McMASTER UNIVERSITY STATISTICS SEMINAR

Week of March 19 - 23, 2001

SPEAKER:

Joseph Farruggia
ACNielsen Canada

TITLE:

"Statistics and Beyond!"

DAY:

Wednesday, March 21, 2001

TIME:

3:30 p.m. [Tea & cookies in BSB-202 at 3:00 p.m.]

PLACE:

BSB-108

SUMMARY

How do companies measure the success of their products? How do they track and monitor their sales? Who are their main competitors? Which products respond better to trade promotion, consumer promotion or media? All these issues are critical to a company's success. ACNielsen provides companies in the consumer packaged goods, durable goods, pharmaceutical, and entertainment industries answers to these questions. In the Modeling and Analytics Department, specialists work as partners in client businesses, drawing on Retail, Consumer Panel, Media, customized Research and other data to provide actionable answers to a broad range of business challenges. A full range of analytical approaches are used, from straight forward analytical reports to sophisticated modeling techniques. Today's talk will describe how our data is collected and how we use it to develop statistical models.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Mr. Joseph Farruggia obtained his Honours B.Sc in Statistics in 1997, and his M.Sc in Statistics in 1999 from McMaster University. During his graduate studies, he received an industrial internship at Dofasco Incorporated in Hamilton. He worked in the Process Automation Department identifying improvement opportunities in the hot rolling process of steel. After his internship, he joined ACNielsen, U.S.A in Chicago as an Analyst servicing Kraft Foods. He recently joined ACNielsen, Canada as a statistician in their Markham office. He specializes in marketing mix modeling, pricing, and promotion modeling for the consumer packages goods industry.

REFERENCES

The references below, suggested by the speaker as useful background for this talk, have been placed on reserve at Thode Library (STATS 770: Statistics Seminar).


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