In changing world of e-commerce and internet based communication, business transactions and data flows play a key role in successful business management. It is vital to formalize business transactions. Communicative action loop was proposed for modeling these transactions. XML is often used for data exchange. BTP is a specific extended transaction model that allows coordination of resources which are exposed by multiple autonomous organizations. This model relaxes the traditional ACID properties and forms a protocol that can run for long periods of time over the inherently unreliable environment that is the Internet. This project aims to demonstrate if the .NET technology is a sufficiently flexible model to provide an implementation of BTP and whether the functionality provided by the framework is enough to support the complex interactions specified by the protocol.

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral)--Technische Universität, Chemnitz, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 481-510) and index.

Univ., Diss.--Münster, 2003.

Business-to-business relationships within sustained monopolies, such as those within Defence Procurement, have received limited attention by Management Researchers. This is unusual because under these market circumstances typically there appear to be few incentives to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes despite their strategic policy importance. The purpose of this thesis is therefore, to determine the influential relationship factors between the UK Ministry of Defence and its Industrial partners within a predominantly monopolistic Defence Procurement business. The approach adopted for this research project is exploratory and inter-subject area. It uses quantitative and supportive qualitative data to examine the problem through an economic model using Supply Chain Management, Relationship Marketing and Transaction Cost Economics. A self-selected census of 54 business relationships is carried out from both the buyer and supplier perspectives through staff questionnaires and team leader semi-structured interviews. The findings from this research show, contrary to the expectation of the theoretical model, a positive relationship success situation with a spectrum of both positive and negative behavioural factors present. However, a significant adversarial influence is a suite of issues that are endemic to the business in question such as old products, obsolescence, staff and organisational upheavals, poor end-customer visibility and lack of investment in modern procedures and systems. Within the monopoly environment these accentuate managers’ frustrations due to lack of freedom of action. The primary contribution of this research is therefore, an increased understanding of the business-to-business relationship dynamics within long-term, closely coupled, collaborative, business-to-business arrangements as exemplified by UK Defence and the results are likely to be of interest to both academics and managers.

Företag använder marknadssegmentering för att dela in kunder i grupper utefter liknande karaktäristika, som exempelvis betalningsvilja. Företag kan i sinom tid möta en mättad marknad inom dess segment, och behöver då ompositionera strategier mot nya segment för fortsatt kundtillväxt. För företag som valt en positionering mot segment med hög betalningsvilja (high-end), är en möjlighet för fortsatt kundtillväxt istället ompositionering mot lägre segment (low-end). Syftet med studien var att kartlägga och identifiera hur företag besittande en högpristjänst, kan nå kunder med lägre betalningsvilja genom nedåtgående segmentering. Detta utan att skada varumärket och riskera förluster av befintliga kunder. Utifrån syftet fastslogs följande frågeställning: • Hur kan SaaS-företag som besitter en high-end tjänst, använda nedåtgående segmentering utan att skada varumärket och förlora befintliga kunder? Studiens avgränsning begränsades till SaaS-företag, en delbransch inom IT-branschen. Detta med anledning av dess unika, relativt obefintliga, marginalkostnad. Studien har genomförts genom att använda en kvalitativ forskningsmetodik, i form av fem semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra företag ståendes inför det problem som berörs. Studien består genomgående av en struktur baserad på blocken segmentering, tillväxt, lönsamhet samt varumärke. Studiens resultat, baserad på insamlad empiri och analys, har lett till en slutsats som påvisat fyra stycken beståndsdelar. Dessa ter sig vara faktorer som en high-end tjänst bör inneha, för en lyckad strategiförändring mot lägre marknadssegment. Dessa fyra kriterier är marknadsmedvetenhet, skalbar tjänst, flerstegig prismodell samt varumärkesmedvetenhet. / Companies use market segmentation to divide customers into groups along similar characteristics, such as willingness to pay. Companies could eventually meet a saturated market within its segments, and would then need to reposition towards new segments for continued customer growth. For companies that choose to position themselves against segments with high willingness to pay (high-end), a possibility of continued customer growth is to position segments with lower willingness to pay (low- end). The purpose of this thesis was to plot and identify how companies, proprietors of a high-end solution, can use downward segmentation to reach customers with lower willingness to pay. This without damaging the brand and risking losses of existing customers. Based on the purpose of the thesis, the following research question has been established: • How can SaaS-companies that have a high-end service, use downward segmentation without damaging their brand and losing existing customers? The delimitation of the study was limited to SaaS companies, a sub-sector in the IT industry. This is due to its unique, relatively non-existent, marginal cost. The study has been conducted using a qualitative research method, in the form of five semi structured interviews with four companies facing the problem concerned. The study is continuously conducted through a structure based on segmentation, growth, profitability and brand. The results of the study, based on collected empirical data and the analysis, have led to a conclusion containing four specific components. These appear to be factors that a high-end service should hold for a successful strategy change towards lower market segments. These four criteria are market awareness, scalable service, multi-pricing model and brand awareness. This thesis is written in Swedish.

