Consulting
Prof. Urban is available for consulting on new product forecasting, information acceleration, growth strategy, Internet site design, trust based marketing, virtual advisors, customer advocacy, morphing communications to fit individual cognitive styles, and national strategies for innovation in developing economies.
- Marketing Strategy: especially trust and customer advocacy, building consideration, CRM.
- Site Design: trust cues, virtual advisors, and morphing to fit customer cognitive and cultural style.
- New Products: pre-market forecasting, Information Acceleration, and Listening In for unmet customer needs.
- Marketing and Technology: Combining marketing and technology, technology/marketing interface in developing economies.
- Business Schools: Founding strategies, management, and research center formation.
Entrepreneurship
With two other researchers, Urban founded Management Decision Systems, Inc., a marketing consulting firm that merged with Information Resources, Inc. In 1985, he also co-founded Management Science for Health and its spin-off John Snow, Inc., both consulting firms specializing in international health care and family planning that have grown to several thousand employees worldwide. In addition, he co-founded Marketing Technology Interface, Inc., a company that uses multimedia computing to support strategic new product design, which merged in 1993 with Mercer Management, a consulting firm. In 1998, he co-founded InSite Marketing Technology, a software firm for trust based marketing on the Internet (sold to Silknet/Kana in October 1999). His newest firm is called Experion Systems and was founded in December 1999 and sells trusted advisor software in the financial and health industry.
