AbstractPurpose/Aim: My study aims to analyse, using Pierre Bourdieu´s theory, whether the social background plays a significant part in the attitudes and use of Apples mp3-player iPod. The study also aims to determine whether it is possible to group the focus groups used in my study and iPod into Bourdieu´s model.Material/Method: The reference material used in this paper is mainly gathered from books concerning Pierre Bourdieu´s theories. I have also had four focus groups of two different characters, to study their attitudes towards Apples mp3-player iPod. I have then applied the results of the focus groups to Bourdieu´s theories and models concerning habitus, social fields, capital and lifestyles, and studied whether there are any divergences in attitudes between the groups.Main results: My findings are that the focus groups as well as iPod can be put into Bourdieu´s model. According to the responses from the people in the focus groups, the attitude and usage of iPod do not mirror people?s social class or background, which goes against Bourdieu´s? theory.

The competitive environment forces companies to find new ways to meet their customers? needs and satisfy their wants. Companies have to get to know their customers and therefore they collect more and more information about them. The purpose of this study was to examine how convenience stores use customer information. To meet this case study?s purpose two interviews were carried out at both a central level as well as a local level at the studied company.

Due to the harsh competition among Swedish food retailers, in-store marketing is a crucial component in the stores marketing strategy. In an attempt to differentiate among its competitors, COOP Sweden has begun to use concave store shelves. Although the food retailing industry is one of the most studied, no research has been conducted on the concave store shelves. The objective of this study is to describe how these shelves effect the customer perception of the assortment, their experience of the store environment and their buying behavior. An S-O-R framework is used as an overall basis in order to outline the effects investigated in this paper.

This thesis addresses online marketing within gaming industry. Some customer identifying methods and website development were introduced as well as examined over the Internet. An empirical study focusing on two gaming companies has been carried out. The purpose has been to describe the use of internet by online gaming companies for online marketing. The thesis will focus on finding out how online gaming companies identify their target groups on internet and how they use internet to reach out to their consumers.

The purpose of this thesis is to see how small differences in a store can affect the customer behavior. The changes consist of auditory and visual sensory cues. Since many companies today makes a lot of changes in their styling element, but without knowing how it really affects the customer behavior we thought it would be interesting to see by doing an experiment at IKEA. The study is therefore based on a quantitative research method, where theories have been described and from which hypotheses have been derived to test the theories. The experience took place at IKEA during two weeks where 5732 observations were made.The result from the experiment is that the sensory cue sight makes individuals spend more time in the environment but not creating attention.

This study is made in cooperation with Setragroup AB. Setra is Sweden?s biggest sawmilling company with a turnover of almost 6 billion SEK. 45% of the produced volume goes to the Swedish market where the customers are the DIY-sector and industrial customers. Setra as well as the other Swedish sawmilling companies operate in a very competitive environment.

The purpose of this essay was to find conceivable marketing- and business strategies that can be combined with a company?s lifestyle.This essay is dependent on a number of interviews with the owner of a maternity clothing trademark, PROUD. PROUD is a new company that has many different options concerning expansion, trademark and its existing and future products and also the knowledge regarding the client?s attitude towards PROUD.The authors of this essay believe that the trademark should represent a lifestyle. For a company to be able to deliver, it has to understand what the future clients want and need.

The investigation was initiated because of the high workload of the sellers and, additionally, because the Tunadal sawmill has received low ratings in customer surveys. Thus,  two main approaches are adopted here,  the first being to investigate which of the three methods  of working, namely, market divided flow organization, function organizationand flow organization with collaboration, proves to be the most beneficial. The second is to investigate whether there is an available method to ease the daily work. A literature review has been made in order to determine more efficient ways for the sellers to work in the Tunadal sawmill. During the investigation, an in-depth investigation into the total quality management using a balanced scorecard as a management tool was conducted.

The purpose of this thesis is to give an understanding of how grocery stores relate to local foods. Through a case study representatives for two groceries in Norrbotten have been interviewed regarding why they supply local foods, how they try to influence customers to buy this, and how they decide upon the assortment of local foods. The result shows that groceries supply local foods in order to supply a wide range of products and to mediate social responsibility, in order to create customer loyalty. Concerning how the groceries try to influence customers to buy local foods the result cannot give any clear-cut view. Instead it shows that a grocery that actively works to influence customers to buy local foods markets them in specific ways, while the opposite applies to a grocery that does not actively work for this.

AbstractProblem: This thesis was made by a commission from Svensk Logistikanalys AB (SLA). SLA is a relatively new firm who is working as a freight broker for firms that wants to lower their freight costs. SLA contacted Jönköpings international business school because they experienced a problem with too many firms, that had SLA?s concept introduced to them, but turned down their services. On the basis of this, following purpose of the report has been stated.Purpose: In this thesis we will study companies that have said no to the services of SLA.

The purpose of this study is to identify the points-of-difference that should form the basis for Bryggarsalen?s future marketing efforts. Bryggarsalen is a newly established conference business in Stockholm. To be able to identify these points-of-difference, Bryggarsalen?s marketing problems have been studied from the resource-based view, claiming that the source of sustained competitive advantage derive from a firm?s unique bundle of resources.

There is a tough competition in food-stores these days. Storeowners have been forced to try something new to attract customers. One way to accomplish that is to add private labels to the assortment. There are several benefits with these labels; its higher margins for this type of brand and the brand can also strengthen the stores image in the customers mind. When private labels first entered the market, the customer had a relatively low attitude towards the brands.

This project has been created with the assistance of Fredells. Fredells is a Stockholm based company with a focus on the retail of building products. Fredells also produces prefab- or prefabricated products which are either completely or partially ready for assembly the moment they arrive to the building site. These prefab-products are primarily delivered to customers within the Stockholm region. The building industry is a conservative market where the incentive to changes has been relatively low compared to other industries.

The aim of this thesis is, from a business perspective, to examine how the pharmacy chain Medstop is working with their positioning in order to achieve competitiveness in the re-regulated pharmacy market. This is studied through a theoretical framework that demonstrates five forces that affects the competitiveness in an industry, the five-force model by Michael Porter.The thesis is a qualitative case study where data collection was done through interviews, literature, articles, websites and internal information from Medstop. The data was then complied into the theoretical perspective the authors have chosen for this paper, the five-force model by Michael Porter. This model was chosen because it gives a broad description of the competition a company faces by describing five different forces that affect the competition within a branch. The fact was collected on the basis of the marketing strategy positioning, and the essay is written from a business perspective.Our cunclusions are that the pharmacy chain Medstop are in their initial positioning and has chosen to position itself on the basis of their core values; credibility, safety and security.

The manufactory industry, due to decline in profit margins, is seeking new business opportunities by moving towards servitization and value-adding services in after-sales. We have therefore conducted a case study to investigate a manufacturing company in their current transformation towards servitization. By studying the management perspective, we aimed to understand how Information Technology, by adding value, could play a role in the transformation process. This study shows that information technology can take an integrating role, by supporting new value-adding services to provider and customer, as well as a co-creating role, where both provider and customer benefits by learning from each other, in the changing work process initiated by new services. The study has also shown that Information Technology, together with organization, information and people, are crucial components in the manufactory industry?s transformation towards servitization.  Furthermore, the study has also shown that the value chain has the potential to drastically change due to the value-adding that the information technology brings to the progress of servitization..