The manufacturing industry is currently in a short-term downturn while the competition is increasing. The result of this is that companies must find new ways to bring out their products. Traditional competitive strategies, such as low pricing, is not sufficient today as the customer is inquiring something more than just a good product. Higher demands are presented on an accurate, well functional, communication between customer and companies, as this has become an important strategic factor in achieving long-term profitability.The aim of this independent project was to analyze and evaluate the communication process between a company and its sales companies.In order to illustrate this process, a case study was carried out at Alfa Laval, their sales companies and employees at their distribution center in Tumba. In order to see the differences in attitudes between the management, the sales companies and the employees regarding communication and involvement a gap analysis were used.The theoretical part of the study considers theories about business mission, communication, involvement, quality and creating value.The result showed that a smaller gap exists between the sales companies and the management while a slightly larger one exists between the employees and the management.

The aim of this project is to examine the needs and problems that exists amongst homeless people and to develop a solution that will help them in their everyday life. Since the homeless are a relatively large vulnerable group i Sweden, their everyday lives could be made easier in many ways.A clear definition of the target group is put together to create a good starting point. What state and help orginazations do to help the homelss and the society?s view of the homeless is also relevant and has been documented. Four personal stories have been put together to desicribe cases of clear problems existing in everyday life.Several interesting problems has been defined from the research and acceptance in the communtiy, desire to be seen and heard and a lack of confidence were the main needs.

10 years ago the School Library Forum´s core activity started; the development of model libraries. Since then, no comprehensive study of the School Library Forum has been made. How does the organization actually work and how do professionals perceive the changes of the organization? Against this background, the purpose of my essay is to examine the activity of the organization School Library Forum with a focus on organization and learning from the viewpoint of the learning organization. The following issues have been helpful to meet the purpose of the study:? How do the business developer, the principals and the school librarians experience the collaboration on the school-libraries model-library activity?? How does the collaboration contribute to learning within the organization according to the business developer, the principals and the school librarians?? How do the business developer, the principals and the school librarians perceive the changes in the School Library Forum´s organization, seen from the perspective of the learning organization?By conducting five interviews with stakeholders in various positions within the organization, such as business developer, principals and school librarians, a deeper insight into how respondents perceive the business from the perspective of the learning organization is obtained.

Through trading with countries that have a relative aboundant supply of labor, Sweden changes it's effective supply of labor, in a Factor Content perspective. This essay does two Factor Content analyses, one for year 1995 and one for 2000. The first comparison of these analyses shows that Sweden exports about 27 600 labor-years more year 2000 than 1995. However, since Factor Content analysis arguably underestimates the imported labor, some assumptions are made in order to correct for this. This correction has great importance for the final analysis.

Vår uppsats undersöker, om hur möjligheterna för utbyte av information samt samarbete mellan Telecom Citymedlemmarna kan förbättras, med ändamålet att stärka deras konkurrenskraft gentemot externa konkurrenter..

The public sector in Sweden outsources its core business to a very large extent, whileinsisting on running its IT operations internally in a traditional way. IT as a service ingeneral and cloud computing in particular has become incredibly popular in recentyears, offering cost efficiency and greater ability for the business to concentrate on itscore activities, which is why it should be a promising alternative to the traditional wayof running IT internally. To achieve an understanding of why IT as a service has yetto take off in the public sector, a study of its use of IT/IS, what the effect of IT as aservice is, and the opportunities and challenges that cloud computing represents, isnecessary.The study, which was conducted using a qualitative hermeneutic approach, was initiatedby a literature review, followed by six in-depth interviews with five respondents,all of which hold many years of experience in the area. The outcome of the interviewsindicated that IT as a service should represent a promising and feasible way of reachinghigher levels of cost control, and a greater focus on core activities. Furthermore,the results indicated that Swedish legislation along with a high level of businesscomplexitymight be reasons for the low amount of IT as a service in the public sector.Through careful analysis and examination of the business? current situation, as well ascomprehensive knowledge of Swedish legislation with regards to the implications ofLagen om offentlig upphandling, the public sector can avoid IT as a service becomingmore expensive and more complicated than necessary, and achieve cost efficiencyalong with a greater focus on its core activities through it.Future research could examine the possibility of a framework for the integration ofcloud services within the public sector?s IT/IS environment, and whether there is aspecific size of a cloud implementation at which it?s more cost efficient to go withtraditional IT operations..

Value stream mapping is a tool that is frequently used by many different companies. It is a great tool used to achieve the work that follows the theories of lean production. The tool is used, however, only frequent on the factory floor and the method is also designed based on this type of use.An interest of applying the method on administrative parts of the company has occurred lately. Administrative parts of the company refers to the part that does all the planning such as purchasing, receiving orders, customer contact, contact with factory floor and other work that is made around the actual manufacturing. But the knowledge about applying value stream mapping on the planning part of the company is lacking because the method is relatively new.In this work, a comparison is made between the introduction of value stream analysis on production and planning.

