CERS (Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management) is a research and competence centre at the

Hanken School of Economics Hanken School of Economics (Swedish: ''Svenska handelshögskolan,'' also known as Hanken) is a business school in Finland with two locations, Helsinki and Vaasa. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest business school in Finland, and one of the oldest i ...

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. The centre operates in conjunction with the department of marketing, and specialises in research on

service management Service management in the manufacturing context, is integrated into supply chain management as the intersection between the actual sales and the customer point of view. The aim of high-performance service management is to optimize the service- ...

and

relationship marketing Relationship marketing is a form of marketing developed from direct response marketing campaigns that emphasizes customer retention and satisfaction rather than sales transactions. It differentiates from other forms of marketing in that it re ...

. There are currently about 50 senior researchers and doctoral students associated to CERS.

History

CERS was founded in 1994 by professor

Christian Grönroos Christian Grönroos (born 16 January 1947) is a Finnish academic focused on service and relationship marketing. His research interest is to "develop marketing based on a service logic: promise management and marketing; transforming manufacturing in ...

and set up in cooperation with professors Martin Lindell, Sören Kock, Tore Strandvik and Kaj Storbacka. The centre was founded to do frontline academic research on relationship marketing and service management and to uphold the research traditions of the Nordic School of marketing.

Activity

33 doctoral theses have been defended and published at CERS, along with a number of academic articles. According to the Finnish Journal of Business Economics (1/2007),Björkman, Ingmar and Björk, Bo-Christer (2007). �
Estimating the Research Impact of Finnish Business Studies Professors
”, ''Finnish Journal of Business Economics'', 1 CERS founder

is the most cited business professor in Finland, with CERS professors Veronica Liljander and Tore Strandvik among the top 15. CERS maintains an active co-operation with the business community and arranges workshops for its partner companies. It also organizes the annual CERS Award competition for excellence in relationship marketing.

References

{{reflist

External links

Hanken
- Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration
CERS
- Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management

Education in Helsinki Research institutes