We were commissioned by Bulten Stainless AB to identify and analyze their customer order flow. Because the company had problems with delays in the production and deliveries to the customer, the task also included investigation of how the company work with prevention and management of delays. The purpose of the project also included to identify critical factors for effective order flow in smaller workshop companies.The information about the flow and how the work takes place within the company were collected through observations on the company and interviews with the staff. This information was used to draw maps over the customer order flow and to write a description of the current situation within the company. Both strengths and weaknesses of the companies work could be identified through analysis of the present situation.

The aim of this thesis is to describe how service companies through adjustment of the customer?s zone of tolerance can influence customer?s perception of the service during the processes of service delivery and create customer satisfaction. The method used was case study approach utilizing personal interviews, which were conducted at two service companies. The study showed that the aspects of the service that have greatest importance for the customer?s assessment of the service and customer satisfaction among others are personal treatment and that personel behave in the way that makes the customer feel itself taken good care of and unique.

This paper examines the customer relationships of a telecom operator and how their customer accounting is done. The aim is to use the framework developed by Lind & Strömsten (2006) to categorize customer relationships and see to what extent the framework predicts which type of customer accounting method is used for each customer relationship. A case study was made at Telenor Sverige AB where different customer relationships are identified and linked to the customer accounting techniques that are used for financial measurement of the customers. Findings include that all but one of the customer relationships described in the framework were recognized at Telenor and that most customer accounting techniques mentioned in the framework were in fact used and associated with different customer relationships. The results of the case study also highlight that some differences exist between the predictions of the framework and the observations at Telenor..

Uppsatsen behandlar ämnet genus och genusframställningen i barnböcker nu, och för 50 år sedan. För att komma fram till ett resultat har två analysmetoder använts, Nikolajevas mimetiska metod samt en semiotisk bildanalysmetod. Resultatet visar att det skett en förändring av genusframställandet i barnböcker de senaste femtio åren och att den största förändringen skedde i mitten på 60-talet..

From the customer?s perspective the only reason for a firm to exist is the value it creates. However, a problem within manufacturing companies is that of the total lead time, only a small part can be considered as value adding. It has further been discovered that when working with improvements businesses often sub-optimizes single processes instead of considering what benefits the entire company. Thus, when improving processes and activities it is important to have knowledge about and understand which factors that affect how the flow can be designed.Several studies have been performed with a wide perspective on process flows in order to obtain a more resource-efficient and value added flow.

The companies of today figures on a hardly competitive market. This makes it necessary for the company to find new way to create competition advantages. Since it is no longer enough to compete with the technical quality of the product the companies are forced to also enhance the functional quality. To accomplish this it becomes necessary for producing companies to be customer oriented. A customer oriented company culture can be reached with the help of internal marketing in which different activities work to inform and teach the employees about the company strategy and also about their own role as part-time marketers.This thesis examines Electrolux, a company which is currently striving to develop a customer oriented company culture.

In a global economy it is important to understand what project management is and how it functions in a contemporary company. This report includes an empirical case study of a project flow, which was conducted in the department Packaging Concept (PC) which is a part of Stora Enso. As all of PC´s customer enquiries are unique and must be considered an individual project, PC continuously works in projects. An analysis of the project flow was conducted based on interviews at and visits to PC as well as relevant documents distributed by the department. The report gives an understanding and analysis of how PC works in projects.

Since companies have realised the importance of customer loyalty and since the service sector has gained higher significance in recent years, we found it interesting to study what leads to customer loyalty in service companies. The theories we have chosen to consider are customer loyalty, service quality, service guarantees, affinity marketing, loyalty programmes and customer clubs, the customer in focus and other factors that influences customer loyalty. To find out how service companies are working with cus- tomer loyalty, we have conducted a case study within three service companies. Our findings are that customer loyalty has a significant importance for the companies we studied. Quality and personnel were the factors we found had the greatest impact in service companies concerning customer loyalty.

This thesis has been performed as a part of the Bachelor degree in Industrial Engineering and Management at the School of Engineering in Jönköping. The thesis is written on behalf of Pallco AB, which is an engineering company that performs subcontracting, surface treatment, and assembly of components, mainly in steel and aluminium. The thesis focuses on identifying and analyzing the customer order fulfillment process of three customers at Pallco AB.The main objective of the thesis is to distinguish time differences in the company?s administrative work for each of the three customers. Furthermore, Lean thinking is following as a thread through the whole thesis.

The structures of organizations have gone through a dramatic change over the last years; as a result customer service is no longer a small side activity but a critical part in customer relationship management. Development in information technology has created opportunities as well as challenges for organizations when it comes to providing a customer service with capacity of sensing and responding to customers' needs. Previous research shows a relationship between customer response capability and customer knowledge processeses, this study investigates and confirms this relationship. However, findings show that dedication and understanding for customers needs has a direct impact on both customer response capability and customer knowledge processeses, this result indicates that customer knowledge processes and customer relationship management are difficult to differentiate. Furthermore, this study explores IT-related resources impact on customer response capability and customer knowledge processes.

This thesis studies the customer relationships and customer accounting methods used by a Swedish fashion company. The aim is to test the empirical applicability of the relationship based framework developed by Lind and Strömsten and to explain potential differences between empirical observations and theory. The framework is based on the categorization of four customer relationship groups and the appropriate customer accounting methods to be used for each relationship. The fashion company, that recently assessed the profitability of its customer base in an aim to implement a new customer strategy, is the object of the qualitative case study. The case study reveals that all customer relationships are to be found at Whyred, except the connective customer relationship.

This paper examines how companies in a transparent industry work to satisfy the customer in an extended way, to offer value added products that in the end enables the customer to be loyal to the company. We have studied the insurance industry in Sweden and have focused on five different insurance companies. Four of them, Folksam, Länsförsäkringar, Trygg-Hansa and Dina Försäkringar, where we have focused on Ölands Försäkringar which is part of the Dina Försäkringar group, are some of the largest insurance companies in Sweden. The fourth company is Swedbank which is a bank that has started to offer insurances.Our results demonstrate that it is important for the company to see the customer not only in a profitability aspect; the company has to find out what the customer gets in return. In that case the possibility for the customer to change company decreases and the chance that the customer becomes loyal increases.

Banks find themselves at a highly competitive market where it is important to achieve high customer satisfaction if they want to attract customers and stay competitive. Some studies suggest that the gap between customer expectations and perception within the five quality dimensions influences the customer satisfaction. With SERVQUAL the authors of this thesis have investigated the suggested relationship and have discovered no indications of a relationship between the gap and customer satisfaction. Instead the results indicate that there is a relationship between perceived service and customer satisfaction. The thesis also indicates that the most important quality dimension for the bank customer is reliability.

Our purpose with this thesis was to study how tourism providers deliver quality to their customers. We chose to carry out two case studies where we interviewed an owner of a camp site, and a municipal manager employed at another camp site. The questions were based on customer needs, service quality and dissatisfaction. The study gave us some useful aspects. The respondents told us that it was very important to the tourist providers to listen to the customer´s specific needs and to give them personal attention.

Customer information is to be seen as an essential part in service development. The company should be aware of how their customers experience their services. The company can get access to customer information through complaints from their customers. All information obtained from the customers is not possible to use when developing new and existing services. The information has to be analysed before it is possible to use it for service development.This paper describes if Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) uses their customers as a source of knowledge when developing new and existing services and in that case how.