The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether Swedish, Internet-based travel agencies, acting on a consumer market are working towards creating added value for their customers. If that is the case, how and why do they use such a mode of operation.The theoretical framework was based on Grönroos´ ?Augmented service offering?, which treats added value as an addition to the core service. The services offered on five of the larger companies´ websites on the market were examined and 3 representatives of the five companies were interviewed.The study shows that 2 of the examined companies did not produce any added value, while 3 of the companies did produce added value for the customer. The added value was generated through packaging of core-, facilitating- and supporting services for the purpose of differentiating the company towards competitors and generating service fees..

Due to the globalization today the competition in the market has in- creased and it requires flexibility and produce according to customer demand. In order to reduce the cost of wages industrial companies are now considering moving the manufacturing to low-cost countries. To keep up with the competition in the market without moving the manu- facturing abroad, Lean Automation was developed. The concept of Lean Automation is to reduce the perceived complexity with automa- tion and make automation available for new users and in new applica- tions.Haldex Brake Products are situated in Sweden and want to maintain the manufacturing of the automatic brake adjusters in the country. It is a product well-known and highly exposed to the competition in the mar- ket.

Degree project in Logistics, 30 credits, The Business Administration and Economics Programme, Linnaeus University, 4FE05E, Spring 2013Authors: Ida Nilsson & Malin Skacke Tutor: Peter Berling Examiner: Helena ForslundTitle: Increased profit potential by controlling customers? ordering patterns -­? A case study at OatlyBackground:Oatly manufactures and sells oat-­?based products and deliveries are today carried out through an external distributor. The company is going through a re-­?organisation and will in the future be managing stock keeping and planning of deliveries with their own resources. The customers? present ordering frequency and volume differ substantially, leading to unnecessary costs.

Sedan bo?rjan pa? 90-talet och informationsteknikens inta?gande kan vi nu snabbare a?n na?gonsin ha?mta information fra?n va?rldens alla ho?rn. Detta go?r att spelplanen fo?r fo?retag har fo?ra?ndrats radikalt och fo?retag ma?ste anpassa sig till kunden pa? ett helt annat sa?tt a?n tidigare. Denna utveckling har tvingat fo?retag att fo?rsta? vikten av att se kundens relation till fo?retaget som en va?rdeskapande process som syftar till att utveckla la?ngvariga relationer parterna emellan.Detta kombinerat med utvecklingen av informationstekniken (IT) och hanteringen av datalagring under 1990-talet har tillsammans skapat begreppet Customer Relationship Management, fo?rkortat CRM.

AbstractThe assignment were assigned by Camatec Industriteknik AB. Camatec is a Karlstadlocated consulting company, they make everything from pilot studies to complete projects in mechanical design and calculation. They even have their own patented product, Camcoil. It is a winder for steel strips and is used for example with hardening of the steel strip. The assignment has been to solve the problems encountered by some customers within this product.

Swedish school has for the last decades been using quality management as a method for improvement. Quality management is an enormous work and the whole school staff needs to be involved. The management consists of several parts like planning, surveys and interviews, analysis of the replies and setting up new goals. Parents, children and teachers are nowadays accustomed with quality surveys. The last few years these quality surveys have been computerized, but they still look almost the same, using little interaction with the respondent.I have had the opportunity to work with the company KMF Ventures, which has a vision that entails a more interactive web survey.

The purpose of this thesis was to illuminate how companies work with their brand identity and particularly how it is applied in their positioning. The empirical data has been collected through interviews with two companies in Sweden working with brand identity as a stated strategy. The study shows that companies discover, develop and build their brand identity based on their core identity and core values. The core value can be strengthened through customer satisfaction surveys. In order to develop the brand identity in companies, management has to be aware of their brand person- ality, as an essentiality for survival.

