“I share with you, the reader, a part of my journey as I am working on one conceptual paper for my PhD related to customers and ecosystems. This article is also on the meaning of words, especially high-mileage words that we frequently take for granted.”

You often hear people criticize scientific articles saying that they rarely address genuinely managerially relevant and topical issues let alone offer recommendations for how to deal with these.

The Finnish marketing research has evolved from serving the general goal of informing international audiences about the development of Finland, its economy, consumers, and companies.

To the extent that the Covid-19 pandemic may change certain fundamental patterns of consumer behaviour, companies must carefully consider how to adjust their market strategies and tactics accordingly.

We will move from the dominant message logic to a revised logic of learning.

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the role of customers in business. It has become dramatically clear to many that without customers there is no business. Now when everything is upside down it is timely and relevant to reflect on this old but fundamental issue. Not that managers would not know it, in principle.

All of us have heard this several times: robots and artificial intelligence (AI) will replace many of us, and this also goes for service employees who used to have face-to-face interaction with customers.

"Stockmann's is always Stockmann's" was the famous department store slogan in the 1950s. New research shows that Stockmann’s introduced marketing thought in Finland even before marketing was established as an own discipline.

The research centre CERS, Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management at Hanken in Helsinki, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

Solving real-life business problems in cooperation with Finnish companies is a real win-win for both the students and their company collaborators.