Profitable Customer Management

It has become increasingly evident that focusing on shareholder value alone is not a solid basis for long-term success in business ventures. The value for shareholders in terms of returns on their investments comes from the portfolio of customers a company chooses to serve and their success in serving them. To manage customer relationships profitably as valuable assets, achieving the desired long-term returns on investments related to them, businesses need measurement systems that allow them to gauge the value of these customer relationships, also known as customer equity. Furthermore, the value of the different types of customer relationships in the customer portfolio has to become an integral part of strategic analysis and decision-making at the board level.

The objective of the Profitable Customer Management course is to study how businesses can manage their customer relationships as valuable assets in order to increase their value to the company. Students will learn how to measure customer profitability, customer lifetime value, and customer equity, and how to develop strategies for the profitable management of different types of customer relationships. The course will also explore how the adoption of a customer equity perspective changes the role of marketing within the corporation.

This course consists of lectures, reading assignments, class discussions, case studies, individual and group work, presentations, and a final examination. The learning method will be highly interactive and focus predominantly on group work and discussions. The course is especially suitable for Master’s degree students in marketing and management as well as business, but may also be of interest to students with their university studies in finance.

Please direct any questions concerning the content of this course to the coordinator, Mr. Andreas Persson, andreas.persson(at)hanken.fi. Any questions concerning the general arrangements (accommodation, scholarship, etc.) should be addressed to the Summer School's office at summer-school@helsinki.fi.