We have by Statistics Sweden (SCB) been given the task of using different dynamic regression models in order to forecast service price index for sea transport. The aim is to see whether these models provide better forecasts than those previously used. This essay aim to identify, estimate and evaluate the selected prediction models. Through our data material we were given access to 28 sightings of sea transport index during the period of 2004 q1 to 2010 q4. We have chosen to evaluate three different transfer function models, one ARIMA model and one naive forecasting model. The input variables we decided to test in our transfer function models were the price of petroleum products, the port activity in Swedish ports and the lending rate of Swedish Central bank. The results of our study suggest that transfer function models generally provide better models than the ARIMA model and the naive forecast model.

Title: Globalization ? Meeting a new market Author: Anna Nubäck Supervisor: Anders Nilsson Institution: School of Management, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola Course: Master in business administration, 15 credits (FED006) Purpose: The purpose of this essay is partly to create an understanding of the decision to establish a branch in Japan and especially to look at if and how the Swedish company in this study has adjusted its corporate culture to suit the Japanese market. Method: Data is collected thru a number of semi constructed interviews. A first telephone interview was followed by an interview made face to face that was also followed up by interviews performed over telephone. E-mails have been used to clear and correct collected data.

The project is a practical and theoretical test of IP telephony with Skype in order to form a base for a comparison between IP-Telephony with Skype and the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN). PSTN is the common standard that most of us use for telephony today. The objective for the study is to simplify the choice between PSTN and IP-Telephony for the Swedish private customer user group. The project is supposed to answer the following questions. - How easy is it to start using IP-telephony with Skype? - How is the quality of IP-telephony compared to PSTN? - Are all services provided by PSTN available and accessible using the IP-solution? - How are the usability and the availability of support with IP telephony? - Is IP-telephony a cheaper solution and in that case under which circumstances? Within the project a collection of practical and theoretical tests have been performed to be able to form an opinion on the IP-solution in the following areas, installation, function, quality, usability, costs, accessibility and security. In order to study usability, a test group of ten persons have been used to evaluate the usability of the system.

The market for security is one filled with great opportunities. The security services companies are numerous and diverse, the Swedish market is dominated by two large companies: Securitas Bevakning AB and Falck Security AB. In this study we have focused on the bigger of the two, Securitas. This report describes and analysis the security service branch and its surroundings in an involved manner. The target group of the result is mainly people within the security branch.

The main purpose with this master's thesis was to develop a survey with the intention to examine what expectations the JM AB:s customer had on a future garden and also to discuss if the lawn has a symbolic meaning in gardens. The lion's share of the thesis is based on a survey, aimed at people in the company's customer database. The intention was to examine what expectations they had on their future garden and if their expectations were met when they later bought a house from the company. The work also consists of interviews and visits to areas with newly built homes. I interpreted the result from my surveys as the lawn on its own being is a strong symbol for a garden and also signals a social status of the owner. To the company the pre made lawn on a role is a way of saving time and easily achieve what the customer request. The company wants to create a concept of a "preset-garden" that meets the company's vision as well as the expectations of the customer.

Inom forskningssammanhang har det introducerats mängder av initiativ i syfte att föra IT-funktion och affärsverksamhet närmare varandra men fortfarande framställs relationen ofta i problematiska termer då det kommer till deras samarbete. Ett samarbete som i många fall begränsas av bristande förståelse för varandras kunskaper. Denna uppsats undersöker den sociala dimensionen av anpassning inom företag verksamma i bank- och försäkringsbranschen. Baserat på intervjuer med personer från tre av Sverige största bank- och försäkringsföretag, söker denna uppsats förstå hur dessa möjliggör för, vilka utmaningar de möter och vilka motiv de har för att arbeta med den sociala dimensionen av anpassning.Med utgångspunkt i definitionen av den sociala dimensionen av anpassning följer teorier om kunskapsdelning, individens absorptionskapacitet samt organisationens tillämpning av den praktikbaserade gemenskapen för att främja den gemensamma förståelsen och engagemanget mellan IT-funktion och affärsverksamhet. Genom att utveckla en konceptuell modell baserat på tidigare litteratur analyseras de empiriska fynden inom ett bank- och försäkringskontext.

This report is going to be focusing on the development of a promotion page and login system for the web production company Adoreyou. The promotion page and login will be parts of a new taxi application for iPhone that lets the customer book a taxi and drivers manage the requests from the customers.Taxi application?s that let customer?s book trips are nothing new but they are constantly being explored and developed. The most common practice is to let the customer fill in from what address he or she wants to be picked up and to where he or she wants to be taken. Then the price is set in the application depending on the distance and most likely other factors like weekday and time.

