Abstract Title: Brand Building – Differences between how business-to-business companies and business-to-consumer companies build their brands. Authors: Louise Lönnqvist and Sofia Stierna Supervisor: Svante Andersson Level: Master thesis, Independent project in business administration (30 credits), Spring 2014 Keywords: Brand, Brand Building, Brand Equity, Business-to-business, Business-to- consumer. Research questions: Q1: How can the brand building process differ between business-to- business companies and business-to-consumer companies? Q2: How can brand equity differ between business-to-business companies and business-to-consumer companies? Purpose: The purpose with this study is to investigate the differences between how business- to-business and business-to-consumer companies build their brands. First the differences in the brand building process are going to be investigated. Furthermore, this leads to an investigation in how brand equity differs between business-to-business companies and business-to-consumer companies. Theoretical framework: The theoretical framework starts with an explanation about what a brand is and an explanation of the differences between business-to-business companies and business-to-consumer companies. Furthermore, relevant theories about the brand building process and brand equity are discussed. Methodology: A qualitative method and abductive approach were used in order to answer the research questions. Personal interviews were conducted with three business-to-business companies and three business-to-consumer companies in order to get a view over the brand building. Empirical data: The empirical findings from the six interviews based on the theory are presented. Analysis: The analysis is based on the theoretical framework together with the empirical data. Conclusion: We have come up with the conclusion that all companies have their own brand building process and it does not matter if it is a business-to-business company or a business- to-consumer company, no major difference have been found. It is not important exactly how the brand building process looks like and which stages that are included, the key is that companies work with brand building in some way, although more studies are required in order to confirm the results. Furthermore, the two brand equity factors external brand loyalty and perceived quality are more important for business-to-business companies and the business-to-consumer prefer a combination of all the factors.

Zugl.: Köln, Univ., Diss., 2008 u.d.T.: Lücke, Fridjof : Ressourcenbasierte Planung, Organisation und Realisation von Kooperationen im Business to Consumer Online-Vertrieb

Zugl.: Köln, Univ., Diss., 2009

Människan har under lång tid bedrivit handel med varor och tjänster. Genom att nya hjälpmedel för handel utvecklas, förändras handeln och dess former. Elektronisk handel kan bedrivas via Internet. Elektronisk handel via Internet medför flera fördelar, men också nackdelar, problem, konsekvenser och risker för företag som inför/bedriver Internethandel. Det finns skilda meningar om huruvida specialvaror bör säljas via Internet, och om företag som tillverkar och/eller saluför denna typ av varor bör bedriva Internethandel mot konsument. En litteraturstudie och en intervjustudie har genomförts för att undersöka om det är lämpligt för specialvaruföretag att införa Internethandel mellan företag och konsument. Resultatet av undersökningen påvisar många fördelar med Internethandel, men att problem med exempelvis befintliga kunder i form av återförsäljare bör beaktas och lösas för att möjliggöra införande av Internethandel för specialvaruföretag.

Nowadays, in Sweden there are several models for recruiting job seekers suchas recruiting campaigns, paid memberships at one or more job platforms,utilizing job APIs and others. New technologies are constantly being developedto meet both job seekers' and job providers' increasing demands. The majorityof jobseekers use the internet to find suitable jobs. Job seekers look for jobs inindividual companies' websites and through job marketplaces platforms wherejob advertisements are published. The majority of existing job marketplacesrequire companies to manually register their jobs. Consequently, this incurscosts and efforts on the companies. To address this challenge, in this thesis,we present an approach that comprises an architecture and a process whichserve as a foundation for the design of an automated job marketplace. Tovalidate the feasibility of our approach, we developed a prototype andconducted experiments to evaluate the performance and scalability of theapproach.

Incentive for this research stems from the fact that Business-to-Consumer electronic commerce sector is going to oligopoly and the new actors have relatively less chance to accomplish in the current market if they follow the same ways that the old companies have already paved. Considering this challenge, the aim is to understand the adoption process of customers by analyzing the contemporary perceptions of individuals against e-shopping. Initially, business-to-consumer electronic commerce adoption model is developed. Proposed model and hypotheses are tested with Partial Least Squares as a Structural Equation Modeling technique using data collected from 1115 respondents via an online survey. Then, semi-structured open-ended interviews are conducted in order to grasp the perceptions of customers. The results are interpreted following a systematic mixed methodology involving Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to elucidate the antecedents and causal relations of constructs in an inductive and exploratory way to illuminate a socio-technical phenomenon as complementary to deductive and confirmatory quantitative perspective. Findings and implications are asserted to be utilized as a roadmap especially for start-up companies that challenge to survive and succeed in current market conditions. Trust is found to be the predominant factor in e-shopping adoption. It is proved that, after almost two decades shopping via Internet had been invented, contemporarily, definitions for the dimensions of Enjoyment, Perceived Usefulness, Store Familiarity, Perceived Ease of Use and Subjective Norm have evolved into new semantics and customers perceive each factor according to their actual cognition contexts.

