projects in customer analytics

To build a community of data intensive users encouraging innovation across industries, in order to deliver a re-imagined customer experience

Multi-Disciplinary
Research Teams

Because analytics does not belong to one discipline, we are moving beyond the traditional sectors and reaching out to researchers, graduate students and practitioners whose interests cross disciplines. We have assembled a team of researchers from Management Sciences, Operations Management, Marketing, Information Systems, Finance, Business Economics and Computing Science. These diverse backgrounds will provide a variety of perspectives in our analytics research. This diversity will add to the creativity of our research and our results.

Our research projects

Education

The Centre’s ongoing research and knowledge creation will enhance the curriculum of the academic and executive education programs offered by the Smith School of Business, with a particular emphasis on the Master of Management Analytics program.

Creating and
Transferring Knowledge

As the flow of data continues to increase in both volume and variety, using this data to make successful decisions will be a priority. Understanding customers is a significant part of this new business culture. The Centre is committed to the creation and dissemination of knowledge. Our research will be an integral factor as organizations develop a new culture of decision-making.

Ceren Kolsarici

Our Director

Dr. Ceren Kolsarici is an Associate Professor, Ian R. Friendly Fellow, Scotiabank Scholar and is the Director of the Scotiabank Center for Customer Analytics at the Smith School of Business.

Dr. Kolsarici specializes in Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and analytics applications on domains including advertising, mobile and digital marketing, diffusion of new products, pharmaceuticals and financial sector. Her current projects focus on design and evaluation of integrated marketing communications campaigns, media selection and scheduling, budgeting and development of advertising creative strategies. She develops new models and methods to improve managerial decisions and marketing applications in practice, by helping managers better understand how marketing affects firm performance and designing marketing programs that maximize profitability.

Dr. Kolsarici’s research has been published in leading journals such as Management Science, Journal of Marketing Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing and Journal of Advertising, among others. She has been invited to present her work at institutions such as UC Davis, Northwestern University, Erasmus University, Tilburg University, Koc University as well as national and international conferences in Australia, Belgium, US, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, France and Turkey.

Ceren serves in the Editorial Review Board of Journal of Marketing Research. She has received several awards and grants for her scholarly contributions including the QSB New Researcher Achievement Award, MSI’s Top Young Scholar Nomination, NSERC, SSHRC, FQRSC and other external funds valuing over $1.2 million, American Marketing Association-Sheth Consortium Fellowship, as well as nominations for national (SSHRC) and provincial (ADESAQ) doctoral dissertation awards.

She holds a Ph.D. in Marketing (2009) from McGill University a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering (2002) from Middle East Technical University, and an MBA (2004) from Bilkent University. Dr. Kolsarici teaches Artificial Intelligence, Advertising, Social Media and Marketing Analytics in Commerce, MBA, MMA and Ph.D. programs. She also continues to do consulting and executive training for various companies in Canada and internationally.

Our team

Our Partners

The Analytics & AI Ecosystem at Smith partners with companies, non-profits and the public sector to understand their unique challenges and apply analytics to develop solutions. Working together, our faculty and students generate insights and business value for partners through applied research and capstone projects, experiential and work-integrated learning, and community events. A few of the companies we are proud to collaborate with include: