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Our business engagement –

Bridging the gap between business and academia.

The Chair of Strategy and Marketing fosters a close exchange with corporate partners to enable the transfer of know-how between the scientific and business worlds. Our business projects address questions of current relevance to managers and our research findings offer an independent and scientifically substantiated prespective.

We use various channels to conduct a mutually beneficial dialogue with practitioners:

  • Integrating guest speakers and real life cases in our lectures.
  • Implementing joint research and business projects with cooperation partners.
  • Strategic advising by Professor Dr. Fassnacht.
  • Customizing company programs for executive development.

Connecting science and business – Dialogue, solutions, and knowledge transfer

A close exchange between science and business is a key cornerstone of the strategic orientation of the Chair of Strategy and Marketing. We aim to maximize the potential of our research by making our scientific insights available for use in business.

We offer the following services for companies:

  • Workshops
  • Lectures
  • Consulting
  • Cooperation projects

All events are conducted by Professor Dr. Fassnacht and are tailored to the specific questions and individual needs of the company. In line with the research focus of the Chair, we have specialist knowledge in the following fields:

  • Price management
  • Brand management
  • Retail marketing and omnichannel business

Professor Fassnacht and his team are particularly characterized by a close connection between empirically conducted science and business. In order to meet the increasing demand of businesses for strategic recommendations against the background of the challenges of the digitization, we provide scientific advice on request. Please feel free to contact us to discuss possible individual solutions for your problem.

Sample Cooperation BMW
Type of Cooperation: Doctoral Thesis Cooperation

Doctoral Student: Jonas Schütz

Project Description: The ongoing process of digitalization revolutionized the international retail market. Although, the number of online purchases significantly increases and huge online retailers like e.g. Amazon are incredibly successful, the car industry is rather stunted. Cars are still sold offline by authorized dealers, who are relatively free in their scope of action, e.g. in terms of price setting, marketing, etc. Hence, in case OEMs want to implement a standardized online sales platform they have to serve both parties interests. Additionally, the emergence of price comparison 17 platforms like for example TRUECar.com drastically increased the price transparency on the market. Therefore, OEMs and their dealers feel powerless to resist this perceived growing price pressure. The dealers barely succeed to assert the MRSPs, which the OEMs set, and therefore frequently grant large discounts. This circumstances often ends in a downward spiral of prices and thereby endangers the positioning of especially premium and luxury car manufacturers. The dissertation of Jonas Schütz is going to focus on the premium sector.

In order to ensure an OEM's premium position it needs to create and communicate value to its customers, because value is the only instrument to differentiate from those platforms which have the cheapest price as their USP. 

The Chair of Marketing und Commerce strives to address issues that are relevant in a business contex. We encourage doctoral students to conduct expert-interviews in the early stages of their thesis to guarantee the relevance of their research questions. We also cooperate closely with our corporate partners for collecting data.

We are in regular contact with the following companies, among others:

Consumer Goods
  • Douglas
  • SHISEIDO
  • Hugo Boss
  • Henkel
  • L’Oréal
  • Vorwerk
  • Adidas AG
  • Grohe
Automotive
  • Audi AG
  • Porsche
  • Mercedes-AMG
  • Mercedes-Maybach
  • Brabus GmbH
Consulting
  • Simon, Kucher & Partners
  • Bain & Company
  • A.T. Kearney
Commerce
  • Breuninger GmbH & Co.
  • Amazon
  • Metro AG
  • Real
  • Montblanc International GmbH
Technology/Internet
  • Facebook/Meta
  • Esome

Guest lectures and real life cases – Staying relevant, keeping current

We encourage an active exchange with the business world which is not only an essential basis for our high-impact research but also contributes to the excellence of our teaching.

Corporate guest speakers make a valuable contribution to achieving this. If you are interested in giving a guest lecture, please get in touch with us.

We ensure that our teaching is relevant to business by working on so called "real life cases“. Students find solutions to current issues facing companies, creating a win-win situation for both the students and our partner companies. Students have the opportunity to apply newly-learned theories, concepts, and methods in developing the case and subsequently present their solutions to management. Our current partners are Porsche, Henkel, L'Oréal Luxe, Grohe, Weber, and Vorwerk.

Guest Lectures & Real Life Cases

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Vildan Önpeker-Cerci
CVP SMU Europe & Sustainability
Henkel Beauty Care
Title: "The Sustainability Challenge"
Lecture: Marketing Core Course, Full-Time MBA
Date: Tuesday, 02.11.2021
Douglas Real Life Case (February 2020)
"What is the next big thing not to miss?" with Douglas

In this case, the students analyze what can Douglas do to ensure that stores remain relevant to its customers and develop a communication strategy for Douglas Collection.
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Speeches of Professor Dr. Martin Fassnacht –
Sharing marketing insights

Professor Dr. Martin Fassnacht gives speeches focussing on aspects of his research. His speeches show how scientific insights can be applied to corporate marketing today.

Fostering successful collaborations between academia and business

The CMM, Center for Market-Oriented Corporate Management, addresses the growing need for companies to be more market oriented as they face increasingly intensive competition and marginal market growth rates.

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