The Business Edge
Join our contemporary topic sessions delivered by expert faculty as part of our lifelong learning initiative. The sessions will deliver cutting edge updates to help you become a better business partner.
A continental breakfast (8:15 am) and lunch (12-12:45 pm) will be provided to those attending the Business Edge sessions. Sessions and meals will be held in room 120 Business Building.
Putting Analytics to Work: Applying Analytical Techniques to Today's Tough Supply Chain Problems
This presentation will highlight some recent advances in the application of analytics to today's challenging supply chain problems.
Time: 9-10:15am, ET
Faculty: Dr. Christopher Solo, Clinical Professor of Supply Chain and Analytics
Faculty Bio: Dr. Solo teaches a variety of courses in Supply Chain Management, Management Information Systems, and Business Analytics and serves as the Academic Director for graduate programs in business analytics at Penn State. Prior to joining the Smeal faculty, Dr. Solo served over 21 years on active duty in the U.S. Air Force, where he held leadership positions in the intelligence, acquisition program management, and operations research analyst career fields. During this time, Dr. Solo also served on the faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he taught undergraduate courses covering probability and statistics, optimization, decision analysis, queueing theory, and simulation. Dr. Solo retired from the Air Force in the rank of lieutenant colonel and is an active member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).
Examples of Marketing Analytics with Traditional and Modern Tools
Effectively utilizing data to develop and deploy marketing strategies is key indicator of firm performance. However, there is still a big skill gap in the marketplace of marketing managers who know how to utilize, analyze, and make sense of the data to make better marketing decisions. One challenge many marketers face is in knowing what data is available and what tools can be utilized to analyze and generate insights from that data. In this session, I will discuss and show examples of two approaches to a common marketing research problem: understanding the voice of the customer. One method will focus on a more traditional method of designing, implementing, and analyzing a marketing survey. The other method will focus on a more modern method of utilizing machine learning and conducting text analysis on product review data.
Time: 10:30-11:45am, ET
Faculty: Dr. Andrew Petersen, Associate Professor in Marketing
Faculty Bio: J. Andrew Petersen is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Smeal College of Business. He teaches the Marketing Analytics as the marketing core course to the MOL, resident MBA, and EMBA students. Students in his class learn how to become intelligent consumers of analytics as they make data-driven decisions to key marketing questions. The course uses R as its analytics engine and Tableau as its visualization engine and is based on his recently published textbook: Marketing Analytics: Based on First Principles.
Leading with Impact and Purpose
Leaders today are faced with a daunting challenge: maintaining business performance while at the same time evolving their organizations to accommodate the demands of a changing workforce and workplace. This interactive workshop will help you to assess your personal readiness--and that of your organization--to take advantage of the opportunities presented in today's unprecedented environment of change and innovation. Drawing on the latest thinking around leadership, this session will engage you in a thoughtful examination of business trends, your organization's readiness to deal with them, and the leadership approaches you can use to take advantage of the opportunities and challenges they present.
Time: 1-2:15pm, ET
Faculty: Dr. Al Vicere, Teaching Professor, Professor of Management and Organization
Faculty Bio: Al Vicere is Teaching Professor of Business Administration and Faculty Director of the Master’s in Strategic Management and Executive Leadership program. He is an award-winning teacher and author of over ninety books and articles on leadership and leadership development. He also is President of Vicere Associates Inc., a consulting firm that has worked with clients worldwide. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Jana Marie Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in memory of his daughter and committed to helping adolescents, their families, and their communities deal with issues related to mental health and suicide prevention.
Entrepreneurship: Trends and Opportunities
Entrepreneurship is more approachable than you may think! This learning session will cover trends in entrepreneurship to evaluate getting involved as an investor, partner or to finally start that side hustle. Topics will include opportunities for funding, assessment, success stories and cautionary tales. Focus will be on providing tools and resources for those attending.
Time: 2:30-3:45pm, ET
Faculty: Dr. Jeanette Miller, Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship
Faculty Bio: Dr. Jeanette Miller is a global citizen, having worked in emerging markets (Central Europe, Southeast Europe and South Asia) for over a dozen years, specializing in economic development and business start-ups. During her career, she has held leadership positions with the U.S. Government, worked for multinational management consulting firms, and has been an entrepreneur. Dr. Miller is passionate about entrepreneurship and small business growth as she has seen first-hand how powerful they can be for economic development. Dr. Miller’s expertise includes strategic management, startup financial planning and implementation, and the impact of social enterprises.
Dr. Miller is a clinical assistant professor of entrepreneurship at the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University, the director of the Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIENT) major, as well as the Associate Director of the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She has a Doctorate of Business Administration from Georgia State University, a double master’s degree in International Business and International Relations from Webster University in Vienna, Austria, and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin.