Taylor Institute Of Direct Marketing: A Groundbreaking Effort In Educating The Next Generation Of Contact Center Management, The

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, May 2005 by Schelmetic, Tracey E

Imagine this scenario: you need to hire several supervisors for your call center. You've promoted from within all you can, so you need to head to the open job market for new candidates. You have several people with call center experience come in, and you notice that one of them has a Bachelor's degree in direct marketing. Wait a minute.. .a Bachelor's degree in direct marketing ?

If it sounds like fantasy, it's not. In fact, the likelihood is becoming greater. In the autumn of 2004, the University of Akron College of Business Administration opened the doors of the Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing. Named for, and in partnership with, Gary Taylor, Chairman of the Board of InfoCision Management Corp., the Institutes goal is to fill the current gap of formally educated direct marketing professionals; essentially, to "elevate direct marketing as a profession and to teach these valuable skills to business students."

Taylor recalled, "I told the university that I was interested in giving back in some way. When they came back to me with this concept, I really liked it." Taylor is an alumnus of the University of Akron; he graduated with a Bachelors degree in business in 1975 and earned his MBA at the university in 1977. The Taylor Institute (called "The Taylor" on campus) has been funded with a $1.5 million gift from Taylor, who has pledged an additional $1 million to develop the forthcoming graduate programs.

Taylor demonstrated his business acumen when he started InfoCision as a home business back in 1982. A visit to the company's Akron, Ohio-based campus reveals that the company today bears little resemblance to the home office business of its early years. It currently boasts more than 2,800 employees at 21 call centers throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It's the third largest privately held teleservices company; further, it ranked at number four in Customer Interaction Solutions' domestic outbound Top 50 ranking, and number 29 on the inbound side. In the Global Aggregate rankings, InfoCision placed at number 14.

The Taylor Institute is an organizational unit of the department of marketing within the College of Business Administration at the University of Akron. It is dedicated to the database marketing areas of direct marketing: telemarketing, e-marketing, interactive television and other types of response marketing. With more than 800 undergraduate majors and more than 100 MBA candidates, the department of marketing offers undergraduate majors, minors and certificate programs in marketing management, e-marketing/advertising, sales management and international business. Located on the fifth floor of the refurbished Polsky building, which was formerly a department store, in downtown Akron, Ohio, the Institute is currently composed of six high-tech direct marketing laboratories, two seminar rooms and an office suite for Dr. Dale Lewison, interim director and professor; and Dr. William Hauser, program coordinator and assistant professor. Upon entering the building, a visitor's first impression is that he or she has wandered into the recently (and expensively) decorated offices of a hightech business. The feeling is professional, slick and conducive to team work, with its break and study areas of clustered tables and workstations.

Dr. Lewison noted, "This is by far the most sophisticated direct marketing institute in the country." (Dr. Lewison is also Marketing Department Chair for the University of Akron.) He added, "It really differentiates our College of Business Administration from other business schools because we will not only offer students direct marketing theories and concepts, but also application and practicum."

A major in e-marketing and advertising from the Institute ensures that students will be highly in demand in today's business environment. The major's study puts equal stress on both academics and hands-on experience, and it fosters creative and practical approaches, as well as problem-solving skills that pure academics alone generally cannot offer. Balance between program design and realworld effectiveness is crucial. As most of us who have been in the business world for a while know, it's not unusual for students to emerge from university full of theory, with little idea of how those theories work or don't work in practice. Students working through the Taylor Institute will gain practical, hands-on experience by serving real clients.

Upon completion, the institute's e-marketing and advertising major will have worked through courses in e-business application development, e-marketing practices, integrated marketing communications, direct interactive marketing, creative marketing, marketing strategy and direct interactive marketing practicum. The student can also choose from electives that include the principles of advertising, specialized writing, professional selling, product and brand management, graphic design, data warehousing/mining, data management, e-business systems integration and marketing research.