From Chance to Choice- A Random walk of an Indian American Marketing Professor
Prof. “Seenu” Srinivasan is a legend in market research. He is most well-known for his research in “conjoint analysis.” This survey-based research approach is useful for product (or service) planning and pricing by predicting which among several multi-attributed products or services customers are likely to choose. Thirty to forty thousand commercial applications of conjoint analysis methods occur every year. His other research contributions are in the areas of salesforce compensation plans, measurement of brand equity, and market structure analysis
(the nature and magnitude of substitutability among brands in a product market).
Professor Srinivasan is a recipient of the Parlin Award for outstanding contributions to marketing research, the Churchill Award for lifetime achievement in marketing research, the Converse Award for outstanding contributions to the development of the science of marketing, and the Buck Weaver Award for lifetime contributions to the advancement of theory and practice in marketing science. He is a Fellow of both the American Marketing Association and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science.
Prof. Srinivasan received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian
Institute of Technology, Madras, and was the gold medalist in his graduating class. He received
his MS and PhD in industrial administration from Carnegie-Mellon University.
Prof. Srinivasan will talk briefly about his journey as an academic. He will then talk about his primary research contribution to the field of marketing research, the technique of conjoint analysis.. He will illustrate the method in simple terms using a few examples: determining the specifications for an innovation, job choices of MBA graduates, and a patent infringement case.
