This master thesis presents a Model for Evaluating and Managing Interruption Risks in connection with Business Continuity Planning (BCP), developed for Swedwood International. The model consists of a template with instructions. The model should be easily understood and useful for establishing a plan for BCP. This is achieved by including the contents and procedure of BCP and the main supplychain risks in the model. The purpose of a BCP plan is to describe how an enterprise will return to business as usual after an interruption, e.g.

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe small businesses? opinions about the auditor as a business adviser as well as their need for advice, dependent on which stage of the lifecycle model they belong to. This dissertation has a qualitative approach as the authors wanted to gain a deeper understanding about the problem area. As the lifecycle model in this dissertation consist of three stages, the authors have interviewed six small businesses, two in each stage. The interviews were conducted with the owner and took place at the location of the business.

SammanfattningVi har undersökt hur kreditprocessen påverkas ur kredithandläggarens perspektiv, av att det kreditsökande småföretaget använder sig av en extern rådgivare eftersom tidigare forskning tyder på att det blivit svårare för dessa företag ett erhålla finansiering från banker. Ändringen i förmånsrättslagen 2004 är en bidragande faktor till småföretagens prekära situation eftersom det försämrade bankens utdelning vid en eventuell företagskonkurs. När en småföretagares kunskaper inte räcker till, kan en extern rådgivare konsulteras för vägledning i kreditprocessen. Vårt syfte med uppsatsen var att beskriva kredithandläggarnas uppfattning om den externa rådgivarens olika funktioner i kreditprocessen samt att analysera hur kreditprocessen påverkas av att en extern rådgivare agerar i småföretagets intresse. Vi har genom en kvalitativ undersökning och studerat fyra kredithandläggare i fyra olika banker med erfarenhet av vårt ställda problem och fångat deras respektive betraktelser.

Our increasingly globalized world has contributed to that more Swedish companies has expanded their business to more distant areas. One of these Swedish companies that now stands before their first international expansion is the Swedish fast-food chain Max AB. Max has chosen to start their expansion in Saudi Arabia, a country far away from Sweden, not only in terms of geographical distance but also in cultural. The cultural differences that Max will encounter may affect the business and result in to various adaptations that must be done in order to establish successfully. The thesis investigates the existing circumstances for the fastfood business in Saudi Arabia and shows which adaptations international fast-food chains should or must do as a result of the cultural distances they encounter.

The purpose with this report is to highlight the value which Enterprise Architecture (EA) can bring,including the effects that can emerge, for a business. In the report we also study how Enterprise Architecturemay serve as basis for generating even more business value. The study is based on a theoretical frameworkwhich covers the following perspectives; architecture design, strategy development, management of changeand evaluation of IT-investments. Gathering and analysis of empirical data has been performed using acustom-developed model which is based on a model from Sogeti called Dynamic Architecture (van DenBerg and van Steenbergen, 2006) and Innovation Value Institute?s maturity curve (Innovation ValueInstitute, 2008) for Enterprise Architecture management.Explaining the value of Enterprise Architecture is invariably an important topic since many organizationsexpect to be able to generate quick value of the investments made in Enterprise Architecture.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how small organisations within the subject field health and training work with their environmental scanning. The main questions in this thesis are: How do the organisations work with business intelligence/environmental scanning? What is their environment like and of which parts does it consist? How extensive is their work with business intelligence/ environmental scanning? Which are their main fields of application and how is the work compiled practically? In order to answer these questions we have chosen to use a qualitative method, which in our case consists of two interviews with people in managerial positions within the health and training subject field. The result of the two interviews is presented in a compilation, and it is thereafter discussed and analyzed. We used an existing theoretical model and altered it in order to correspond to the aim of this research..

The aim of this study is to examine the Christian community called Plymouth Brethren and how they interpret religion in relation to their entrepreneurship and business practices. The community has a strong faith in God, uses the Bible as the guiding principle in everyday life, and also has the ambition to live together within the group in seclusion from the rest of society.Based on interviews with Plymouth Brethren in the county of Småland, the study describes how they perceive the relationship between the Christian faith and entrepreneurship and practice religion in the context of their family business. As the study illustrates the Christian faith is significantly motivating their enterprises of business and the Bible is their guiding principle even when it comes to how they should run their businesses..

