Product development cycles become shorter and shorter. The time from idea to market has become an important competitive factor. Despite this, methods used for making the product development process faster are surrounded with uncertainty about their efficiency. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the pros and cons of ?best practice? methods for shortening lead times and how these methods effect the lead times in research and development.

Recent years there has been discussed how the critical situation in the housing market threatens the Stockholm region's growth. The thesis objective is to examine whether there is a scientific link between the lack of housing supply and growth. The thesis also intends to identify solutions for increased housing construction, for instance by examining the conditions for a greater regional perspective and influence on the region's housing supply. The thesis empirical study is based on semi-structured interviews with representatives from the Government, municipalities and the housing industry.In Sweden, research on the relationship between housing shortages and growth has not been conducted to that extent it can be said to exist scientific evidence regarding the growth threat. However, in Britain and the U.S, empirical studies show that a lack of housing supply has hindered growth through negative impact on countries' gross domestic product.

Intelligent IT-based solutions, often called Smart Grids, are considered to be the future balancers of renewable energy sources. One area within the Smart Grid concept is called demand response, which is focused on making customers more consumption flexible by making them more active in their consumption. In this thesis the aim is to analyze a business model by investigating the income potential for a demand response solution as well as its market potential. This has been done through literature studies, interviews and development of a computational model.The use of 5000 households with flexible consumption can provide a cost reduction of 17.2% or 2.4 million SEK for a balance responsible party during an average year. If the solution is used to make strategic bids on the regulation markets the study indicates that the largest potential for revenues lies within this strategy.

Organisation and market orientation of elderly careThis comparative literature study is intended to describe how elderly care is organised and financed in Germany and Sweden. Furthermore, it analyses the degree of competition and market orientation in both countries' care systems. Important aspects in this context are the kinds of measurements which are used on the two markets and the question if there are quasimarkets.The theoretical backgrounds of the study are Esping-Andersen's "Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism" and Harold Wilensky's convergence theory. Esping-Andersen's theory describes Sweden as a social democratic and Germany as a conservative welfare regime which means that there are different conditions for the development of welfare. The use of Wilensky's theory shows that both welfare systems are converging since the end of the 20th century.

The project team has chosen to carry out the project itself. This is to be able to work more flexibly in the product development process and not be guided by some guidelines.Every day, we read in the media about a new truck burglary. The problem has become so common that we do not even notice it in the media. Each year the theft of 1 billion of Sweden and the entire 82 billion in Europe in 2008. This is an increase of 10 billion by 2007.

Academic research concerning how to determine the power situation in a supply chain where an investment product supplier is involved did not exist. Therefore new models has been developed that analyses the power relations and maps out the power situation in a supply chain. In the future these models can be applied on similar cases by modifying the included parameters. The new models show that case company FAS should focus on the big producers of garbage bag which are Trioplast, Rullpack and Miljösäck. By strengthen the brand FAS can make more money in these relations.

Purpose:Only 60 percent of the newly started companies survive their three first years. The purpose of this report is to obtain a deeper understanding regarding how newly started companies work with their positioning and if there are some kind of a relationship between positioning and the survival rate of newly started companies.Research questions:Do newly started companies know what position is? Do they incorporate positioning in their day to day marketing?Approach:We have used a hypothetical-deductive way of reasoning and a qualitative study to gather the information needed. We have through interviews asked our questions to six newly started companies in three different cities.Findings:In our essay, we reached the conclusion that newly started companies do not spend sufficient time or energy on positioning their products. The companies interviewed only market their product as a good product.

Syfte/purpose: Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur den svenska spelmarknaden har påverkats av Internets framväxt. Uppsatsen avgränsas till att se hur Svenska Spel bemöter de nya konkurrenterna på Internet. Det vill säga vilka marknadsstrategier Svenska Spel använder sig av, dessutom undersöks hur spelarna värderar de nya spelmöjligheter som framkommit. / The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the development of the Internet has affected the Swedish betting market. The thesis is limited to see how Svenska Spel is facing the new competitors on the Internet.

This study explores how consumers' attitudes and intentions-to-buy towards an atypical product can be influenced by the presentation of the product and consumers shopping goals. Moreover, another product, which was shown together with the atypical piece, was analyzed in order to investigate context effects. The aim of the study is to provide insights into a rather unexplored subject and help retailers in presenting their assortment in a way which will create a better perception and intention-to-buy towards the assortment. The study was conducted with the help of two studies, the first one aimed to find an atypical item and to see how attitudes could be affected by differences in presentation by comparing it with a typical item within the same category. The second study used the identified atypical piece in order to see the how attitude and intention-to-buy could be altered by presentation and consumer shopping goals.

Recent years there has been discussed how the critical situation in the housing market threatens the Stockholm region's growth. The thesis objective is to examine whether there is a scientific link between the lack of housing supply and growth. The thesis also intends to identify solutions for increased housing construction, for instance by examining the conditions for a greater regional perspective and influence on the region's housing supply. The thesis empirical study is based on semi-structured interviews with representatives from the Government, municipalities and the housing industry.In Sweden, research on the relationship between housing shortages and growth has not been conducted to that extent it can be said to exist scientific evidence regarding the growth threat. However, in Britain and the U.S, empirical studies show that a lack of housing supply has hindered growth through negative impact on countries' gross domestic product.

This report is a market research for the company 4 Body and Mind, a start-up company that works with personal training online. They wanted to know if the market for elderly care could be interesting for them to enter. This report is hence a research of the market for health and welfare technology in elderly care within the public sector in Sweden. A general fact is that the world's population is getting older. This combined with rapid growth of individuals in the age 65+ changes the demands on the elderly care in Sweden?s municipalities.

This Master thesis was written in collaboration with the Kalmar-based consulting company Sederkvist Kommunikation. The purpose was to explore the market potential for Sederkvist Kommunikations new software Bellman Marketing. Based on these results a launch plan was created and advoice were given to Sederkvist Kommunikation as to how their new administrative tool could be introduced on the market. Data were collected through semi-structured telephone interviews. The population was Swedish so called Gazelle-companies (growth-companies listed yearly by the business newspaper Dagens Industri) and totally 27 units were examined.

The project has been implemented in collaboration with Carl-Johan Lundberg on Deltagruppen Ltd in Jönköping. Problem introduction comes from Carl-Johan's own experience from the hotel sector. The problem that all hotels has is that they sell two products, i e. simple - and double rooms. Persons that travel in companies do not desire always to share bed.Focus in the work is to develop a product that holds together two simple beds and forms double bed, concurrent that it goes that converters to two simple bed without needing to disassemble the product and be done invisible.

Destination marketing looks different from that of traditional marketing, since the product, in this case the destination, consists of several different parts compared to a good. A destination is marketed as a process where the consumption takes place at the same time as the production. Destination marketing organizations, DMO?s, are responsible for the marketing of a destination. Since destinations consist of several parts such as the train trip to the destination, restaurant visits, shopping, hotel stays etc., it is difficult for the DMO?s to fully control how a tourist perceive the destination.

A buyer of a new car is often offered a various selection of warranties. A warranty can e.g. exist in the form of an extended new car warranty. However, some manufacturers demand that the car has to be serviced by an authorised repairer for the validity of an extended warranty. In the thesis I analyse whether such a contractual term is incompatible with today?s legislation and I argue for when such a term is to be seen as unfair.