Företag letar efter att effektivisera informationsutbytet genom elektronisk handel och fler småföretag väljer att investera i olika lösningar för att erhålla fördelarna med elektronisk handel. Trots nackdelar och barriärer anser de intervjuade småföretagen som har investerat att det är fördelarna som överväger och de är positiva till en fortsatt investering. De avgörande faktorererna när småföretag väljer att investera i elektronisk handel och de erfarenheter och resultat företagen har erhållit genom investeringen har varit en del av syftet i arbetet..

The aim of this study has been to understand how teachers make pupils come up with new business ideas. This is relevant as the schools in Sweden has to have entrepreneurial teaching in their education. To get an understanding of how teachers teach the pupils how to think differently so that new business ideas can evolve the study is based on interviews with five successful teachers. The teachers have all had pupils that during one year have had their own almost real companies that they have to manage. They start with inventing a new business idea and then they produce the product or service they decided to sell.

Intelligence is an elusive concept with strong links to business intelligence , in which organizations have recently more and more have incorporated the use of IT (Information Technology). A research carried out recently have identified the importance of effective monitoring, but there are few studies showing how organizations actually work in the field.A qualitative study consisting of the interviews with employees at an IT company was done to see how external monitoring is carried out in practice, in a specific company and how it would help the company to develop. The company we visited did not work with special procedures of any kind regarding external monitoring but still knew about the term and its meaning.The conclusion account for detected patterns as well as difficulties, including the definition of external monitoring which differs a lot between individuals. The patterns discovered points to the importance of clarity and objectives regarding the use of external monitoring for it to be effective and measurable.Keywords: External monitoring, Business Intelligence, Competitive Intelligence..

Businesses role in society is changing. Corporations are expected to take responsibility, not only for their traditional business conduct, but also for social and political issues. A rise in globalization and international trade has led to an increased interest in the concept of CSR. Accordingly, stakeholders are expecting multinational companies to be accountable for existing issues in developing countries. New business models are needed to meet increased expectations of responsibility and shared value creation. Based on an understanding of the need for new business models a multinational corporation is studied in a local context, where a radically new way of doing business is developed.

One of the main objectives of all food production is to produce foods that can safely beconsumed without fear of being sick. Despite this hundreds of people are affected in Sweden offood poisoning almost every day. Most cases are caused by a small group of so-called pathogenicmicroorganisms. The most frequently affected are the small children, the elderly, persons withreduced resistance and pregnant. The reasons behind the food poisoning are often ignorance andlack of food hygiene.

Growth of small businesses is vital to the Swedish economy, and many entrepreneurs want their enterprises to grow. However, the business climate of today is more changing than ever, and attributes becoming increasingly important for companies in order to deal with this are flexibility, speed, and adaptability: characteristics normally attributed to small enterprises. As a larger organization often is associated with more rigidity as a consequence of a higher degree of formalization, entrepreneurs are hesitant to seize growth opportunities, as they fear it will have negative impact on the aforementioned competitive advantages their enterprise possesses as a small business. This simple case study of a growing small enterprise investigates the effects of organizational growth on a small business' organizational structure and through its above mentioned advantages. The study finds that avoiding formalization while growing damages the competitiveness of the firm, and concludes that a degree of formalization is a necessity to maintain the flexibility, speed and adaptability in a growing small business..

Beslut innebär att välja mellan olika alternativa handlingar för att uppnå de angivna målen. För att underlätta beslutsfattande finns det ett antal olika stödsystem som tar fram underlag till besluten. Vi är intresserade av att se hur dessa understödjer strategiskt beslutsfattande och till vilka typer av beslut som de används.Uppsatsens syfte är att granska beslutsstöds betydelse och hur beslutsstöd kan underlätta organisationens verksamhet och dess beslutsprocesser. Vi vill skapa en bakomliggande förståelse om beslutstöds användbarhet och huruvida beslutsstöd används, samt i vilken utsträckning. Vi vill även undersöka de nackdelar som skapas i och med användandet av beslutsstöd.Studien visar att användning av Business Intelligence effektiviserar beslutsprocessen och möjliggör för ett ökat proaktivt agerande.

LRF Konsult is a big consulting-firm with offices located all over Sweden. The corporation offers a wide range of services and a lot of the customers are small businesses active within the green sector. An analysis of the corporation made in 2006 showed that one of LRF Konsults weaknesses is that many customers are unaware of the wide range of services that LRF Konsult offers. The internal communication is believed to play a big role in marketing these services. Therefor, the objective of this thesis has been to investigate why the transfer of customers between accounting consultants and business advisors is not greater and how this can be improved.