Strategic partner engagement at the Haaga-Helia Porvoo Campus
Pikaro, Tineke (2019)
2019
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201905057672
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201905057672
Tiivistelmä
The objective of this study is to identify strategies to develop long-term partnerships be-tween the Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences Porvoo Campus and local business-es.
The commissioning organization is the Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences and the focus of this study has been developed with the Sales & Marketing (SaMPo) team in Porvoo. To develop the curriculum and to remain innovative in the way students learn at the campus, the development of long-term relationships with businesses is essential.
The main intention is to understand how to engage business partners in a more strategic way in the SaMPo team.
The literature review focuses on Business Relationship Management (BRM), specifically between academia and businesses. The theoretical foundation of the thesis looks at the definition of partnerships and uses this to extrapolate best practices when building new partnership strategies. To support this, the conceptual framework of this study investigates how to build successful strategic alliances and what models would work best for SaMPo.
The study was carried out in the form of an action research, conducted in a positivism par-adigm, though it includes characteristics of interpretivism as well.
The study follows a qualitative approach with small samples and in-depth investigations. The data was collected through interviews and a literature review.
The findings revealed a broad variety of development ideas, highly focusing on marketing activities. This includes creating marketing materials, a web presence and online platform and a partnership vision and mission.
The results also suggested that SaMPo would benefit from a clearly defined partnership agreement, as well as a dedicated BRM Manager. In addition, the study suggests future projects for students that resulted from this research and the conducted interviews with ex-isting partners.
In conclusion, various ideas have been presented in this study, to answer the main research question on how to develop long-term partnerships between SaMPo and local businesses. The main idea that was presented to SaMPo was to assign a team member or a new hire to the role of BRM manager. That person would act as the middle-man between the team and the partners, focusing entirely on finding, building and maintaining partnerships; allowing teachers to dedicate their time fully to their teaching responsibilities.
The commissioning organization is the Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences and the focus of this study has been developed with the Sales & Marketing (SaMPo) team in Porvoo. To develop the curriculum and to remain innovative in the way students learn at the campus, the development of long-term relationships with businesses is essential.
The main intention is to understand how to engage business partners in a more strategic way in the SaMPo team.
The literature review focuses on Business Relationship Management (BRM), specifically between academia and businesses. The theoretical foundation of the thesis looks at the definition of partnerships and uses this to extrapolate best practices when building new partnership strategies. To support this, the conceptual framework of this study investigates how to build successful strategic alliances and what models would work best for SaMPo.
The study was carried out in the form of an action research, conducted in a positivism par-adigm, though it includes characteristics of interpretivism as well.
The study follows a qualitative approach with small samples and in-depth investigations. The data was collected through interviews and a literature review.
The findings revealed a broad variety of development ideas, highly focusing on marketing activities. This includes creating marketing materials, a web presence and online platform and a partnership vision and mission.
The results also suggested that SaMPo would benefit from a clearly defined partnership agreement, as well as a dedicated BRM Manager. In addition, the study suggests future projects for students that resulted from this research and the conducted interviews with ex-isting partners.
In conclusion, various ideas have been presented in this study, to answer the main research question on how to develop long-term partnerships between SaMPo and local businesses. The main idea that was presented to SaMPo was to assign a team member or a new hire to the role of BRM manager. That person would act as the middle-man between the team and the partners, focusing entirely on finding, building and maintaining partnerships; allowing teachers to dedicate their time fully to their teaching responsibilities.