Professor Martin Prause
Professor of Computational Economics and Business Analytics
Contact:
+49 (0)261 6509 273
martin.prause[at]whu.edu
Research Focus
Traditionally, business strategy dictates IT strategy. Nowadays, this top-down approach has been disrupted by data-driven methods such as descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics. These data-driven approaches summarized as Business Analytics, shape business models, and organizations from the bottom.
Big Data in conjunction with Machine Learning Algorithms are revamping entire industries. In particularly automated self-learning and economic reasoning advances the decision-making processes in business management. It provides a toolbox to test innovative ideas and strategic market interaction within the scope of predictive and prescriptive analytics.
Martin’s research focus combines two fields: (1) Computer Science (Computational Intelligence) and (2) Economics (Industrial Organization), and he is approaching the topic of Machine Learning in Business Management from three angles:
- Modelling imperfect markets using either Discrete Event Simulation, System Dynamics or Agent-based models for business simulations and business war games.
- Developing computational intelligence-based agents pursuing supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning for decision-making in business management.
Studying the organizational determinants for creating business value from Machine Learning and analyzing its implications.
Short Biography
Martin received his Ph.D. in Economics from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in December 2014. He has been involved in numerous lecturer and teaching assistant positions during his Ph.D. and as a post-doctoral researcher in 2015. Martin received two visiting research scholarships (India 2013, Japan 2015), the best Ph.D. award from Infosys/India in 2013 and the best student paper award from the Association for Business Simulation and Experimental Learning in 2014. From 2012 to 2014 he has been involved in joint research projects with the London School of Economics and Google Inc. in the Google Summer of Code Program. Before he started his doctoral studies, he received his MBA from WHU, was the CIO of a fashion wholesaler for three years and graduated from the TU Dortmund with a Diploma in Computer Science.