Det är inte bara lagkrav som blir striktare gällande företags hållbarhetsarbete utan även intressenters förväntningar. Business-to-business och business-to-consumer företag har skilda intressenter och således förväntningar som påverkar deras hållbarhetsarbete. Denna kvalitativa fallstudie ämnar till att undersöka hur hållbarhetsarbete kan generera konkurrensfördelar i en jämförande kontext mellan business-to-business och business-to-consumer företag inom bygg- och fastighetsbranschen. Med hjälp av Carrolls CSR-pyramid och Porter och Kramer ́s ramverk för ett strategiskt CSR-arbete har företagens hållbarhetsarbeten analyserats och granskats utifrån ett konkurrensperspektiv. För att belysa företagens differentieringsstrategier har tre differentieringspunkter grundat studien vilka är produkt- och processinnovation, kundlojalitet och långsiktig lönsamhet. Resultatet visar att företagen i likhet med varandra utformar sitt hållbarhetsarbete utifrån ett socialt, ekonomiskt och miljömässigt perspektiv samt att företagen konstruerar sitt hållbarhetsarbete olika utifrån deras skilda intressenters förväntningar. Detta resulterar i att företagen har olika differentieringsstrategier inom hållbarhetsarbetet som hjälper dem generera konkurrensfördelar. Vidare framkommer det i studien att kommersiella kunder ställer högre krav på företagens hållbarhetsarbete i jämförelse med privatkunder, vilket skiljer studiens resultat från den tidigare forskningen.

Globalization and the rapid growth of online-transaction through e-commerce platforms is increasing at a fast pace, not to mention the acceleration during and after the pandemic of Covid-19. The purpose with this qualitative case study of a company operating in the fragrance industry is to give a better understanding of how a company successfully succeeded in internationalizing by utilizing a B2B e-commerce strategy, and how the same company can change strategy to utilize B2C e-commerce to enter a new market which in this case are Sweden. A key factor of the company's success turned out to be the building of the customer and supplier network, and the tight collaboration with already existing giants in the market to attract suppliers in the first place. This allowed the company to provide good customer service, and a variety of products. Further, to be able to enter the Swedish market promotional activities, a customer-centric website that provides in store-like experience, close relationships with their consumers, and cooperation with brand suppliers to build a strong strategic alliance has been shown as important factors in order to succeed in a B2C e-commerce internationalization process.

El sector hotelero del Perú ha registrado un crecimiento económico durante los últimos años. Esto se debe principalmente al comercio electrónico Business to Consumer (B2C) ya que ha significado una oportunidad para las empresas del sector generando cambios positivos en sus procesos operacionales, permitiendo automatizarlos y facilitando su expansión internacional. A partir de ello se presenta como objetivo analizar las ventajas y desventajas que se obtienen tras la aplicación del comercio electrónico B2C en las empresas hoteleras. Esto se realizó mediante una revisión de literatura con enfoque integrador para contribuir a la industria hotelera en base a la búsqueda de estudios recientes y la crítica de diversos autores. Entre los hallazgos principales se encontró que el comercio electrónico B2C provee, en su mayoría beneficios para las empresas ya que posibilita un mayor alcance de clientes a través de las páginas web que ponen a su disposición, asimismo, sirve como una herramienta para aumentar las ventas influyendo en los compradores al momento de encontrarse en la plataforma virtual. Sin embargo, su gestión puede implicar altos costos de mantenimiento, así como el incremento de la competencia. / Peru's hotel sector has experienced economic growth in recent years. This is mainly due to the Business to Consumer (B2C) electronic commerce since it has represented an opportunity for companies in the sector, generating positive changes in their operational processes, allowing them to be automated and facilitating their international expansion. Based on this, the objective of this study is to analyze the advantages and disadvantages that are obtained after the application of B2C electronic commerce in hotel companies. This was done through a literature review with an integrative approach to contribute to the hotel industry based on the search for recent studies and the criticism of various authors. Among the main findings, B2C electronic commerce mostly provides benefits for companies since it allows a greater reach of customers through their web pages moreover, this serves as a tool to increase sales influencing buyers when they are on the virtual platform. However, its management can imply high maintenance costs as well as increased competition. / Trabajo de investigación

The online retail environment is expanding, enhancing the possibilities for customers to shop online. On the one hand, a proliferation of online channels establishes a multichannel online retailing landscape, which offers customers more alternatives in terms of where to shop online. On the other hand, a change in the user interaction mode of existing customer touchpoints, from graphics to voice, creates new voice dialog interfaces, which enhance the way with regard to how customers can shop online. In this context, this publication-based dissertation aims to generate theoretical and practical contributions on these two most recent developments in online retailing, i.e., multichannel online retailing and voice dialog interfaces, to improve marketing mix decision-making.