This MSc thesis is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the need for information from forest campartments selected for clear cutting, in connection with planning in an integrated forest- and sawmill enterprise. A review of literature is followed by a case stud y, where present conditions in a Swedish forest company are compared with current research in the area. The seeond part consists of a simulation stud y, which aims at camparing the accuracy of inventory estimates using different methods. The estimates are delivery forecasts, covering one month consumptian of timber in a large sawmill.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to study the effects that geographical distance have on the control systems in a scattered organization and how this, ultimately, affects the employees in terms of loyalty and motivation. In order to do this, a case study has been conducted on a multinational travel group and its local branches in Thailand. The study is based on a selected number of theories focusing mainly on control systems in multinational contexts as well as on theories regarding communication and autonomy. The conclusion of the study is that geographical distance has led to a rather large autonomy for the local branches and that the headquarter to a large extent rely more on formal control.

The relatively new phenomenon of daily deals has had an amazing explosion of growth during recent years. The concept relies on offering deeply discounted products and services that a number of customers must buy in order to acquire this discounted service. Companies spend valuable resources on marketing to get customers but the effects of daily deals on the brand do not have empirical evidence. What is the customers' attitude towards companies that communicate through daily deals How is their intention to buy from that company affected This is what is the main purpose of this study. To examine how customers perceive a company, in terms of attitude toward the brand and buying intentions, when the company markets through daily deals compared to more traditional promotion.

Branding is becoming increasingly important to companies within the B2B-sector and they put a lot of effort and capital to develop and strengthen their brands. One way of working with brands is through ingredient branding. An ingredient brand is an alliance between two brands where the ingredient brand is applied on a host brand and works as an ingredient on the product. The purpose of ingredient branding is to create competiveness, differentiation and to create quality associations. Ingredient brands can be divided into emotional and functional categories.

Through semi-structured interviews with 8 school photographers and 10 parents,this study attempted to clarify what photographers and parents of children(aged 1?5) in preschool think of photography business in the current situationprovides retouching children?s school photographs and what they considers tobe acceptable. The result shows that companies do not offer photo retouchingfrequent, but performs this service at the direct request of the customer. Themajority of parents agreed that dirt and food was accepted to be removed fromthe photograph, and that this does not affect the child's self image. The photographersbelieve that one should be very careful when it comes to children andretouching, and that the debate is important..

In the 90's the establishment of external trade centers had a strong growth in Sweden, primarily in large and medium cities. Gradually took smaller towns by this development. In larger cities with larger and growing customer base than in small towns were not affected by the trade centers heavily, but in the smaller towns where the customer base was smaller, there was a risk that it created a negative competitive relationship between external trade center and trade in the citycenter. In some cases, competition is a positive development for both the citycenter and external trade areas, but in some cases there was a risk that the center became impoverished. In such situation there are theories that the different variety of different types of goods should be at the center and in external trade center could lead to a balanced trade relationship.

The need for auditing originates from the agency problem that arises due to the separation of ownership and control in companies. The purpose of the audit is to increase credibility of the financial statements that management uses to communicate with owners and other stakeholders. In order for the audit to fulfill its purpose a certain level of quality needs to be obtained. The auditor can also be seen as a provider of a commercial service in which service quality is important. Audit quality can thus be separated into technical quality, which is defined as the probability that the auditor both discovers and reports a breach in the client?s accounting system, and service quality, which relates to the provision of services in general.

SammanfattningSyfte: Syftet med studien är att skapa förståelse för hur företag arbetar med rekrytering av kundorienterad personal med avseende på individens sociala förmåga, kompetens och drivkrafter för ett kundorienterat beteende. Metod: Studien utgår från att uppnå en förståelse och tillämpar därför en kvalitativ metod. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med tio anställda från olika fastighetsföretag i Sverige. Materialet analyserades sedan utifrån analysmetoden well-grounded theory. Resultat & slutsats: Studiens resultat visar att sociala förmågor, kompetens och drivkrafter är viktiga faktorer vid bedömning av kundorienterade egenskaper vid rekrytering, men att företagen lägger olika tyngdpunkt vid dessa faktorer. Resultatet visar att drivkrafter som motivation, engagemang, värderingar och attityder är av stor betydelse för företagen vid rekryteringstillfället. Ytterligare slutsats i studien är att individens sociala förmåga är av betydelse för företagen vid rekrytering, men att synen på vad som kännetecknar social förmåga skiljer sig mellan respondenterna.