Abstract: Private equity used to be synonymous with tremendous yields and rates of return. However, the private equity market trembled in 2008, due to the financial meltdown caused by the worldwide credit crisis. Considering the current low number of exits within the private equity industry, the purpose of this thesis is to examine if there has been any change in how private equity firms control their portfolio companies since the inception of the crisis. One private equity company and two portfolio companies have been studied. The case study is prepared from interviews with senior directors in the portfolio company and investment managers in the private equity firm.

An impulse or unplanned purchase is a decision taken on the spot without further consideration or reflection. It is the spur of the moment that influences the purchase rather than a deliberated decision. Being loyal to a particular brand means a mutual relationship between customer and company created over time which may result in the customer experiencing a higher value and thus prefer a particular brand before another.Bulk confectionary can be characterized as an impulse product because it is purchased at times without any time of consideration or planning. The question that arises is whether all bulk confectionary purchases are unplanned? Through this study it shall be examined whether any brand loyalty actually exists regarding bulk confectionary; does the customer plan its confectionary purchases in beforehand or do most of them occur through impulses? Furthermore, the study will highlight who the customer is of bulk confectionary in Sweden.The survey was conducted through a combination of a quantitative and qualitative method.

All inclusive travel has become a popular way to travel abroad. When tourists pay for everything in advance their need for contact with the local people will be reduced. The consequences of this can be dissatisfaction from the local people as they are left out and do not share the financial benefits created by tourism. During the purchasing cycle of an all inclusive travel, it is possible that the tour operator can influence a sustainable development.The aim of this paper is to compare how a large and a small tour operator in their purchase of all inclusive holidays interacts with local players to create sustainable development, thereby creating a surplus value to the customer. The hypothesis is that the amount of knowledge and application of this knowledge regarding sustainable development differs in the purchase process between large and small tour operators.This paper was carried out as a case study.

The increasing health problems in our society have been lifted to the surface and debated for quite some time now. Even though the statistics of bad health somewhat have dropped, the problems still remain. Many companies are wrestling with this and are suffering from huge financial losses due to the costs of people frequently calling in sick for work. This has resulted in an increasingly high expansion of different types of preventive measures in order to avert health problems. But far from all companies reach these goals and it is there for of high value to study how important resources can be used in a more efficient way.The purpose of this study is to achieve a deeper understanding for Health promotive services in companies and to understand which influential factors are crucial in the process of reaching successful strategic Health promotions.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the nature of framework agreements in public procurement in Sweden. The main question is whether a contracting authority is obligated to place orders under a framework agreement when purchasing a product or service that is covered in that agreement and to what extent a contractor is obligated to accept such orders. If the answer to that first question is that an obligation does exist the next question to arise is what kind of consequences to expect when either party fails to meet that obligation. Of great importance is whether a contracting authority that hasn?t used an existing framework agreement is liable to pay damages to the contractor who according to the agreement had a right to deliver.

Climate changing is a growing problem for many countries and communities over the world. The cities has a huge work to deal with in their reforcements of their cities to be resilient ones. This thesis makes an effort to investigate and illuminate some of the problem the cities has to solve related to flooding, hazards, erosions, rising sea levels and crotches. This thesis will help to find solutions that international and national efforts has produced and handed out to each other. A lot of communities are charing their excellent tools that works for them.

This essay is a study of the motives and driving forces affecting how a food producer looks at, and incorporates, an environmental-labeling and its impact on their organization and strategy. Driving forces and motivations is an important part of a business strategy and impacts its content and its expression. Sustainability can be part of the overall company strategy but could also define the entire company. This study has shown that the main motive for working with eco-labelling is a genuine interest in issues concerning sustainability. This creates an opportunity for the company to communicate their environmental policies to their customers. For a company that works proactive and innovative with sustainability and climate issues, the new climate framework does not mean any major organizational or strategic changes.When the framework is incorporated in the organization the farms need to be analyzed with a climate impact perspective. This essay shows that this process, together with tools developed to handle the framework, make change in the way dairy farmers think and how they relate to their daily work..

