Practice Prize Report: The 2016 ISMS Gary Lilien Practice Prize Competition

<jats:p> This report describes entrants in the 2016 ISMS Gary Lilien Marketing Science Practice Prize Competition, representing the best examples of rigor plus relevance that our profession produces. The winner, describing a collaboration between the World Bank and a team based at the London Business School, involved a randomized control experiment to calibrate the relative effectiveness of business training on business performance of microentrepreneurs in South Africa. The other four finalists include a method to estimate the value of key word searches that allowed for cannibalization of organic search at eBay; a methodology to model and manage customer satisfaction at the National Dutch Railways; a stock-carrying algorithm to assist a fashion department store manage inventory on a store-by-store basis, implemented by Celect, an inventory-management consultant based in Boston; and an integrated marketing communications-optimization tool used by Mercedes-Benz to increase advertising effectiveness. </jats:p>