Title:   Controlling Mälarenergi by Balanced Scorecard Seminar date:  2009-01-16 Institution:   School of Sustainable Development of Society and Technology Course:   Bachelor thesis 15hp Authors:   Camilla Nilsson, Amanda Agestav Advisor:   Ulla Pettersson The main issues:                What does Mälarenergi's Balanced Scorecard look like? Which Balanced Scorecard perspectives are important to Mälarenergi? Is Balanced Scorecard a purposeful control model in order for the group management to fulfil the aims of the owners' directives? Purpose:                            The purpose is to find out how the group management at Mälarenergi works with Balanced Scorecard. Is Balanced Scorecard a purposeful tool for the group management to fulfill the aims of the owners' directives? Method:                             This study is based on a qualitative research method in the form of interviews. We have interviewed one respondent.

Background: Increasing globalization makes companies more influenced than before by actors and factors in their environment. For some this has lead to a more dynamic and complicated business context. Therefore it is of strategic importance to understand what is currently going on as well as to have a general idea of what the future brings. Purpose: To contribute to a deeper understanding of how a corporate management can perceive its business environment and how it affects he gathering of business information from a strategic perspective. Realisation: In-depth interviews were conducted with all four members of the management in the studied company, Volvo Competence Center in Skovde, Sweden.

Business plan competitions have long been used as a mean for entrepreneurial organizations and Universities to educate students in entrepreneurship. But what's in it for the entrepreneur This thesis aim is to understand what utility business plan competitions have for the participating entrepreneurs. It consists of interviews with Swedish entrepreneurs at various stages in the entrepreneurial process, who has participated in business plan competitions to get ahead. The conclusions of the study are that business plan competitions are good for the entrepreneur from a motivational and developmental perspective but not from a financial perspective..

Bakgrund: Vår utgångspunkt i uppsatsen är att produktskillnaderna blir allt mindre och det emotionella värdets betydelse blir allt större. I och med detta får varumärket en allt större betydelse även inom business-to-business. Syfte: Vi avser att undersöka ICA Menyföretagens identitet samt vad dess varumärke står för. Dessutom vill se hur användbara de modeller vi använt är i business-to-business-relationer samt utforma en egen modell som förklarar hur märkeslojalitet uppnås i en sådan relation. Avgränsningar: Vi kommer endast att beröra så kallad business-to-business samt varumärkets emotionella värde.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how key performance indicators are being used as performance management tools within the production industry. Specifically the purpose is to investigate how the KPI:s within the telecommunications industry drives reusability regarding production test systems. This thesis will also highlight today?s cost models and suggest improvements of the KPI and what new ones could be introduced. A case study at Ericsson AB has been performed.

The market of today consist of products/services who resemble each other, the differences are small. Their for it?s necessary for the companies to provide added values to the product so it will stand out from the rest of the products and lead to purchase. A well used strategy in the fashion industry is marketing with celebrities, this is considered successful because it brings attention and strengthening to the brand. Because of this, the strategy also branch out to other industries, but the question is if it?s as successful there? There?s also a serious down-side with the strategy and that is that there?s a great risk with using celebrities.

The purpose of this study explains the relationship between corporate governance and the auditor's role in Swedish family firms with the definitions micro, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and how this relationship is affected by the firms strategy. The study is based on a survey sent out to 3000 Swedish SMEs, of which 280 responses from family firms could be used. Our findings showed that the auditor in the family firms didn?t have a specific role or contributed added value to the firm, and that the strategy didn?t affect the outcome. Furthermore, we found correlation between the perceptions of the auditor's role and added value depending on the family firms type of corporate governance.

Aim: A business ratio is a measuring instrument that companies use in their financial report to show profit and progress. As it is today, there are no standards to follow that shows which business ratio to present in a companies annual report. Our aim with this report is to see if there are any trends in the use of business ratios by looking into how thirty growth companies are applying them.Method: To see what business ratios are used in practice, we have collected information from the thirty companies? annual reports. With help from the literature, we have created an understanding about the most frequently used business ratios.

