There is now a trend to move closer to the customer in the form of long-term and lastingrelationships. The market today is characterized by growing competition with new playersconstantly arising. In order to gain competitive advantage with the increasingly challengingmarket, companies require to place the customer in the centre. Being close to the customerand engage in successful efforts to create customer loyalty has become a critical successfactor in many businesses. Especially when the customers in today's market is becomingincreasingly unfaithful and continuously looking for new companies with new productofferings.Many companies have now also realized the importance of trying to retain existing customersas it is more profitable than constantly trying to acquire new ones.

The producers of grain in Sweden are facing a rough future. The competition is getting harder all the time, in Sweden, in EU and also from the ?world market?. The producers have to be more efficient and have to have bigger units. Many producers might have to look for new alternative production opportunities.

Utförandet av radikal prostatektomi, det vill säga borttagande av prostatakörteln vid prostatacancer, har tills nyligen utförts antingen med traditionell öppen kirurgi eller med laparoskopisk kirurgi, så kallad titthålskirurgi. I slutet av 1990-talet introducerades emellertid ett tredje alternativ för utförande av detta ingrepp, nämligen den robotassisterade kirurgin. Användandet av denna typ av kirurgi, som är en vidareutveckling av den konventionella laparoskopiska kirurgin, medför såväl konstaterade som potentiella fördelar. Till dessa hör en ökad precision i ingreppen, vilket orsakar mindre smärta och blödning, samt eventuellt även bättre resultat angående urininkontinens och impotens vilka är vanliga biverkningar av radikal prostatektomi. Användandet av robotassisterad kirurgi istället för öppen respektive konventionell laparoskopisk kirurgi för utförande av radikal prostatektomi har förutom intressanta medicinska aspekter även relevanta ekonomiska aspekter.

We have been looking at three different types of agriculture in Södermanland, in the middle east of Sweden. We call the different types for Intensive, Extensive and Mix. The purpose is to get an economic defensible plan for how to run different farm sizes. We also have been looking at the working hours and how many hours the different types will give. We have a farm called Taxinge Gods as our pilot farm. Taxinge Gods grow 407 ha land and is located 60 km southwest from Stockholm.

I dagens finansiella marknad utsätts de finansiella aktörerna för risk på sin strävan efter lönsamhet. Balansgången mellan att maximera verksamheten och risk har öppnat ögonen och ökat medvetenheten om behovet av att utvidga sina krav på att täcka upp kapital.Efterfrågan på snabba, pedagogiska och säkra sätt att lätt kunna beräkna risk har därför snabbt ökat. Under de senaste åren har det därför blivit allt populärare att använda sig av riskmåttet ?Value at Risk? vilket kan definieras som; ?En portföljs maximala värdeminskning med en viss sannolikhet inom en viss tidsperiod? Jag har valt att göra en jämförelse mellan de två vanligaste modellerna som används för att räkna fram Value at Risk, Historisk simulering och Varians-/kovarians-metoden. De två modellerna kommer att testas mot tre olika tillgångar, guld, valutakurs Sek/£ samt aktieindex.

Hard competition amongst the editorial world of magazines today has led to increased differentiation of the content as well as the visual communication. In this study, the graphic elements of the magazine cover was analyzed to establish how the magazines character is being conveyed by the cover design. In a case study the covers of the Swedish publications of fashion magazine BON and ELLE was semantically analyzed.The conclusion was made that the logotype plays the biggest part in conveying the magazine?s character. Secondly, the front cover headlines shape and size matter a great deal for the overall impression.

Do new, attractive neighborhoods meet the requirements of being socially sustainable? This essay is based on the potential conflicts between the pursuit of social sustainability, while the theory of the creative class influence city planning. Social sustainability is difficult to measure, but implies broadly that everyone should have equal rights and opportunities. A city or region that aims to attract a certain type of people by providing what they ask for, might pay less attention and spend less resources on the rest of the population. Socially sustainable - for whom? The new district Hyllie in southern Malmö stands in focus, and the paper seeks to identify how different operators in Malmö defines the concept of social sustainability, how it is implemented in the design of Hyllie, and if any potential conflicts may arise.Interviews with the following informants; representants from the Office for City Planning in Malmö, the nonprofit organization Sustainable Development Skåne, the Commission for a Socially Sustainable Malmö and the company Skanska Öresund have constituted the main methodology, among with reading and analyzing existing documents and policies relating to the development of Hyllie.

