Alexander Odziemkowski the winner of the Erasmus Thesis Awards: Impactful Data Analytics
30/11/2023With marketing continuously becoming more data-driven, we want to empower and encourage education in this field. So, on November 23rd 2023, MAEUR & ECDA (supported by FAECTOR) organized the Erasmus Thesis Awards - Impactful Data Analytics. During the event, recent graduates with exemplary results from four data-oriented master programmes presented their thesis in front of a jury and audience. The winner was awarded a 1000€ cash prize.
The jury consisted of company professionals in the data field. In attendance were Remko Strik - Head of Data Driven Marketing at Eneco, Marcel van Oosterhout - Deputy Executive Director at the Erasmus Center for Data Analytics (ECDA), René de Boer - CEO of Digital Power, and Matthias Kok - CRO at WebinarGeek. The four data talents were selected by their respective study programmes. Pitches were judged on the following factors: business potential & social impact, how the data methodologies were applied in the studies as well as the presentation and understandability of the pitch itself.
Opening the presentations was David Lensen, who dove deep into the topic of data monetization for companies generating profit by the sale of data. The Business Information Management graduate tackled the question of what determines the price of such a data set.
Tamires Beltrão, from the Data Science & Marketing Analytics MSc, followed up with an investigation of the impact of cross-channel integration on profitability of apparel retailers. Digitalization has led to significant changes in the retail environment, necessitating strategic and operational transformations in businesses. By analyzing data from top global fashion companies, Tamires answered to what extent cross-channel integration impacts retailers’ financial performance and which firm-level factors are most influential in this relationship.
In the third pitch of the evening, Alexander Odziemkowski from the Business Analytics and Management MSc. presented his semantic analysis of greenium in green bonds. This provides investors with information about the greenness of bonds and allows them to make well-founded investment decisions through a solid business foundation behind companies’ sustainability claims.
Last but not least, Martijn Rigutto - Business Analytics and Quantitative Marketing Analytics - presented his research into improvement of comprehensibility and scalability of decision-tree representations of neural networks. While neural networks have an enormous potential for automation, there is a lot of mistrust in AI due to a lack of understanding how these networks work and learn. This research offers options to restore this trust.
While the jury debated on their decision, the four nominees took time to offer advice for students who have their thesis writing coming up. They agreed on scoping down the idea, being motivated by doing something that hasn't been done before and that running into problems is a normal part of the process, but support from existing literature or the thesis coaches can help resolve any obstacles.
Finally, Aleksander was the one to win the judges’ favor and take home the grand cash prize.
The jury praised all efforts, the multi-dimensional views as well as relevance for business cases demonstrated in the great presentations. Interesting questions from the jury and audience resulted in very interesting conversations that were continued during the drinks after the award ceremony. The Erasmus Thesis Awards presented a platform for data- and marketing-interested students to get inspired by the research that can be done within their academic environment. We look forward to hearing what this year’s students will achieve!