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Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to build a practical guide to get a clear understanding about the implementation process of Customer Relationship Management in the cloud within Small. It also describes the different concepts that are Customer Relationship Management, Cloud computing and CRM in the cloud, especially related to the SMEs, in order to have a great insight that gives the opportunity to implement successfully this paradigm.   Scientific method: The research lies in the interpretative field of inquiry. Abduction is used to combine empirical data with theoretical studies in orderto tryto investigate patterns that could give an understanding of the phenomena that is studied. Descriptive research approach using multiple-case study design is used.   Theoretical frame of references: The first part of the theoretical frame of references explores existing theories. This leads to CRM and Cloud Computing. The second part explores different means of analysing our problematic.   Empirical method: The chosen approach is qualitative. Interviews have been conducted for data collection. Documentsarehave beengathered and analysed to support the interviewguides. We also gathered a previous practical guide from Salesforce in order to compare our results.   Analysis: Analysing hosted CRM implementation of three SMEs using Salesforce, it describes the key facts that have to be taken into account to implement the Salesforce CRM solution.   Conclusion: The findings show how three companies can be analysed to draw conclusions about the implementation process. According to interviews, theories, documents from hosted CRM provider, some suggestions have been advised to avoid problems concerning the implementation in SMEs.

Many organizations are familiar with using CRM (Customer relationship management) to manage and enhance the customer relationship. Good customer relationship can bring great benefits and a competitive advantage to organization. And in this era of technology, CRM that consists of eCRM (Electronic customer relationship management) is acknowledged as another potential solution for business.The purpose of this study is to explore what an organization can do to improve the use of eCRM, so eCRM can enhance the customer relationship. In the thesis the authors have studied different eCRM key factors and their relationship in order to improve customer relationship through the use of eCRM.This thesis has used Toyota Mahanakorn, the Toyota dealers in Thailand as a case study for examining the practice of successful eCRM in the organization.Our conclusion is that in order to improve the performance of eCRM, an organization should choose a eCRM technology that suits with organization strategy and practice as well as employees technology and service capabilities.Since this thesis studies the way to improve the use of eCRM in an organization, this thesis will be advantageous to those who plan to implement eCRM in the future and to those who have already implemented eCRM and would like to make it better.

A griotte in West African culture is a female professional storyteller, responsible for preserving a tribe's history and genealogy by relaying its folklore in oral and musical recitations. Similarly, Griotte is an interdisciplinary project that seeks to foster collaboration between tradition bearers, subject experts, and computer specialists in an effort to build high quality digital oral history collections. To accomplish this objective, this project preserves the primary strength of oral history, namely its ability to disclose "our" intangible culture, and addresses its primary criticism, namely its dubious reliability due to reliance on human memory and integrity. For a theoretical foundation and a systematic model, William Moss's work on the evidentiary value of historical sources is employed. Using his work as a conceptual framework, along with Semantic Web technologies (e.g. Topic Maps and ontologies), a demonstrator system is developed to provide digital oral history tools to a "sample" of the target audience(s). This demonstrator system is evaluated via two methods: 1) a case study conducted to employ the system in the actual building of a digital oral history collection (this step also created sample data for the following assessment), and 2) a survey which involved a task-based evaluation of the demonstrator system. The results of the survey indicate that integrating oral histories with documentary evidence increases the evidentiary value of oral histories. Furthermore, the results imply that individuals are more likely to use oral histories in their work if their evidentiary value is increased. The contributions of this research – primarily in the area of organizing metadata on the World Wide Web – and considerations for future research are also provided.