Det blir allt vanligare att företag väljer att använda mobila applikationer för att underlätta beslutstödshanteringen utanför kontoret. Dessa applikationer är så kallade mobilt business intelligence lösningar  som är starka verktyg för att kunna fatta beslut oavsett vart anställda befinner sig. I och med att mobilt business intelligence (MBI) börjar bli allt vanligare bland företag idag så är det väldigt användbart att känna till faktorer som gör det lättare att nå framgång med MBI. Idag finns det väldigt lite forskning kring framgångsfaktorer för att lyckas med MBI lösningar. Därför har denna studie behandlat ett par framgångsfaktorer inom området system innehåll och kvalitet för att ta reda på hur kritiska vissa befintliga faktorer egentligen är för att lyckas med MBI lösningar i dagens företag.Resultatet visade sig att vissa av framgångsfaktorerna så som stöd för interaktiva konferenser var mindre betydelsefulla jämförelse med andra framgångsfaktorer för att nå framgång med MBI.

This report contains a programming improvement work in a LabVIEW? fire testing furnace control system for SP Fire Technology in Borås. Here materials and products behaviour are tested and evaluated, being exposed to fire. For this task, UGNET is being used for control and surveillance of the testing furnace system. System hardware has been updated gradually through the years, while the software has been neglected.

Aim: The reason we made this report were to investigate what companies in Gävle implied was the most important factor for successful sales. The various questions to be answered are: 1. How important is the relationship in B2B? (Business to business) 2. Will VRM change the work with relationships within B2B? 3.

Sweden needs a policy that stimulates economic growth. Year 1996 the Business Reorganization Act (1996:764) came into force. The goal with this law was to savebusiness, make it profitable and avoid unnecessary bankruptcies. Shortly afterwards itturned out that the law had no positive effect. A very few numbers of companies appliedfor reconstruction and the number of applications for bankruptcies continued to increase.In 2004, in order to stabilize the situation and bring about neutrality between twoproceedings, company reorganization and bankruptcy, the government proposed thereform of priority rules.

The purpose with this disertation is to find if there are selected factors which can force companies to grow. We have chosen five factors which we think can force the companies; market, strategy, profitability, demographic and institutional factors. We want to examine if there are differences between small and larger companies, and if there are differences between the lines of business.The intention to growth is also influenced by different factors. The organization and the board have an effect on the development. There are also factors that can obstruct the growth, for example control.

Uppsatsens syfte är att försöka förstå, utifrån existerande teorier och med hjälp av insamlad empiri, vilka parametrar i ett kundperspektiv som är av betydelse vid utvecklingen av en prissättningsförmåga bland business-to-business-företag.Vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ metod vars ansats är av abduktiv karaktär. Den empiriska datan har samlats in genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer vilka har genomförts via personliga möten samt via telefon. Då vi betraktar prissättning som en förmåga, vilken återfinns inom företaget, så utgår det teoretiska ramverket främst från det resursbaserade synsättet vilket styrks av en akademisk artikel som beskriver och förklarar bakgrunden till att prissättning kan ses som en förmåga. Därutöver beskriver vi den vanligaste prissättningsstrategin företag emellan; cost/plus-strategin. Vi argumenterar för att företag bör införa rutiner och skapa en entydig struktur, med särskild fokus på tre områden, för att försäkra kunden om att de erbjuder produkter med kundvärde.

Corporate Social Responsibility is a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns into their core business and in their interaction with stakeholders on a voluntarily basis. The purpose with our thesis is to study how Swedish insurance companies work with Corporate Social Responsibility and to analyse the underlying strategies of the companies? social, environmental and economical activities. We will analyse where, how and for whom value can be created with CSR. Where does the value creation take place, how can it be created through these activities and who will benefit from Corporate Social Responsibility? Theories point out that companies need to assemble and value the total package of benefits to be able to create successful corporate initiatives.

The failure of Structural Adjustment Programs and its neoliberal policies to effectively reduce poverty have led to the creation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) by The World Bank and International Monetary Fund. PRSP, connected to both the Comprehensive Development Strategy and the HIPC initiative, are built on the notion of national ownership and stakeholder participation and thereby expand potential conditionality to include matters of governance. This thesis examines the evolution of PRSP and how the process of participation affects national governance structures. By analyzing the role of rules and norms within the World Bank and IMF from a historical point of view the thesis explains why the participation process has developed the way it has. It concludes that neoliberal norms, still at heart within the World Bank and IMF, have an impact on the process of participation within nation states and thereby its governance structure.