Constant Berkhout: the new Managing Director of the Customer Insights Center of the University of Groningen (RUGCIC)

As of the first of September, drs. Constant Berkhout is the new Managing Director of the Customer Insights Center (RUGCIC) at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen. He will succeed Jelle Bouma who started as the Director of the University of Groningen Business School (UGBS) since the first of January. Berkhout will work closely together with prof. dr. Jaap Wieringa, professor Research Methods in Business Administration and Research Director of RUGCIC.

Berkhout will be a part of the Marketing department of the Faculty of the Faculty of Economics and Business, which is led by prof. dr. Tammo Bijmolt. “By appointing Constant, we have found an adept and experienced successor of Jelle, who built the RUGCIC successfully with Jaap in the past ten years. In the current era, in which people are insecure about what is going to happen, it is crucial to translate all available customer insights to practice. We are convinced that RUGCIC could play a crucial role for both companies and the public sector.”

In the past few years, Berkhout led his own consultancy company Rijnberg Advies within the area of retail strategy, data analytics and shopper marketing. Prior to that he worked in commercial roles and in the area of strategy and innovation at Ahold Delhaize, P&G and PepsiCo, both in the Netherlands and internationally. As renowned retail expert, he wrote two retail marketing books and he publishes regularly in trade magazines. Berkhout obtained his Master of Science Cum Laude at the University of Groningen.

Berkhout: “The available amount of data keeps growing every day but the challenge is often to convert these into insights that make a difference for practitioners. As a result of the application of new technologies more value can be extracted from the data and increasingly on an individual customer level. RUGCIC is the best place to start to work on this: At RUGCIC there is a team of academics who conduct research on a high quality level and who share their insights on customer behavior passionately. The insights generated by RUGCIC could be applied immediately by organizations and form a nice start of hypotheses in regard of their customers, yet the researchers benefit from having data and examples from businesses.”

About RUGCIC

RUGCIC delivers academic expertise to companies in order to achieve successful marketing strategies. RUGCIC shares the newest, most relevant scientific insights and practical applications to its members.

RUGCIC is a part of the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen and was founded by prof. dr. Peter Verhoef in 2007. About 40 researchers of the Customer Insights Center translate the newest scientific insights in the areas of marketing, customers and customer behavior into usable reports, workshops, studies and seminars. Benefits for the members are solid customer and marketing knowledge, a strong network of professionals for customer insights sharing, the latest scientific insights through reports and seminars, customized marketing education and introductions with almost or just graduated top students.

Currently, there are companies in different industries who make use of the expertise of the RUGCIC. Among them are Achmea, Ahold Delhaize, Centraal Beheer, Eneco, NS, VodafoneZiggo and Wehkamp. More information about RUGCIC is available on: www.rug.nl/cic

More information or interest in membership RUGCIC?

• prof. dr. Jaap Wieringa, phone 050 – 36 37093, email: j.e.wieringa@rug.nl
• drs. Constant Berkhout, phone 050 – 36 333686, email: cic@rug.nl
• RUGCIC website: www.rug.nl/cic