The purpose with this essay is to study how companies use the repositioning process and identify the risks involved from a business perspective. We have chosen to base our essay on the following research questions:What reasons are there for a company to initiate a repositioning?, What does it mean for companies to implement a repositioning?, What are the risks with a repositioning?We have used a qualitative research method and have chosen to interview six respondents which in various ways are actively working with brand repositioning. Our study has been implemented with and deductive character.The most important conclusion that we observed after implementing our study is that repositioning is a high-risk project. Instead of changing their entire brand image, companies should instead make small changes and revitalize the brand by developing the strength that already exist.

This paper describes the development of a simulation model for the ambulance flow in the Västra Götalands-region of Sweden, and an analysis tool for the output of the simulation model. The aim of the simulation model was to be able to evaluate the outcome from changes in the ambulance operations, such as a reorganization of ambulances or an increase in intensity of the ambulance calls. This evaluation is meant to serve as decision support for the strategic planning of the ambulance operations. The analysis tool was developed to visualize the abundant geographical data produced by the simulation model in a meaningful way. The simulation model was validated against historical data which showed that the dispatch time for the highest prioritized ambulance calls corresponds well with historical data.

Competition in the market of interior design during the last several years has drastically increased. The consumers of today are very conscious about what the market can offer and therefore they have high demands on the products. It is not only the function of the product that matters but also the design that makes a difference. Companies are becoming more aware of this and as a result they have to find a way to set themselves apart in order to attract customers. This realization has led designers and economists to cooperate in a different way than before.

When the competition is getting stronger and companies must work harder to find new markets, new products and create new needs to reach growth, it appears strange that they overlook an obvious target segment right in front of their eyes. For some years ago, marketers of fashion brands feared that older women would wear their clothes, because it gave bad promotion for the young economically viable target group. Today, older women have difficulties finding clothes with right fit, style and personal taste. They would gratefully accept a brand, they felt were aimed for them. The purpose of this study is to give new ideas to companies in the fashion industry, how to reach this target group, but also be a contributing reason for older women to see the market opening for them.

This paper describes the development of a simulation model for the ambulance flow in the Västra Götalands-region of Sweden, and an analysis tool for the output of the simulation model. The aim of the simulation model was to be able to evaluate the outcome from changes in the ambulance operations, such as a reorganization of ambulances or an increase in intensity of the ambulance calls. This evaluation is meant to serve as decision support for the strategic planning of the ambulance operations. The analysis tool was developed to visualize the abundant geographical data produced by the simulation model in a meaningful way. The simulation model was validated against historical data which showed that the dispatch time for the highest prioritized ambulance calls corresponds well with historical data.

The concept competence is considered to be difficult to define. Therefore, it may be problematic to define competence in business and to evaluate the level of skills of employees (Thomsen, 2010). In this study the aim has been to identify key competencies for employees working as purchasers for Skanska Nordic Procurement Unit (NPU). These key competencies will afterwards help Skanska NPU to evaluate purchasers? level of competence.The theoretical framework of the study consists of three different parts.

We chose to write this essay about mobile commerce and what influences aconsumer's buying habits within mobile commerce. We also look at how acompany can implement mobile commerce. We could not find any studies thatdirectly addressed factors that affected consumers of mobile commerce prior tothis essay. This was one of the reasons that we chose to write about it.In the introductory chapter, we will discuss important issues relating to ecommerceand the use of smartphones as a tool for marketing and trade.In the methodology chapter, we explain our choice of methods for this essay. Wereported on the techniques and methods to collect data that were relevant to thiswork and then we had a discussion about the methodological choices made.

The aim with this project was to investigate how research grants in Sweden are distributed inthe selected fields; natural science, medicine and life science. Our client Olink producesdetection kits for biomarkers and our goal with this study was to give an indication of apossible new market area for their products. Three foundations were included in the study;VINNOVA, Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council) and Stiftelsen för strategiskforskning (Swedish foundation for strategic research). Nearly a thousand research grantswere analysed which included a total of 4,92 billion Swedish kronor. Seven selecteduniversities were contacted; Chalmers tekniska högskola, Karolinska Institutet, Kungligatekniska högskolan, Linköpings universitet, Lunds universitetet, Sverigeslantbruksuniversitet, Uppsala universitet.