Sridhar Balasubramanian 
Professor of Marketing, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School | UNC-Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC, UNITED STATES
Sridhar Balasubramanian is an award-winning professor of marketing.
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Biography
Sridhar Balasubramanian's teaching and research interests are in marketing and technology strategy, innovation and growth, services design, e-business, customer relationship management, game theory, and the management of competition. He specializes in bringing the tools and concepts of market-focus and customer-focus into other functional areas, including the management of the human resource function.
He has been a keynote speaker at national conferences on the topics of developing a customer- and market-focus, and customer-focused innovation and growth.
Dr. Balasubramanian has been recognized for his pioneering research on how the Internet and mobile channels are reshaping the worlds of business and marketing.
Dr. Balasubramanian works actively with the corporate world. He has conducted executive development programs for and/or consulted with numerous organizations in the U.S., Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.
Before beginning his academic career, he was area sales manager for India’s leading food manufacturing and marketing company. He has advised start-ups and existing firms on issues related to becoming customer focused, the design and implementation of marketing strategy, building creative thinking and innovation skills, and the pursuit of profitable innovation and growth.
Industry Expertise (4)
Education/Learning
Research
Training and Development
IT Services/Consulting
Areas of Expertise (7)
Marketing
Innovation
Marketing Strategies
Human Resource Management
Education and Training
E-Business Consulting
Competitive Strategy
Accomplishments (5)
Former Senior Associate Dean of MBA Programs, UNC Kenan-Flagler (professional)
He served as associate dean of both the full-time MBA Program and the online MBA@UNC program before he was named senior associate dean for all MBA programs at UNC Kenan-Flagler.
Roy & Alice H. Richards Bicentennial Scholar, UNC Kenan-Flagler (professional)
Honored for excellence in research and teaching
Top 50 Business Professors in the World (professional)
Awarded by Poets & Quants for outstanding teaching
Young Scholar, Marketing Science Institute (professional)
Chosen by the Marketing Science Institute to be a part of the Young Scholar's program, which brings together leaders of the next generation of marketing academics
John D.C. Little Award, INFORMS (professional)
Awarded by INFORMS for the Best Marketing Paper in Marketing Science and Management Science
Education (5)
Yale University: Ph.D., Marketing Management 1997
Yale University: Master of Philosophy, Management 1997
Yale University: Master of Arts, Management 1994
Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore: MBA, Business Administration 1991
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur: Bachelor's Degree, Technology 1989
Affiliations (3)
- INFORMS College of Marketing
- American Marketing Association
- The Indus Entrepreneurs
Links (2)
Languages (6)
- English
- Hindi
- Tamil
- French
- Konkani
- Konkani
Media Appearances (6)
World’s Best B-School Professors: Sridhar Balasubramanian
Poets & Quants online
2012-10-22
Poets & Quants profiles Professor Balasubramanian as one of the world's best business school professors.
Social media influencers becoming the norm for advertising
WRAL tv
2019-08-22
"These social media influencers have really become influential, maybe over the last 10 years or so, and their impact is of course growing," said Sridhar Balasubramanian, a marketing professor at UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School. And the reason is simple. We spend less time watching TV and reading magazines these days and more time on social media. That's led companies to shift focus to where the most eyeballs are.
How you know it’s time to leave your first job
USA Today online
2015-07-30
Sridhar Balasubramanian advises workers to consider their career journey as whole before thinking about leaving a job for another one.
Acceptance Rates For The Top 50 U.S. Business Schools
Poets & Quants online
2015-03-26
Professor Balasubramanian attributes the sharp increase in MBA applicants at UNC Kenan-Flagler to the school’s strong career outcomes for graduates, new academic concentrations, and more targeted outreach by admissions.
From grandma's bathtub to Wall Street and back, now her products are in Sephora
Triangle Business Journal
2014-11-05
In order for Briogeo Hair Care to become a well-known brand, Professor Balasubramanian says entrepreneur Nancy Twine should keep in mind two questions: How does the product differentiate itself? And what are the distribution channels?
UNC-Chapel Hill sees higher MBA applications, attributes the increase to branding efforts
Triangle Business Journal online
2015-06-15
The number of applications rolling in to UNC-Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler’s MBA program increased from the previous year by 28 percent, a result of better "storytelling."
Research Grants (2)
Consumer adoption of clean water technology
Procter & Gamble $60,000
P&G supported a field study of consumer adoption of clean water technology in a developing economy. The study covers over 1,000 households in Malawi in Southern Africa, distributed across different pricing and retail conditions. Co-principal investigators include Lisa Jones Christensen of UNC Kenan-Flagler and Enno Siemsen of the (University of Minnesota.
Virtual Investing-Related Communities (VICs) and Online Investing: A Study of Page 6 Adoption, Usage, and Performance and Policy Implications
National Science Foundation $50,000
Co-principal investigators include Prabhudev Konana at the University of Texas at Austin and Balaji Rajagoplan at Oakland University
Articles (3)
The new marketing fundamentals
UNC Kenan-Flagler2015-07-10
Professor Balasubramanian explains how a "modern marketer" must be skilled in both the analytical and creative side of marketing in order to thrive in the business sphere today.
The business of saving lives
UNC Kenan-Flagler2015-04-28
Professor Balasubramanian compares the effectiveness of philanthropic and for-profit business models serving some of the poorest consumers in the world in a longitudinal field study.
Insight into innovation: Why companies must innovate
UNC Kenan-Flagler2013-03-22
Professor Balasubramanian is interviewed on the best ways for an organization to innovate.
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