A decade of practical and scientific customer insights: RUGCIC celebrates tenth anniversary

The Customer Insights Centre of the University of Groningen (RUGCIC) exists ten years and will celebrate this on the 30^th of November with a lustrum seminar on scientific breakthroughs and the newest practical customer insights from NS, Wehkamp, Achmea and KLM. In addition, international top speaker prof. dr. Bernd Schmitt from the Colombia Business School in New York will come to share his vision on future developments in the field.

Ten years of RUGCIC
“Build a bridge between scientific knowledge about customers and business practice,” says prof. dr. Peter Verhoef, founder of RUGCIC, “that was the goal of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen when the Customer Insights Centre was established ten years ago.” Research director prof. dr. Jaap Wieringa adds: “We are now a successful and appreciated centre of expertise: in about 200 scientific publications experts share breakthroughs in the field of customer insights. Mostly thanks to the collaborations with some thirty major companies who sponsor the research and with whom we do research together.”

In addition to the scientific publications, RUGCIC has published 32 topical thematic reports, aimed at marketing managers, and there were 24 seminars; the 25th seminar is on the 30th of November, the lustrum seminar. Director Dr. Jelle Bouma is proud of the results: "Our own customer research shows that our customers have greatly appreciated all the important activities of our center over the last ten years."

(New) programmes for professionals
Many groundbreaking scientific insights of the RUGCIC end up in programs for professionals in cooperation with the University of Groningen Business School (UGBS). For instance the programme Impactful Marketing Analyst, a 12-day course, which has been offered each year for the past ten years. This programme teaches participants to develop better marketing insights within their company on the basis of customer data. New is the programme Customer Experience Management, which starts in April 2018. It is a 6-day course for CX-managers who want to get a grip on customer experiences, Journey Mapping and omnichannel. RUGCIC and UGBS also offer ‘in-company’ trainings.

Lustrum seminar 30^th November
The lustrum seminar is also about bringing theory and practice together. Speakers are professors and experts from loyal business members of RUGCIC, like Wehkamp, NS, KLM and Achmea. The focus will lie on new developments such as digital transformation, Internet of Things and Big Data in lectures from prof. dr. Werner Reinartz and prof. dr. Berndt Schmitt. The day will end with a networking event. The lustrum seminar will be held on the 30th November in Castle Vanenburg in Putten. You can subscribe via Seminars.

Note for the press
- press cards are available for journalists
- More information: dr. Jelle Bouma, director RUGCIC, cic rug.nl , tel. 050 36 33686