Thursday, October 22, 2009

Too little of Quant?

Janta,

Got this feedback from a casual conversation. "Too many definitions and too little Quant."

Let me reassure you, it won't be like this throughout. The last 2 weeks, after your SPSS licenses go live, will be quite, quite quantitative.

Also, am reminded of an old jungle saying "Be careful, what you wish for."

This course is about getting things done right. Quant skills are seductively easy to tap into and hype around. But lets be clear about what quant can do - it can only increase your efficiency, i.e. your ability to doing things better, faster etc.

The reason why I stress definitions and the qualitative/contextual complexity of problem formulation so much is the second, perhaps more important aspect of MKTR - effectiveness. Doing the right thing. Tougher call, IMO.

So yup, The Quant you will see in this course will not be about quant for its own sake but only as a prop, a means to doing the right thing. Baki sab secondary hai.

Queries and comments welcome.

Sudhir

1 comment:

  1. Well, I received this rather interesting email regarding this topic. Might as well put it up since there are no other comments anyway.

    "Hi Sudhir,

    Just wanted to let you know that the way you have structured the course currently, in my opinion, is great. I think quant for the sake of quant doesn’t serve any purpose. I think a lot of us who intend majoring in marketing have taken the course to enable us to take better marketing decisions while at our jobs. We will not be doing data modelling or other financial engineering. I think practical concepts, including some quant which aids understanding solutions to real world problems is what I was hoping from the course. And I’m happy with the way the course is progressing. I’m confident your survey on the blog will validate this.

    cheers
    xyz"

    The bog poll seems to kinda validate the above conjecture. Its still early days yet. There's 260 ppl and only <70 votes so far. With what precision and what confidence can I estimate the true mean in the popn, anyone??

    ReplyDelete

Constructive feedback appreciated. Please try to be civil, as far as feasible. Thanks.