Background: As Porter?s diamond (1990) suggested, the business environment highly influences firms? strategies. Today, most of the companies have to decide their strategy depending from a worldwide business environment. Yet, strategy researches and the growing importance of marketing for business success also show that customer dimension must be taken into consideration. On some markets and in certain industries, the offer is much higher than the demand and then, companies need to attract customers.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att utreda vilka företag som lämpar sig för en implementering av ett shared service center. Metod: Under arbetets gång har en abduktiv ansats använts där det varit en kontinuerlig interaktion mellan teori och empiri. Det har gjorts en kvalitativ studie av ett fallstudieföretag med hjälp av intervjuer, facklitteratur och vetenskapliga artiklar. Slutsatser: De företag som är mest lämpade för en etablering av ett shared service center bör vara:? Stora ? de måste kunna uppvisa stordriftsfördelar? Multinationella ? centraliseringen till shared service måste få märkbar effekt? Expansiva ? realisera besparing i personalkostnader ? Lågkostnadsstrateger ? syftet med ett shared service center passar företagets paradigm? Förändringsvilliga ? det är ett stort projekt som måste stödjas av organisationen.

Title: Nelson Garden AB ? Analysis and recommendations based upon the Service Management System Course: Business Leadership within horticulture and agriculture. Author: Annika Kirilov Tutor: Carl-Johan Asplund Examiner: Anders Kristoffersson, lecturer within business economics, LTJ- faculty, SLU Alnarp Keywords: Bröderna Nelson, Nelson Garden, Service Management System, marketing, customer service, retailer Aim: Explore how Nelson Garden AB manages to reach out to customers through positioning of their own labels, when they as a manufacturer are partly dependent on the competence and sales skill of retailers. Methodology: E-mails were sent out to 6 different companies with a proposition for participation. Of those companies that gave a positive answer the most suited company for the diploma work was selected. Thereafter, a contact was established through telephone with the CEO of the chosen company and relevant questions to him were formulated. The second time of contact the first interview was held and half of the questions were answered.

This master thesis concerns the subject of a reference service named Book-a-librarian. The service makes it possible for the library-user to indulge in a subject with the help of a librarian after having made an appointment in advance. The main purpose of this thesis is to study the function of it. The methods used are a mix of literature and empirical studies to be able to comprehend and explain the practical nature of the service as well as placing the service in a theoretical framework. The empirical study is performed by a questionnaire, where librarians working with the service are asked to participate.

Due to a growing interest in communication in today?s society the demand for equipment that is used in communication networks increases while the competition between companies that produce this equipment grows. To meet the increasing demand and at the same time having a competitive product development many companies use some effective product design, such as the modular product design. When a modular product design is used it?s good to compare different module configurations for a certain product and to simplify these comparisons some tool can be used.

Title: Experiences of Banner advertisement on a specialized homepage Author: Marcus Westerberg Supervisor: Marie Hemming Department: Department of Business Administration, IEM Course: Bachelor thesis in Business Administration, FEC 007 Purpose: Create a understanding for how the users on Internet pages experience the occurrence and the shape of the banners. Method: Methods used are quantitative and qualitative, and the facts and figures are based on a pop up inquiry and some telephoneinterviews. I elected pop up inquiry and telephoneinterview as my data collection. My inquiry had a high grade of standardization and the interviews had a low grade of standardization. Result: On the basis of the question of issue I have drawn the conclusion that the users feels that it is important with information in all advertising. It is also important for the users to create a value around the product. The users do not have the time to figure out the message behind advertising, the want simple and massive information about the product/service.

Background: Knowledge of customer needs is a key factor in companies? struggle to develop successful products. Several studies illustrate that the main reason for failure in product development is lack of customer understanding. Lately considerable changes have occurred. Large-scale mass production is continuously being replaced by customer orientation, especially in the high technological market.

The thesis is aiming to investigate what happens in the customer-service worker interaction when the service worker is wearing religious attributes. In order to operationalize this the Muslim head scarf, hijab, is chosen as stimuli. Reviewing previous research and theory in this field, it is clear that people have a preference for people that they perceive to be like themselves, this is referred to as homophily. Further on, the study investigates the ethnicity dimension of the service worker customer interaction. Theoretical areas of attractiveness and color are also investigated.