This thesis was concerned with the branch of Cooperate Social Responsibility known as Cause-Related Marketing, and focused on the moderating effects of cultural orientation and message framing on CRM advertisement effectiveness. The well-established individualist/collectivist cultural domain was employed through application to Taiwanese and Canadian cultural contexts. With regards to framing, differences between altruistically and egoistically framed messages were explored. It was hypothesized that members of collectivist societies would have increased positive attitudes and purchase intentions towards altruistically framed messages, while members of individualistic societies would have more favorable attitudes towards egoistically framed messages. The primary rationale cited was cultural congruency between the participants and the messages. An experimental design was performed, making use of real world style simulated print advertisement copies, as well as pre and post exposure questionnaires. Overall, the two-way interaction between cultural orientation and message framing was upheld, albeit with interesting and notable secondary results. Although the collectivist orientation was correlated with higher altruistic tendencies and as a result higher overall attitudes towards the CRM advertisements presented, this did not translate into higher overall purchase intentions. Potential reasons discussed included the relatively hedonic nature of the product used in the experiment, which could explain the higher overall purchase intentions of the individualistically oriented participants, based on affect-based complementary theory. As well, the increased level of past exposure to and familiarity with CRM campaigns of the individualist group was considered as a possible covariate factor. This was the first study to explicitly relate CRM advertisement attitude to a crosscultural framework through message framing, thereby offering significant theoretical contributions to the social marketing literature. Managerial implications have been stressed throughout, with the findings of clear relevance to the marketer interested in launching CRM campaigns internationally.

The capacitance-resistance model (CRM) has been continuously improved and tested on both synthetic and real fields. For a large waterflood, with hundreds of injectors and producers present in a reservoir, tens of thousands of model parameters (gains, time constants, and productivity indices) in a field must be determined to completely define the CRM. In this case obtaining a unique solution in history-matching large reservoirs by nonlinear regression is difficult. Moreover, this approach is more likely to produce parameters that are statistically insignificant. The nonlinear nature of the CRM also makes it difficult to quantify the uncertainty in model parameters. The analytical solutions of the two linear reservoir models, the linearly transformed CRM whose control volume is the drainage volume around each producer (ltCRMP) and integrated capacitance-resistance model (ICRM), are developed in this work. Both models are derived from the governing differential equation of the producer-based representation of CRM (CRMP) that represents an in-situ material balance over the effective pore volume of a producer. The proposed methods use a constrained linear multivariate regression (LMR) to provide information about preferential permeability trends and fractures in a reservoir. The two models’ capabilities are validated with simulated data in several synthetic case studies. The ltCRMP and ICRM have the following advantages over the nonlinear waterflood model (CRMP): (1) convex objective functions, (2) elimination of the use of solver when constraints are ignored, and (3) faster computation time in optimization. In both methods, a unique solution can always be obtained regardless of the number of parameters as long as the number of data points is greater than the number of unknowns (parameters). The methods of establishing the confidence limits on CRMP gains and ICRM parameters are demonstrated in this work. This research also presents a method that uses the ICRM to estimate the gains between newly introduced injectors and existing producers for a homogeneous reservoir without having to do additional simulations or regression on newly simulated data. This procedure can guide geoscientists to decide where to drill new injectors to increase future oil recovery and provide rapid solutions without having to run reservoir simulations for each scenario. / text

ICA AB is Sweden’s largest retail and wholesale firm, a cooperation of retail proprietors. Here it is studied as the nation’s largest media firm. It is the largest advertiser, the largest publisher of consumer magazines, and plausibly the most advanced user of household shopping data for marketing purposes. ICA’s marketing media system is operated by a constellation of different professional groups, and the study at hand asks questions about how practitioners in different professional communities relate to the idea of value and value creation, how their social practices pushes them towards divergent understandings and priorities, and what such differences do to their opportunities to collaborate within ICA’s marketing processes. We are all ‘practitioners’ in the sense that we go about our daily lives conducting various practices that create value for ourselves and for others. We act in routinized fashions surrounded by social codes that guides us in how to combine and integrate tools, skills and products in different combinations. Since they seem to capture the very purpose of marketing, ‘value’ and ‘value creation’ are concepts which long have been central to the academic debate. However, if our value-creating practices are guided by social codes, this has consequences for marketers and marketing that has been largely left aside in the mainstream marketing theory. Over two years, 2007-2008, through qualitative interviewing and participant observation, the study follows ICA’s marketing communications process and some of its most central practitioners – marketing managers, media agency specialists, editorial staff, and TV network sales representatives. It describes their involvement in TV advertising campaigns, in the customer magazine Buffé, and in the introduction of mass-customized direct marketing in the project Mina varor. Combining some of the most widely cited marketing theories on value creation with a sociological view on activity forwarded by Practice Theory, this thesis suggests that value is best seen as being formed along two intertwined processes – value creation which is the process of physical activity, and value construction which is a social process of understanding what is to be regarded valuable. The findings provide firstly a detailed mapping of how practitioners articulate marketing communications value, what aspects they emphasize, and how they interpret the objective of their practices. Secondly, the study links the articulations of value to 16 value-forming marketing communications practices. Marketing managers, media agency specialists, editorial staff, and TV network sales representatives are all described as acting according to a ‘practical logic’ of their respective professional communities. These logics combine practices for marketing communications production, for mutual interaction, and for valuation of processes, products and outcomes. The benefits of coordination and collaboration have been forwarded in marketing (relationships and networks) and marketing communications (integrated marketing communications) literature over the past decades. The concluding discussion concerns how and to which extent practical logics can be altered, changed, or aligned towards mutually rewarding goals. In other words, how can two parties work together if they have divergent understandings of value, and conversely how can two parties learn to understand value by working together? It thereby puts focus on marketing communications management, and contrary to many textbooks in the field, this study does not describe marketing communications as a de-humanized instrument in the marketer’s toolbox, but as a challenge of coordinating practitioners, practices, and understandings.

