It is becoming increasingly important for companies to meet customer demands due to intense competition in today's global market, that forcing companies to improve their offerings and become better at managing their supply chain (Shen et al., 2006).  Long lead times can be reduced by using different methods and strategies shows various researches. Lead times occur in the planning, production, inventories and handling of products (Treville et al., 2003).The aim of the study is to develop a method to analyze the factors that affect the length of internal delivery lead time in manufacturing companies. The method also included suggestions for reducing delivery lead-time to internal customers.The main factors that influenced the length of the on delivery lead times has summarized to make a selection among the factors that can have the most significant impact. The selected elements will be used as a method to analyze how these areas affect a company?s length on internal delivery lead times.The study shows that the causes of the long delivery lead times was the location of the customer order point, uncertain forecasts, long material and production planning time, and long waits in the production and storage.The delivery lead time, according to this report?s suggested improvements reduced by centralizing CODP and makes more reliable forecasts.

Executive SummaryThis final thesis has examined the effects of an increased centralization and better coord­in­ation of the distribution logistics at ABB in Västerås. The company is today strongly decent­ralized and there is a minimum of collaboration between the 20 business units. This is why the questions were raised; how could the business units coordinate outbound logistic activities and what effects would that provide. The obj­ect­ive of this final thesis is to provide basic data for a future decision-making which desc­r­ibe these effects.The report has mapped out the factors that are important to ABB in an evaluation of their logistic activities and how the outbound logistics work today. The four factors are cost efficiency, delivery service, environmental impact and logistics capability.

Hur kan B2B-byråer anpassa sina tjänster efter konjunkturläget, utan att kompromissa med kvalitet och genomslag?Vi har genom intervjuer med elva Business-2-Business företag i Skåne, och tre B2B-byråer samlat information till undersök-ningen. Detta i ett försök att kartlägga företagens och byråer-nas arbetssätt. Denna information har sedan legat till grund för den analys som gjorts av den generella bild vi skapat oss av företagens och byråernas arbetssätt, för att utifrån den kunna föreslå ett mer tillfredsställande arbetssätt för alla parter..

AbstractThis study deals with motivation as an overall concept, from a student perspective. It encompasses factors that could directly affect students and their positive or negative motivation, concepts such as relationships, communication, expectations and interactions and their importance to my informants.The study also discusses certain theories to show the different ways of defining motivation, specifically in relation to my informants and their and my conclusions. My ambition is to establish the importance of the concepts mentioned above, as well as perspective changes to the enhancement of the performance standards of a good teacher.The purpose of this work is to describe, understand and clarify the external and internal factors that affect motivation. In order to achieve this purpose, I chose to use a method of qualitative interviews with three students, with different backgrounds, schools and conditions but with a lack of motivation as a unifying characteristic. The research questions were as follows:What factors influence students' motivation?   What impact do achievement targets have in relation to the pupils? own motivation to learn?How important are teachers' expectations for the individual student's motivation?Within this study sub-concepts such as importance of expectations, relationships, and significant others are, according to my analysis, of great importance.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate industrial branding, which as a relatively new concept, both for practioners as well as academia, comprises a less explored application of the brand concept. The theoretical background of the study consists of marketing theory concerning the brand concept, and theory concerning industrial marketing. The empirical foundation consists of case studies of four industrial companies, based on interviews with representatives from the companies. All four companies have engaged in activities which they themselves see as industrial branding. Initially, the study sets out to determine the occurence of industrial branding, according to this study?s definition, and continues to tentatively explore the implications of branding in an industrial context.

This essay examines the recent electoral success of the Sweden Democrats (SD) in the Swedish municipal election in 2006 and 2010. By using statistical methods it aims to explain which of three contradicting theoretical frameworks best can explain how a populist radical right party could penetrate one of the most stable party systems in the world. The theoretical approaches tested in this essay are: a demand-side, an external supply-side and an internal supply-side approach. By using theoretically anchored proxies to determine the effect of the contradicting theoretical approaches this essay concludes that the internal supply-side explanation measuring the local party organizational ability of the SD had the most substantial effect when it comes to explaining their recent electoral success in the Swedish municipalities, as opposed to a more commonly believed demand-side driven explanation..

Bakgrund: Vår utgångspunkt i uppsatsen är att produktskillnaderna blir allt mindre och det emotionella värdets betydelse blir allt större. I och med detta får varumärket en allt större betydelse även inom business-to-business. Syfte: Vi avser att undersöka ICA Menyföretagens identitet samt vad dess varumärke står för. Dessutom vill se hur användbara de modeller vi använt är i business-to-business-relationer samt utforma en egen modell som förklarar hur märkeslojalitet uppnås i en sådan relation. Avgränsningar: Vi kommer endast att beröra så kallad business-to-business samt varumärkets emotionella värde.