In this study we have examined the possible quality standards and methods for applications with service workshops in the forest industry. The purpose of the methods presented here was to start the work of standarardising the maintenance service in the industry and be of use for service providers in their quality effort.The methods we used to accomplish the study were interviews and field visits together with a comprehensive literature research. Our results are presented in the form of four solution proposals: a standard based on existing SIS standards for terminology and key indicators, checklists that are filled in by mechanics with customer participation, the construction of a instructions database, and the implementation of the method 5s.We believe our suggestions can help the service providers in the four problem areas that we have identified: long term strategy, documentation, recruitment of competent technicians, and standard procedures in their operations. These improvements will be beneficial for both the service provider and the customer..

The design of packages is something that product manufacturers put great effort on. The package is often the consumers' first interaction with a product and consumers judge the product based on the package. A common way to evaluate a package design is to let respondents look at a package and answer which attributes they think the product has. This paper wants to take this evaluation a step further, i.e. it examines if consumers experience differences in taste between two identical products that have different package designs.

The purpose of the study is to explain whether the introduction of a new and different brand by means of a brand extension affects consumers? perceptions of the product category that the brand is launched in. An experiment was carried out to study the following aspects: associations and constellations of associations to the product category, interest, perceived variation, and the perceived similarity with the category from which the brands were extended. In the study, brand breadth in the original product category was used as moderating variable. Aspects found to be affected by the brand extensions were associations to the product category, the constellations of these associations and the perceived similarity with the category from which the brands were extended.

Uppsatsen skrevs i samband med Konsumentverket och undersöker hurKarlstadsbuss använder sig av service recovery i sitt dagliga arbete.Service recovery innebär att så fort en kund upplevt något negativt i samband med ett företagsmöte så ska denne få återkoppling i form av en ursäkt, pengar tillbaka eller någon annan typ av förmån. Lyckas företaget ge kunden detta så fort som möjligt så förhindrar det att kunden får en negativ bild av företaget som den sprider vidare till personer i sin omgivning.För att få djupare kunskap i ämnet har tidigare teorier om klagomålshantering, service recovery och hur företag kan motivera sina anställda till att vara mer serviceinriktade studerats.Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att studera hur service recovery används i ett kollektivtrafikföretag och hur det tillämpas i hela organisationen.Först studerades teorier inom ämnet och sedan gjordes en empirisk undersökning, uppsatsen är med andra ord uppbyggd enligt den deduktiva strategin..

The thesis strives to answer the question whether there are any differences between how young customers, in comparison with older, are affected by brands when buying different products. The purpose is to get a clearer idea about the brands' importance in the future and in that way also to give guidance to companies about how to best market themselves and there products.To answer the question, an experiment was conducted with 480 respondents taking a survey where they had to rate a product after reading a short text about it. Some of the texts stated that a specific brand was behind the product while some said the product was produced by an unknown brand.The result of the study was that young people showed a greater propensity of rating products with a brand higher than products without brands, in comparison with the older respondents. This gives reason to believe that brands progressively will become an even more important tool for marketers and an unmatched asset for companies in the future..

Project Safe Sleeping Position (SSP) contains all parts in a product development phase. The project comprises the whole cycle from idea to a complete product where all aspects are included. The scope is to develop an innovative solution for a common known problem and work with all parts within the man-machine-way. The result is an inflatable product which secures a child in the correct way for the seatbelt to work properly in the rearseat of a car. Ergonomics, technical extent, usability, design, construction, product solutions and market potential are some of all parts witch the project includes.

This report is the concluding part of the course national minorities, main focus on design, at Luleå University of Technology spring 2007. The purpose of this written examination is to produce a prototype to a product, which can be used both when marketing Kiruna as a student municipality and when recruiting students to the study programmes Kiruna offers. The product has been produced through systematic problem solving, where methods to fix the problem, gather facts, examine and come to a solution have been used. The product should in one way or another get the student to think of Kiruna as a student municipality and it should also appeal to the target group ? the students.