With higher prices for oil and increased focus on fossil fuels impact on the environment the heating sector are searching for alternative fuels. Pellets are a quite new product whose production has risen exponential in recent years. Today there are small-, medium-and large-scale users, where the large-scale consumers are the heating sector. The heating sector is mainly using oil to cover the increased demand during cold periods. The purpose of this study is to analyze the potential of pellets if it would replace thermal power plants oil and coal. The study will also analyze the economic impact a conversion would mean for a heating plant and if the pellet is a reasonable substitute. 2008 statistics from the Swedish district heating association were analyzed and a calculation was performed to determine how many tons of pellets is needed to replace coal and oil.

In the faster growing pace of changes and competition in the global economy, factors promoting group effectiveness are of interest. How do components of leadershipstyle, especially transformational, team climate and selfefficacy correlate? To answer this question 3 questionnaires regarding leadershipstyle (MLQ), team climate (TCI-Short) and selfefficacy (self developed) were distributed to employees of a Swedish installation company (108 participants). Moderate positive correlations were found between climate and selfefficacy and between varying elements of leadership and selfefficacy. The leadership behaviour Contingent Reward correlated moderately with all climate dimensions and strongly with selfefficay.

Market capitalism sets the conditions for how the world is conceived, experienced and organized at various spatial scales (global to local). Currently, competitiveness, entrepreneurship and economic growth are key values that shape how the world is conceived, experienced and organized. Discourses of place marketing, place branding, and the construction of places as (economic) products, are part and parcel of the heightened commodification of space. Tourism has been a major factor in the commodification of place and space. More often than not, tourism has been seen as a possibility for peripheral places, in their struggle finding new ways towards development.

This is a theoretical study of changing relations between men and women in the context of modernisation. Ideas derived from a general theoretical discussion will be illustrated by examples from countries that are going through societal changes affecting the lives of men and women; Uganda, Morocco and Mexico. Focus will be on connections between changes in the public sphere and interpersonal relations in the private sphere. One part examines certain effects of women?s increased participation in politics and in the workforce, concluding that these changes may cause conflicts with traditional values and consequently tensions in inter-gender relations.

The Swedish cooperative Lantmännen Ekonomiska Förening has initiated a project labelled "Operation Blåljus" that includes an extensive program for closing down elevators. The number of elevators will be reduced from 92 to approximately 15 after harvest of 2007. The objective of Blåljus is to increase the price of grain with 10 öre/kg. A project has been initiated at the Lantmännen Grain division where the purpose is to provide the farmers with support in their decisions and practical advice how they can load a 35 ton grain truck on 30 minutes. The result from the project will serve as a support system to the farmer in his ambition to achieve cost efficient systems to load a truck with grain on the farm.

The purpose of this study is to look at the line extensions of the Swedish dairy company Skånemejerier. We have chosen to focus on how trends in ecological products and Functional Food influence the line extensions. The competition in the food sector have made it harder for companies to be seen in the market area and the companies have to make their brands more visible. That is one of the reasons why companies work with line extensions. The study is based on a qualitative approach because we wanted to come closer to our subject in order to establish a greater understanding for the case itself.

The central goal of this study was to compare statements of the minister of migration in power in 1994 with those of the minister of migration in 2006. The statements reflect two peaks of refugee immigration in connection to the war in former Yugoslavia and the present war in Iraq. The study analyses the statements in a critical discourse analysis framework. More specifically the aim was to find out if there were any discursive differences in these statements and how they might manifest themselves in society. The material was composed of 12 texts, 6 for each period originating from Swedish newspapers and from the ministers' public speeches.

The NIPF (Non Industrial Private Forest) owners in Sweden have very differentiated goals and needs with their forest. They have different backgrounds and some of them live at their forest estate while other live in an urban environment, and some are economically dependent on their forest estate while others are not. The heterogeneity among these forest owners creates problems for market actors that want to aim marketing messages to catch their interest. This is the problem background to the task that was provided to us as an investigative masters thesis for us. Their request was a plan for ensuring a successful marketing towards different segments of the NIPF owners. We commenced with a literature study based on market information and previously carried out similar investigations. We summarized the most important market information from the literature and created some hypotheses regarding goals and needs of the NIPF owners.