Leverage buyout?s is an opportunity for companies, who can strengthen its market position by expanding its operations, and it add?s value to the company. At every LBO, copmanies make different values of the target company to finally come upp to a final bid. The final bid may in many cases be made of a surplus value, which is the differens between the value of the net-assets and the final bid. This we call goodwill and it has been a target in many discussions.

This thesis describes how a cost reduction project was done on the Packsize ondemand packing machine EM7. The cost reduction was achieved by making minorredesigns of the EM7.The project began by studying the EM7´s structure and function by working on itsassembly line. A short literature study on the subject Design for Manufacturing wasalso done.By working on the assembly line and by speaking with staff from production anddevelopment departments, a number of ideas for reducing manufacturing costs arose.Estimations of the potential cost reduction size for each proposal were done incollaboration with vendors and the purchasing department. Based on the size of the cost reduction, technical risk, impact on the assembly lineand the development time the various proposals were ranked. The two highestranked proposals were selected for further development towards finished solutions.One of the ideas that were selected to develop in to a finished solution meant thatsome of the pneumatic valves were replaced with others.

Background: Røvik claim that both public and private sector, large and small firms, are working with the same administrative standards, recipes, as these are currently considered to be ?right?. He argues that this is partly due to the globalization of the information society, which is making it possible for recipes to spread rapidly. An area affected of this is purchasing, where many new strategic and organizational concepts have been developed. Nowadays, people argue that ?every penny saved in the procurement function, is an extra penny in profit? and that purchasing decisions affect the entire company and its performance.

Infringement of intellectual property rights often causes significant economic damage. The problem with illegal activity concerning counterfeiting is constantly increasing. The development has lead to constitute an extensive international activity which is harmful for intellectual propery owners, consumers and the society in general. Competing products tend to be increasingly similar to each other, with rather similar marketing-, sales-, and pricingstrategies. As a result, the trademark strongly affects consumers? selection-process during purchase.

In public libraries there seems to be an unspoken consensus on what literary quality is. At the same time librarians are always eager to express the opinion that quality lies in the eye of the beholder. Quality is, it is said, something that you don t have to define. But at the same time it s up to everyone to decide what quality means to them. What I have been missing from the discussion in libraries about literary quality is a theoretical awareness about what it means to divide literature into higher and lower spheres.

The purpose with this thesis is to investigate how a number of municipalities in Stockholm County proceed when they allocate land and establish land allocation agreements for exploitation, and to investigate how a number of municipalities define land allocations and land allocation agreements on the occasion of public land sales. The aim of this thesis is to describe the allocation methods a municipally uses when they offer land for sale and to give an insight regarding which correlation different land allocation agreements have in different municipalities.Methods used are: (1) a literature review where the underlying theory for land allocations and land allocation agreements have been studied; (2) a questionnaire have been done to complement the literature review and to provide a picture of how a number of different municipalities in Stockholm County use and apply land allocations; (3) an agreement audit have been done to see the extent to which different agreement terms exists.Responses from the questionnaire, together with the definitions form different municipality?s land allocation policies and the literature review, resulted in a definition of a land allocation and a land allocation agreement. The agreement audit shows that agreement terms regarding: price or price indication, location, cost-sharing and planning costs are the most common agreement terms within the municipalities we have investigated.The study suggests that there is some confusion regarding land allocation agreements and the meaning of these, that became apparent when agreements where gathered, despite a careful explanation that it was land allocation agreements we requested, we still got exploitation agreements and purchase agreements. Therefore, we consider it necessary with an official definition of a land allocation agreement well anchored in the Planning and Building Act together with the rules of development agreements or other legislation.That there is a lack of research within the subject becomes evident when reports, essays, and other literature generally refers so the same sources.Keywords: land allocation, land allocation agreement and public land sales.