The aim of this thesis is that through a case study, analyze and evaluate whether the customer is high - or low involved and connect with the choice of marketing strategy using a celebrity.This thesis is about how a celebrity can be used in marketing to affect a company's customers. The essay is facing the fashion retail industry, where three companies, Lindex, H&M and MQ, has been studied and compared. Lindex is using celebritiy Emma Wiklund by an internal collaboration within the enterprise. MQ is using various celebrities in various campaigns throughout the year and use them in external advertising campaigns. H&M is using interactive marketing with different celebrities in the form of, for example, guest collections for the company.

This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using different benchmarking models to measure and compare the efficiency of Swedish gas distributors. It also discusses to which extent the results of a benchmarking study should influence the revenue-cap which will be implemented in the gas distribution sector in Sweden from year 2011. The discussion is based on arguments from both theory and practical applications of benchmarking. The results suggest that benchmarking Swedish gas distributors against distributors in another country using a parametric model is most favorable, but the reliability will be increased if non-parametric models are used also. Partial and total productivity measures could be used to confirm results of other benchmarking analyses.

The furniture retail industry in Sweden has gone trough large changes during the last decades. Today the industry is tough and in the maturity stage where few new companies enter, especially if they do not have a unique offer. The furniture companies have become larger and fewer, the changes have lead to difficulties for smaller and medium sized companies to grow and be profitable.Our purpose is to analyse, evaluate and compare three smaller companies in Stockholm with the intention to find what kind of marketing strategies they are using to survive on the Swedish market. First we interviewed the three companies to see what they do to survive on the market, then we asked 100 persons to fill in a questionnaire to see if they had the same opinion as the companies described.With help from theories we prepared questions which laid the foundation to the empirical part of the essay.The result from this study shows that the three companies differ from each other when it comes to using relationship marketing and placing the customer in the centre. All of them are aware of the importance of doing so, but because of different limits and possibilities they can not fully adjust everything to the customer.

Det finns speciella förutsättningar som präglar bankbranschen vilka främst utgörs av lagar som reglerar hur bankverksamheter får bedrivas. Bankbranschen går även igenom en förändring på grund av ökad konkurrens som gör att de traditionella bankerna måste agera för att behålla sina kunder lojala. Den lojalitetsforskning som finns tar ej hänsyn till dessa förutsättningar och därmed blir ämnet bank och lojalitet intressant att utforska. Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva och analysera bankers agerande för att skapa lojala kunder. Vi har utgått från vetenskapliga artiklar och undersökningar om vilka faktorer som är viktiga för bankkunders lojalitetsbeteende.

Uppsatsen behandlar små kunskapsföretags behov av kunderbjudande från sin bank. Kunskapsföretag har en annorlunda struktur än de ?traditionella? företag som en bank vanligtvis hanterar eftersom värdeskapandet sker genom kunskap. Följden blir att det sällan finns behov av stora investeringar hos kunskapsföretag och de investeringar som görs sker med redan intjänade medel. Föreningssparbanken har därför haft en önskan att fördjupa sina relationer med kunskapsföretag för att kartlägga vilka behov som finns av bankens tjänster.

Femsjö is a small parish situated in Hylte municipality, Växjö diocese. The parish has a total area of 8230 ha of which 5000 ha are covered with forest. There have not been any large industries in the parish offering work opportunities for the inhabitants, so they have had to generate income from their land and the forest. Instead of going to the bank to get a bank loan the people of Femsjö parish went out in to the forest and harvested trees for timber and extra cash revenue. Production of pine tar and potash were two other ways that the residents of Femsjö parish could earn extra money for the household in order to keep starvation away.

För knappt ett år sedan fann Norges högsta domstol i ett uppmärksammat pleniavgörande att DNB Bank hade ingått ett oskäligt investeringsavtal med småspararen Røeggen. Domen är intressant för svenskt vidkommande i förhållande till både oskälighetsbedömningen och valet av rättsföljd. Syftet med uppsatsen är att utifrån ett praktiskt perspektiv analysera oskälighetsbedömningen och innebörden av ogiltighet enligt 36 § avtalslagen. Det sker genom en utredning av den oskälighetsbedömning som leder fram till att ett avtal ogiltigförklaras. Vidare företas en analys av ogiltighetens rättsverkningar.

Information technology and globalization has led to an increasing competition and service production has been more and more independent of locations. This has made a market of outsourced telephone costumer service possible. Due to high establishment the market has been saturated and with that price has sunk. Customer companies have the last few years got more negative to outsourcing of their telephone customer service as they through operating the customer service internally want to get closer to their customers.In the empirical study the writers try to figure out which companies the callcenters should try to aim towards to get long and profitable cooperation. This will be done through deducing guiding principles from theories about how different factors around companies costumer service should look like.