The swedish law of contract is fundamental within several civil law areas, among others labour law. The labour law contains more explicit legislation specificly adapted to the relation between employers and employees. Sometimes the labour law needs to rely on more general regulations, such as the law of contract. When the situation contains a specific contract relation dilemma it is logical to use the law of contract, when for example the law of employee protection does not reach an acceptabel solution.Transfer of undertaking is a situation were the employee protection is disregarded. The Euro directive 2001/23/EG prescribes, by its implemented rules in the law of employee protection, that rights and duties, such as employement agreements, passes on to the earner of the business.

AbstractBusiness, or business decisions always involves an endangerment from the company?s aspect, but when it comes to business with foreign countries the risk profile looks quite different from the profile the company has when its doing business inside the country. Therefore, it is extremely important for an export company or import company to carefully consider the risks that are enclosed with the deal, before he makes the decision to enter a deal. One of the most important risks a company have to considerate when doing business with foreign countries is the currency risk. A company is exposed to currency risk when either long-term or short-term changes in the exchange rate may affect the result of the company, competitive position and growth.

Aim: A business ratio is a measuring instrument that companies use in their financial report to show profit and progress. As it is today, there are no standards to follow that shows which business ratio to present in a companies annual report. Our aim with this report is to see if there are any trends in the use of business ratios by looking into how thirty growth companies are applying them.Method: To see what business ratios are used in practice, we have collected information from the thirty companies? annual reports. With help from the literature, we have created an understanding about the most frequently used business ratios.

The aim of our study is to explore the empowerment process among micro-business owners in Kayamandi, a black township of Stellenbosch in South Africa. What are the positive and negative implications for the empowerment process? Another aim is to find out the role of local and international support in this process. The theoretical framework of this study revolves around the concepts of gender, power and empowerment. Our methods are qualitative interviews and observations.

This essay describes some factors that may effect small business survival in relation to becoming a supplier for bigger companies that may implement the use of EDI for electronic invoicing.The purpose of this study is to analyse and evaluate what impact may occur during the introduction of EDI between small and big business.Following on from the introduction of methods used in this study there will be a complete analysis made detailing results.From our research we have found that most small business have developed a professional working relationship between themselves and their clients.The adoption of EDI by big business has revolutionised the day to day dealings between both supplier and consumer in that EDI has empowered both chains to collaborate data in real time.In conclusion our research illustrates that in order for small business to survive the must implement EDI. The results of our study have shown that the introduction of EDI to both small and big business has had a positive outcome..

This thesis advances an explicit, consequent, and wholesome ethnomethodological perspective on brand community. It recognizes brand community as a social problem ? something to be continuously solved and achieved. The two main perceivably stable features of the Nikonian community are (1) practical usefulness and (2) the social link. The authors suggest that both features are constantly accomplished through three types of aggregate behaviour (1) lurking, (2) ordinary membership, and (3) community citizenship behaviour (CCB).

Kevin Roberts has extended the comprehension of strong consumer brands to a higher level where loyalty beyond reason is established. He calls this new status Lovemarks. As the concept of Lovemark has only been applied in B2C markets, this thesis is directed to find out the applicability of Lovemarks in B2B context. In order to fulfill the research purpose, three main questions are answered based on a cross-sectional research approach: What role do intangible factors play in B2B branding? Is the idea of B2C Lovemarks transferable to B2B context? How should a B2B Lovemark be characterized? The results of the qualitative interviews indicate insights of high investment and involvement, integrated brand communication, balance between function versus emotion, brand?s trustworthy personality, customer partnership, and finally, the potential establishment of B2B Lovemarks.

Date: June 10, 2011Level: Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, 15 credits.Authors: Erica Halvarsson Caroline Lundberg Moa RydbeckSupervisor: Peter SelegårdTitle: A comparison between a traditional and a new bank ? from a leadership perspectiveProblem: The study focuses how different organizational structures and leadership styles appear in a traditional bank compared to a young bank. The questions we asked ourselves in this study is whether there is any differences?Purpose: The purpose of the study is to from a leadership perspective see if there are any differences between organizational structures, leadership and communication depending on whether it is a traditional or a new bank.Method: In this study, primary and secondary data was used to best obtain comprehensive information, which was analyzed on the basis of a set of question. In order to obtain our raw data, interviews with staff from Swedbank and IKANO bank were conducted.