The environmental work in Sweden has developed a lot over the past fifty years. Today, most companies have some kind of environmental work. Environmental activities are regulated by the Environmental Code, which applies in parallel with other laws. This report is an environmental review for Bräcke Diakoni. The report aims to find out how much environmental impact Bräcke Diakoni has.

The market of today consist of products/services who resemble each other, the differences are small. Their for it?s necessary for the companies to provide added values to the product so it will stand out from the rest of the products and lead to purchase. A well used strategy in the fashion industry is marketing with celebrities, this is considered successful because it brings attention and strengthening to the brand. Because of this, the strategy also branch out to other industries, but the question is if it?s as successful there? There?s also a serious down-side with the strategy and that is that there?s a great risk with using celebrities.

Term: Spring term 2007Study objects: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna, ICA Sverige ABPurpose: The purpose of this study is to analyse how procurement is used as a strategy to achieve better competitive strength, within the retail food industry.Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates different procurement organisations, multiple and single sourcing, brand equity, consumer behaviour and involvement, Efficient Consumer Response including supply chain and category management and finally Demand Chain Management.Method: For the case studies, three food retail companies have been interviewed: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna and ICA AB. To illustrate how consumer behaviour influences retail food market, several secondary consumer research studies have been analysed.Conclusions: The results indicate that the procurement organisation can achieve a better competitive strength by a centralised organisation, which make it possible to improve conditions of terms when ordering higher purchase volumes. The sourcing strategies can improve a company?s power within the supply chain. All companies within the study had a very good knowledge about consumer behaviour.

Many companies have a specific dress code in the workplace. In some companies, the code is not very extensive, while other companies have uniform requirements. What is little understood however, is what effect different staff clothing might have on consumer response in terms of satisfaction, purchase intent, attitude, interest and so on. Some limited research has shown how different levels of congruence between individuals in their marketing, and the brand they are representing, can affect customers. To avoid any wrong focus in marketing it is key to understand the knowledge gap on the potential impact the personnel in the store have on its customers.

As a consumer often chooses product or service to satisfy the specific needs or desires. However, there is more often than not several brands that manufacture the same product, which means we also have to choose between these brands before we can calm our needs. This choice is usually an active decision. We choose a brand that we are familiar with, or a brand whose identity appeals to us. The brand thus has a major impact on both consumers' decision-making in connection with the purchase, but also for business success.

In Sweden, there an increasing need for transport and this leads directly to fuel demand of the transport sector is expected to increase. Both politicians and industry believes that renewable fuels are a realistic and significant method to reduce the transport sector's environmental impact. This study aims to document the Swedish haulage contractor?s attitude to biodiesel. Also to document the strengths and weaknesses of biodiesel, based on opinions from the ultimate consumers.

The thesis deals with packaging of real estate?s; an approach concerning tax benefits with the purpose to sell real estates in a more beneficial process than what is doable in direct sales. The proceeding can be beneficial because of the rules in Inkomstskattelagen (19999:1229) regarding underpriced transfers and selling of business related shares.  The real estate owner initiates the procedure through an establishment of an affiliate to a previously wholly owned parent company, where the real estate is the solitary asset of the affiliate. In order to fulfill the rules of underpriced transfers the transfer from the parent company shall be valued in regards to the tax value, else it will be taxed.

This master?s thesis attends to a debate in the Swedish daily press concerning the public library which arose after the Swedish Moderate Party?s publication of their cultural political document Kulturen 2.0. This document contains a number of standpoints, of which three directly concern the public library: charges on book loans, libraries on contract and politically balanced purchase policy. In all, 28 articles are examined by means of an idea and ideological analysis. The purpose is to find out what is behind the conflicts surrounding attitudes about the public library's mission and activity in an era of needs for change.

In today?s society, people do not solely purchase a product for its promised use. Instead, a brand is purchased and along with that brand comes a variety of associations. The associations of a product?s brand are what contributes to the added value that, according to this study, is what distinguishes a brand?s power.