Learning service design in theory and practice

Oulu Business School’s department of Marketing, Management and International Business organised a summer course on service design for the first time in summer 2018. The course received an enthusiastic reception from students as well as from service design experts. Since then, the course has been permanent part of master's students' course catalogue.

“There is a huge demand for service design courses,” said Kristiina Nurmenniemi, a service design expert and one of the course instructors of the first summer course in 2018. “Companies are investing more and more in service design in order to improve their customer experience and this trend is here to stay.”

During the course, students familiarise themselves with academic research as well as with practical examples of design thinking and service design, with the help of experts. In addition, they conduct service design projects for case companies.

Real-life company cases

In summer 2018, one of the companies was OTP Travel, for which Oulu Business School's students Sonja Madetoja and Laura Himanka planned and implemented a new service concept - a winter adventure for international students.

“On the way back to Oulu after the first trip, we looked at each other in disbelief. Countless hours of work, meetings, planning, marketing and so on had finally paid off when we took 65 international students to spend a winter weekend in the beautiful scenery of Syöte in collaboration with OTP Travel.

Our service concept is based on customisation and ease. The price of the trip includes bus transportation and accommodation. In addition, participants can pick activities such as a visit to a husky farm or a cooking class in a Laplander’s hut, to customize the trip according to their tastes.

The weekend exceeded our expectations and the most important feedback was the joy of the participants and the numerous thanks we received. We have many new ideas and development areas in mind for the upcoming trips.

The project was a valuable learning experience as we were able to create a brand from the beginning and to test the concept in practice. In our opinion, this was an excellent example of what university-company collaboration can be at its best,” Sonja and Laura describe.

The course Service Design Project is organised next time on 14 March – 11 May, 2022. See the course description on study guide, and register by 11 March.