NWU researchers look to stochastic programming for best marketing results

In an economy where every sale counts, North-West University (NWU) researchers have been looking at ways to help retailers improve the decision-making process in their marketing campaigns.

Chanel Bisset and her supervisor Prof Fanie Terblanche, from the Faculty of Engineering in the research field of engineering analytics, recently conducted a study on a stochastic programming approach for marketing campaign optimisation.

According to Bisset, the main focus of this study was linear programming under uncertainty, also referred to as stochastic programming.

“Stochastic programming originated during the 1950s and was later extended into prominent application areas, including energy, production planning and finance,” she explains.

“One research opportunity identified is that retailers require predictive models that can accurately describe customer behaviour and predict future sales to maximise profitability.”

For the study, the two researchers formulated a two-stage model by combining two base models identified from literature.

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