This essay is about the market of traditional rental movie stores, which today are on a mature stage of the marketing cycle. The technique is constantly accelerating and contributes to evaluation of new ways to watch movie. New competitors are such as bigger chain of stores that can offer, in addition to their wide range of other goods, rental movies as a secondary selling. The substitute is of most part Internet based services from where you can watch movie online or download film legally as well as illegally.These different sorts of new competitors or substitutes become a big threat on the traditional rental movie stores as these substitutes can offer the same prices or even lower.With these new ways of watching film this will on turn change the behaviours of the customers that likes to watch movies. The problem for the traditional rental movie stores is trying to keep their existing customers and try keeping them loyal to their store, so that they won?t loose them to the competitors and substitutes.

Background:Life-cycle costing (LCC) is an investment calculation that takes intoaccount operating costs throughout the investee lifecycle. LCC calculations are mainly usedto evaluate investments that have no revenue side. Attempts to apply the LCC calculations forbuilding-related investments have occurred since the 1980s. Despite the advantages ofusing LCC calculations, use has not passed through in full. The main obstacles have beenidentified as a lack of relevant input data, and insufficient experience of workingwith LCC calculations.

This study is a part of a Swedish research and development project that is about heat-treated wood and is led by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Luleå University of Technology. Products that are heat-treated already exists on the market, foremost the Finnish brand ThermoWood®, bur the project group want to find out if it would be possible to start a Swedish production with somewhat different applications than what is common today. The heat-treated wood has many attributes that have changed in the heating process. It becomes more biologically durable, it gains stability in form and dimensions and it becomes darker and looses several unwanted extractives such as resin. Disadvantages that can be mentioned are that the wood becomes fragile and the strength properties changes. My main purpose with this study is to look into customer involvement in the early phase of product development. I also want to find out if the customers I interview think that the product is worth working with, which means start a Swedish production.

Holmen Skog has in some places in their operation area access to timber trucks with centre mounted scrapers. They make transportation more flexible and reduce reliance on contractors for road maintenance. The trucks with centre mounted scrapers have a higher tare weight, making them less productive and therefore they receive compensation with a 0.75 % increase on transportation price. The purpose of this study was to investigate what actions a timber truck with centre mounted scraper can perform with acceptable quality in winter, and to examine if it is an economically profitable solution for the truck operator and charterer. The study was done in three stages; interviews, performance analysis of the transportations carried out and an economic analysis with the help of Sven Erik Gilles spreadsheet tool. The study included the districts Delsbo and Hudiksvall.

In the essay, the balance between being an educator and a mother of a child with autism is explored in respect to how the roles might influence the actions of a pre-school teacher. Writing is used as a method of reflection, it gives the teacher a chance to take a step back and view her practical experiences from a novel perspective; conclusions are recounted throughout the teachers narrative. The essay is based on the following questions; which problems might arise in the meeting with parents such as Adams where there is a suspicion of autism for the child? Which advantages/disadvantages might the teacher?s personal experience of autism have for the role as educator? How would the dual roles as educator and mother of an autistic child best be balanced in the future?The essay highlights special educational and parent perspectives on the matter of autism. Professor of pedagogy Claes Nilholm, specializes in special needs education.

AbstractBusiness, or business decisions always involves an endangerment from the company?s aspect, but when it comes to business with foreign countries the risk profile looks quite different from the profile the company has when its doing business inside the country. Therefore, it is extremely important for an export company or import company to carefully consider the risks that are enclosed with the deal, before he makes the decision to enter a deal. One of the most important risks a company have to considerate when doing business with foreign countries is the currency risk. A company is exposed to currency risk when either long-term or short-term changes in the exchange rate may affect the result of the company, competitive position and growth.

The feed is a major cost in the dairy production and there is a constant interest in findingalternative cost-effective feedstuffs. Competitive dairy producers have to seek ways todecrease their production costs and the pursuit of cost-effective feed rations contributesto lower costs of production. An interesting group of protein concentrates are rapeseedproducts like ExPro (heat treated rapeseed) which have during the autumn 2008 andspring 2009 been very favourable compared to other protein feeds.This study focuses on the feedstuff products ExPro and Raps-Drank 60/40 (rapeseeddistillersgrain). The potential use of ExPro in dairy cow feed rations are also explored.ExPro is a well known feedstuff but Raps-Drank 60/40 is a relatively new product andnot known for many farmers.A field study on the use of rapeseed products was made on a limited number of dairyfarms. The main purpose was to study the management of the feedstuffs on the farms.The Farms were selected in cooperation with two local extension services.