O conceito de modelo de negócio pode ser utilizado para descrever e entender empresas. Ele determina que devemos entender um negócio utilizando os serviços que são prestados, as empresas (e seus papéis) envolvidas e a forma de faturamento que o empreendedor terá sobre o serviço. O conceito ganhou muita atenção com a explosão dos portais B2B que surgiram nos últimos anos na internet. Estes portais são empreendimentos que ofertam serviços que intermediam as interações entre as empresas. Com a reorganização da sociedade em redes globais de empresas, tais portais têm diante de si uma grande variedade de serviços a serem prestados, assim tornando a abordagem dos modelos de negócio um elemento fundamental para o entendimento do valor agregado pelos empreendedores do setor B2B. Mas faltam trabalhos de organização e sistematização desses modelos, e os próprios empreendedores brasileiros não vêm demonstrando entendimento sobre eles. Assim, no presente trabalho, serão organizados e sistematizados os conceitos de modelos de negócio, eCommerce e B2B, bem como será feita uma proposta de classificação destes modelos de negócio, de tal forma que pesquisadores e empreendedores possam utilizar este texto como base em seus estudos a respeito desses portais na internet. / Business models concept can be used to describe and understand all kind of enterprises. Using this concept one can understand a business by the services been delivered, the enterprises (and their roles) been involved and the invoicing return over the service. This concept became an buzzword during the recently explosion of B2B portals over the internet. These B2B portals are enterprises that offer brokerage services between other enterprises. With the sudden reorganization of society over global net of enterprises, these portals have a huge business opportunity for delivering a wide variety of services, becoming the business model a central element for understanding the aggregated value been proposed by each B2B portal. But there are a poor number of published materials around the organization and classification of these business models and brazilian entrepreneur does not seem to understand these business models. In this work the concept of business models, eCommerce and B2B will be organized and a classification of possible business models will be proposed. The proposed classification could be used by researchers and entrepreneurs as a tool for their studies about these portals over the internet.

Diploma thesis reviews the position of the European Union to regulate the business-to-business relations in the retail supply chain and sums up the view of parliamentary political parties in the Czech Republic on the regulation of unfair trading practices in the business-to-business relations. The first chapter defines the behavior of firms in the market structures of perfect and imperfect competition, and specifies the microeconomic effects of economic policy. The second chapter describes the development of retail sector, forms of unfair trading practices, and approaches to solving the problem of unfair trade practices in the Czech Republic and in the European Union. The third chapter presents opinions of political parties in the Czech Republic to regulate the unfair trading practices in the retail supply chain.

The aim of this thesis is to acquaint the reader with the issue of content marketing for generating leads and information about potential customers, then to analyze and offer some recommendations for its further use among B2B suppliers of educational and consulting services. The theoretical part discusses three key topics: the specifics of the services and B2B sector; content marketing and the reasons for its inclusion in marketing strategy; and the issue of lead generation as a possible metric of content marketing and sales tool. The practical part of the thesis approaches this topic from the perspective of four representatives of service suppliers, complemented by a point of view of the mediate company IVITERA. This company brings together one of the largest B2B communities in the services sector on the Czech market within its (especially online) media projects. Research was conducted through individual interviews with representatives of all five companies and by an analysis of secondary data, leads and keywords provided by the mediate company.

