Stakeholder interaction

Customers

Our customers are Finnish universities outside the Greater Helsinki region, higher education institutes, businesses and public corporations operating on our campuses, and the users of their premises.

Universities and higher education institutes are increasing their spatial efficiency, which has freed up premises for non-university users. This has led to an expansion of SYK’s customer base. This trend will continue in the coming years.

Customer relationship management is part of SYK’s operations and a strategically significant function. It is aimed at ensuring that we correctly understand the campus and spatial needs of each customer, and that the customers have access to a campus, premises and services that meet their needs.

Responsibility to the customer particularly concerns always maintaining the premises in an appropriate condition, and developing the premises in response to our customers’ changing needs. SYK supports the success of its customers by developing its properties into attractive campuses.

We survey our customers’ satisfaction with our operations annually. In the customer survey conducted in late 2016, the respondents awarded the company the average score of 3.6 on a scale of 1–5. Some 25 per cent of the respondents indicated that SYK’s operations have improved over the past six months, while 95 per cent consider the company’s role in campus development to be very important or quite important.

Owners

SYK is owned by the ten Finnish universities outside the Greater Helsinki region (University of Eastern Finland, University of Jyväskylä, University of Oulu, University of Lapland, University of Tampere, University of Turku, University of Vaasa, Åbo Akademi University, Lappeenranta University of Technology and Tampere University of Technology) and the Finnish government, represented by Senate Properties Ltd.

The owners exercise control over the company at General Meetings and elect the members of the Board of Directors. The owners are influential organisations in their respective regions, giving University Properties of Finland Ltd significant regional influence. In addition to being SYK’s owners, the universities are its customers, which means that communication between the company and the universities is very active.