Students on our MSc in Consumer Analytics and Marketing Strategy were delighted to receive an interactive and informative guest lecture delivered by three speakers from Shop Direct. Shop Direct are the second largest pure play digital/e-commerce retailer in the UK and are the company behind the Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com brands. We were joined by Tony Birch (Business Modelling Manager) and Nicola Dunford (Data Scientist) from their data science and analytics functions, and Louise Utton (Talent Partner) from their HR team. They introduced Shop Direct and their target customer demographic, ‘Miss Very’.
Tony and Nicola gave an excellent overview of the analytics, data science and modelling functions across their business and brands. They gave a clear distinction between day-to-day analytics and reporting versus larger scale innovative data mining and model building. They outlined the use of self-service systems to enable colleagues from across the business to access routine data (e.g. product sales) and gave specific examples of some of their larger model building projects, particularly in relation to assessing their marketing campaigns. They also discussed some of their novel ‘user experience’ and lab testing, all carried out in-house.
Louise introduced students to the working environment at their ‘Skyways House’ Head Office in Liverpool, including their new training and wellbeing venue ‘The Cube’, and discussed the MSc Dissertation Projects that Shop Direct are offering as part of the CRDC Masters Research Dissertation Programme. Students commented incredibly positively on the usefulness of the session and a number of students have been in further contact with the team in relation to MSc projects and future careers.
Guest lectures are an exceptionally important part of our MSc in Consumer Analytics and Marketing Strategy, giving students direct exposure to the application of their skills in a commercial setting. The interactive nature of this lecture enabled students to have a direct dialogue with managers and data scientists at Shop Direct. We very much look forward to welcoming Shop Direct back for further guest lectures in the future and hope that a number of our students will explore further opportunities to work with Shop Direct.