This essay describes some factors that may effect small business survival in relation to becoming a supplier for bigger companies that may implement the use of EDI for electronic invoicing.The purpose of this study is to analyse and evaluate what impact may occur during the introduction of EDI between small and big business.Following on from the introduction of methods used in this study there will be a complete analysis made detailing results.From our research we have found that most small business have developed a professional working relationship between themselves and their clients.The adoption of EDI by big business has revolutionised the day to day dealings between both supplier and consumer in that EDI has empowered both chains to collaborate data in real time.In conclusion our research illustrates that in order for small business to survive the must implement EDI. The results of our study have shown that the introduction of EDI to both small and big business has had a positive outcome..

Corporate governance intensified due to the corporate scandals in the USA which led to a new law the so called Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).In 2005 the "Svensk kod för bolagsstyrning" (The Code) was introduced. The main purpose of The Code is to strengthen the confidence in Swedish companies quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The Code focuses on the working process of boards. The rules set by The Code places higher demands on the board.  Among many other duties the board has to establish long term operational goals and strategy.

Nystartade mjukvaruföretag som står i begrepp att lansera en B2B-mjukvara på internet har speciella förutsättningar då företagets främsta tillgång ? mjukvarukonceptet ? lätt kan återskapas av andra aktörer och därmed begränsa möjligheterna till värdeskapande. Konkurrensövertaget är lättförgängligt, vilket kräver ett grundligt strategiskt förarbete. Syftet med examensarbetet är att utreda hur Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) då kan användas för att hitta ny lönsam målgrupp och alternativ strategisk ansats. Bakgrundsmaterial samlades in från strategimöten hos intressenten och dess affärskontakter.

Background: Today, the trademark is the heart of the company and the management of brandimage and identity require certain attention and care. In an increasingly tough business climatewhere the brand today has a central and important role, it is understandable that the companieswant to take maximum advantage of it. In the company the brand is a great resource with analready known identity and established values that can help new products to enter the market. Toextend the brand is a popular growth strategy but it is important to do it properly in order not tofail. J Lindeberg and Peak Performance are two Swedish fashion companies which both havemade brand extensions.

This report intends to analyze the difference between the original rules and a modification of the rules for the Scandinavian version of the world famous dice game yatzy (yahtzee). Several works are made previously existing strategies for yatzy and Yahtzee.The study was conducted using the optimal strategy calculated and implemented in the programming language Java. The execution of the application to create the file containing the optimal strategy was running on leased powerful servers from Amazon and took just over six hours each.A simulated player played 100,000 games based on the strategy, to obtain data which then was used to plot graphs and analyze the expected score and its standard deviation. The expected value (mean) and standard deviation of the score for the possibility of three or four throws were 233.00 ± 44.82 and 280.07 ± 41.25.In view of the results drawn the expected conclusion that the four possible throws provides increased probability of getting a high score, unlike the case where the player may only be able to throw the dice three times. The fact that the variance is lower in the case of four throw session is equivalent to that the likelihood to get close to the expected value increases..

I ett samhälle där det råder allt större konkurrens mellan företag och produkter, och då kunderna blir allt mer krävande, har Cause Related Marketing (CRM) blivit något av en unik win-win strategi. CRM innebär att ett företag tillsammans med en välgörenhetsorganisation skapar ett samarbete för att marknadsföra och sälja en produkt för välgörande ändamål och därmed nå ömsesidig vinst.Syftet med uppsatsen är att se vilka effekter CRM kan ha i jämförelse med traditionell marknadsföring. Vi har valt att undersöka varför företag väljer att engagera sig i välgörenhet och om man kan använda ett sådant samarbete som ett marknadsföringsverktyg.Den metod vi använt för studien är en kvalitativ metod. Till vår hjälp har vi använt oss av tidigare forskning inom ämnet samt genomfört intervjuer med företag som varit relevanta för studien. Företagen som medverkar är verksamma inom detaljhandel eller dagligvaruhandel och samtliga har valt att engagera sig i Rosa Bandet.Slutsatser som dragits genom studien är att CRM är en strategi som alla företag inom detaljhandel och dagligvaruhandel kan använda sig av.

In today?s ever-evolving society the use of cash is replaced by digital services in the banking sector. Some local banks restrict manual cash handling while others remove it completely. This essay examines how management accounting is affected by restricted cash handling. The theory clarifies that management accounting strategies create guidelines and provides specific framework for employees and managers in the organization.