AbstractWork to develop the Eurocodes started in 1975 by the European Commission adopted a program to eliminate trade barriers within the construction area. The goal was to create common European design standards that would replace the member countries' own rules. Eurocodes will replace The National Board of Housing Building and Planning, National Rail, The National Road Administration and other agencies' calculation rules for the buildings structures. The transition to the use of Eurocodes looks like this:Eurocodes set to Swedish standards  between 2002 ? 2007They can be used parallel with national standards 2006 - 2009 The total transition is at the end of 2010/2011.Right now is going on a lot of work for replacement of the existing standards to Eurocodes.  The transition to the new calculations` standards, many construction companies and consulting firms facing a big changes and competitions.

In process oriented organizations, it is important to have well-functioning work processes tosupport the work being performed. In order to accomplish this, the organization has to makecertain decisions regarding the design and usage of the processes. This master thesis is based ona case study of a work process that is being used for the industrialization of products at Ericssonin Katrineholm. The aim of the study is twofold. One aim is to improve the studied process byidentifying improvement opportunities and carrying out the required adjustments.

Fotbollsverksamheten präglar många flickors vardag och är den största ungdomsverksamheten i svensk idrott. Det råder inga tveksamheter om att idrott innebär flera fördelar för människors psykiska och fysiska välbefinnande. Fotbollen är en arena där flickors självförtroende kan främjas och stärkas. Samtidigt faller många idrottsutövare offer för den robusta individualismen med strävan efter idrottslig framgång. Tävlingsmomentets påverkan för barn och ungdomars psykiska hälsa är viktigt att belysa och diskutera för att fotbollen ska kunna verka som en hälsofrämjande arena.

Syfte: Uppsatsens syfte är att öka den allmänna förståelsen för betydelsen av disruptiva tek-nologier, inom ramen för angiven målgrupp. Syftet uppnås specifikt via: a) En beskrivning och analys av hur företag hanterar och bör hantera sådana.b) Utvecklandet av en modell för identifiering och hantering av disruptiva teknologier. Metod: Föreliggande undersökning är en pilotstudie vars vetenskapsteoretiska ståndpunkt är hermeneutisk och metod är kvalitativ. Insamling av primär- och sekundärdata har, med löpande analys, skett i en växelverkande process mellan empiri och teori. Teoretiska perspektiv: Den teoretiska referensramen inkluderar tre kapitel som dispositionsmässigt följer på varandra.

The negative trend of newspapers reading gives the owner of several paper manufacturingcompanies in the West worries. Producers should be more concern to strengthen their marketpositions in order to maintain profitability in the paper mills. Holmen Paper is a medium sizedpaper mill company with all of their production in Europe. Sales are mainly made to printingcompanies operating in European countries. In order to strengthen their economic strengthHolmen Paper needs to increase the market share in markets where they have the greatestprofit margins.

One of Sweden?s sixteen national environmental objectives strives to decrease the impact on the climate. By 2020, green house gas emissions should be 40 % less compared to the levels of 1990 and a minimum of 50 % of the energy consumption should come from renewable energy sources. Because of this there is a great need of increasing the production of renewable energy. This is where biogas comes in as a competitive alternative.

Background: Mass customization has been identified as a competitive business strategy by both companies and academics because of its ability to incorporate the voice of the customer into companies? products and services. Although mass customization may sound appealing, the strategic concept is still developing and firms adopting this business strategy face several challenges. Production concerns are of high relevance since mass customization implies a high level of customer involvement in the product design. Since the areas are closely linked it is reasonable to ask how a mass customization strategy affects production concerns.

 Date                   May 28, 2009Level                  Bachelor thesis in Business Administration/Information TechnologyAuthors             Jennie Andersson, Niklas Fridell, Visar HoxhaTutor                  Marie MörndalDepartment    HSTTitle                    ERP-solutions in small to medium sized enterprises ? possibilities and problemsSummary          ERP-solutions have penetrated the market for SME: s, offering the same advantages larger enterprises have enjoyed for years. For a significantly cheaper price, SME: s can nowadays acquire ERP-solutions and become more effective and increase their profit.  The authors have examined five SME: s in both the production and service company segment and have come to the conclusion that an ERP-solution would indeed benefit these companies in many levels but also induce certain obstacles the examined companies must overcome, both financial and organizational.Purpose            The purpose of this thesis is to examine if and how SME: s can become more efficient and developed and increase their profit by implementing an ERP-solution. Further, the purpose is to discuss which conditions that exists for the examined SME: s in order to implement an ERP-solution.Method            The thesis consists of a qualitative research where the authors have interviewed either the owner or employees at management level by using semi-structured interviews.