V. Kumar Awarded H. Paul Root Award by AMA and MSI

Storrs, CT (2/21/2006) - Professor V. Kumar of the UConn School of Business Marketing Department was recently awarded the H. Paul Root Award by the American Marketing Association and the Marketing Science Institute for an article he published with two colleagues on Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM). The article, “Balancing Acquisition and Retention Resources to Maximize Customer Profitability,” appeared in the January 2005 issue of the Journal of Marketing. The article was selected by members of the Journal review board for its significant contribution to the advancement of the best practice of marketing.

Seen as one of the world’s foremost authorities in CRM, Kumar has been published in several leading marketing journals and has won several awards for his contributions. In addition to the H. Paul Root Award, Kumar, along with his colleague, Rajkumar Venkatesan, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing at the UConn School of Business, were nominated for the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science annual Practice Prize Competition. The annual event which will be held in June recognizes those people who have implemented new concepts and methods in the area of marketing. The award is given to people whose ideas have actually produced positive results in businesses and have had an impact on the performance of an organization.

Kumar and Venkatesan were also awarded the Don Lehmann Award by the American Marketing Association’s Market Research Special Interest Group at the 2005 annual American Marketing Association Conference.

Having worked with companies all over the country, Kumar has taken his experiences from the business world into the classroom. “These ideas are not just classroom theory,” says Kumar. “They have all been realized or implemented in the world.”

Students from both the full-time and part-time MBA programs scramble each semester to register for Kumar’s classes which are always filled to capacity. Heather Mull a second-year MBA who has taken classes with Kumar noted that “He is an excellent professor and I recommend anyone who wants to get into the marketing profession to take his classes.”

During my brief interview with Kumar, many students stopped by his office, emailed and even called to obtain permission to enroll in already filled classes. Kumar’s “faithful following” also includes several Ph.D. students and former students whom Kumar continues to mentor. All of the Ph.D. students that work on research and publications with Kumar attend conferences and competitions throughout the country.

“By the time my Ph.D. students graduate all of them have been published several times and many have won awards,” comments Kumar. “This ultimately helps them with the most important task – getting placed at top schools.” Kumar attributes some of his research contributions to the collaborative work done with his current and former doctoral students.

One of Kumar’s greatest accomplishments at UConn has been the creation of the ING Center. Between 1999 and 2000, the marketing and finance department heads, Dr. Susan Spiggle and Dr. Thomas O’Brien, worked with ING to create a research center that would benefit the financial industry. After a nationwide search, V. Kumar was selected to chair the program.

The ING Center now has students who work on real business problems and research, which benefits the students and ING. Kumar enjoys the program and said that it challenges students and demonstrates his research philosophy that, “work is not just theory, it does not stop there, all that you do must be able to be implemented.”

In the four years that Kumar has been with the UConn School of Business, he has published over thirty articles in scholarly journals such as the Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science and Harvard Business Review and has also received numerous awards. Many of the articles are based on actual research and consulting that Kumar has done with leading companies. From helping IBM with Customer Relationship Marketing that ultimately increased revenues ten fold to helping Amoco decide which oil fields to drill, Kumar’s success has given him a drive to make a difference in the business world.

Through mentoring students, publishing articles and leading cutting-edge research projects, Kumar is working to make UConn School of Business one of the most well-respected business schools in the world.

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