As a result of the increased use of the Internet, there are a number of challenges and opportunities regarding the ability to strengthen or weaken the competitive advantage between organizations. One of the challenges is an increased need to gather and manage large amounts of data (big data) as well as the need to develop processes and strategies for customer relationship management (CRM). This study aimed to investigate how and why big data and business processes for CRM can affect the competitive advantage of B2B companies by offering a theoretical perspective and an analysis of a relevant case in the field. This was studied by applying a qualitative case study where theory and empirical data were gathered through qualitative interviews with respondents who work with CRM and data at the selected B2B company. The results of the study showed that the chosen case involving a B2B company in the technology industry can strengthen its competitive advantage as a result of including CRM in its business processes by applying strategies, value creation, multichannels, IT and data and performance assessment in its customer-related activities and processes. The results also showed that the gathering of data in customer-related processes and activities as well as analyzes of this data is a useful asset as it entails the ability to strongly impact the interaction with customers. An unforeseen discovery made was the fact that the respondents showed a reluctance to describe the circumstance of whether they work with big data, despite the fact that most respondents according to the study definition work with big data in their customer-related processes and activities. This discovery can be the basis for future research in the field of big data and B2B companies. / Som ett resultat av den ökade användningen av internet har ett flertal utmaningar och möjligheter avseende förmågan att stärka respektive försvaga organisationers konkurrenskraft uppstått. Bland annat har ett ökat behov uppstått för insamling och hantering av stora datamängder (big data), samt för att utforma processer och strategier för kundrelationshantering (CRM). Denna studie syftade därför till att undersöka hur och varför big data och verksamhetsprocesser för CRM kan påverka konkurrenskraften hos B2B-företag, genom att erbjuda ett teoretisk perspektiv och en analys av ett relevant fall inom området. Detta studerades genom att tillämpa en kvalitativ strategi i form av fallstudiedesign där dels teori och empiri samlades in genom kvalitativa intervjuer med respondenter som jobbar med CRM och data på det utvalda B2B-företaget. Studiens resultat visade att det valda fallet som avser ett B2B-företag inom teknologibranschen kan förstärka sin konkurrenskraft som ett resultat av att inkludera CRM i dess verksamhetsprocesser genom att tillämpa strategier, värdeskapande, multikanaler, IT och data samt utvärdering i sina kundrelaterade aktiviteter och processer. Resultatet visade även att respondenterna uppfattade insamlingen av data i de kundrelaterade processerna och aktiviteterna samt analyser av denna data som en användbar tillgång då det medför förmågan att starkt påverka interaktionen med kunderna på ett positivt sätt. En oförutsedd upptäckt som gjordes var det faktum att respondenterna visade en avhållsamhet avseende påståendet om huruvida de jobbar med big data, trots att flertalet respondenter enligt studiens definition jobbar med big data i sina kundrelaterade processer och aktiviteter. Denna upptäckt gav upphov till framtida forskning inom området för big data och B2B-företag.

To date, the rather new phenomena known as Social Media Marketing (SMM) has caught much attention from researchers and several studies have been conducted prior to resolving how this new phenomenon can be utilized by business-to-business (B2B) organizations. However, existing literature covering SMM has been mainly focused on the business-to-consumer (B2C) perspective, therefore, there is a lack of research in the utilization of SMM in a B2B context. Hence, this bachelor thesis aims to contribute to the theoretical and empirical findings of social media in a B2B context, by uncovering marketing decision-makers point of view and how they work with social media, specifically in the international high-technological and service-oriented sector. The purpose of this research paper is to identify and describe the utilization of SMM together with the positive and negative aspects of it in the B2B context, based on empirical data collected from decision-makers working with marketing, operating in service-oriented international IT-organizations located in Sweden. In order to fulfil the purpose, a qualitative research method was chosen where 7 semi-structured interviews were conducted with marketing decision-makers from 6 international service-oriented B2B companies operating in the IT industry. The decision-makers participating in the study contributed with their experiences and perceptions of social media, concluding that they highly values SMM and emphasizes its importance as it is perceived as significant for all B2B organizations today and as the society is becoming more and more digitized, it will become of even higher importance in the upcoming years. Further, the thesis also found that the decision-makers working with SM use it for three main objectives; Brand awareness, Lead generation and Employer branding. Lastly, based on the empirical findings of this report, some similarities and controversies were discovered in regard to how theory suggests that SMM is used in the B2B environment as well as how the different participants view the usage of SMM.