「隱形冠軍」是全球各行業冠軍企業，其有許多成功關鍵因子，惟本研究欲針對「深耕顧客關係管理」著手，透過蒐集、鑽研、整理及分析其成功關鍵因素，以作為歸納分析整理之依循。 而經選拔出來的卓越「中堅企業」則是台灣優秀的中小企業，一樣有其優秀的成功特質，算是國內的隱形冠軍企業，相對於輔導「中堅企業」來說，其為政府重點輔導使其更具國際競爭力的施政經濟方針，經由分析專注本業且深耕顧客關係管理的「中堅企業」，也能產生出個案公司建議之方策。 但是「深耕顧客關係管理」是否果真適合一般企業借鏡效法？或是部分借鏡？或是全部效法？這部分須經過個案公司本身的體質檢查，須經過效益評估，才是企業能委身經營努力的目標，這就是尋求「企業營運價值（效益）最大化」，策略上的合理經營，採取最優的營運政策，使企業總價值達到最大化。 投資營運管理目標應與企業多個利益集團有關，從長期發展來看，不能只強調某一利益，而置其他利益於不顧，經過效益評估後才是企業經營管理的最優目標，因此本研究透過歸納分析，縝密的效益評估，終而產出最有利個案公司的具體建議。

Fundamental understanding of atmospheric corrosion mechanisms requires an in-depth understanding on the dynamic interaction between corrosive constituents and metal/alloy surfaces. This doctoral study comprises field and laboratory investigations that assess atmospheric corrosion and metal release processes for two different groups of alloys exposed in chloride-rich environments. These groups comprise two commercial Zn-Al alloy coatings on steel, Galfan™ (Zn5Al) and Galvalume™ (Zn55Al), and four copper-based alloys (Cu4Sn, Cu15Zn, Cu40Zn and Cu5Zn5Al). In-depth laboratory investigations were conducted to assess the role of chloride deposition and alloy microstructure on the initial corrosion mechanisms and subsequent corrosion product formation. Comparisons were made with long-term field exposures at unsheltered marine conditions in Brest, France. A multitude of surface sensitive and non-destructive analytical methods were adopted for detailed in-situ and ex-situ analysis to assess corrosion product evolution scenarios for the Zn-Al and the Cu-based alloys. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) were employed for morphological investigations and scanning Kelvin probe force microscopy (SKPFM) for nobility distribution measurements and to gain microstructural information. SEM/EDS, infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy (IRAS), confocal Raman micro-spectroscopy (CRM) and grazing incidence x-ray diffraction (GIXRD) were utilized to gain information on corrosion product formation and possibly their lateral distribution upon field and laboratory exposures. The multi-analytical approach enabled the exploration of the interplay between the microstructure and corrosion initiation and corrosion product evolution. A clear influence of the microstructure on the initial corrosion product formation was preferentially observed in the zinc-rich phase for both the Zn-Al and the Cu-Zn alloys, processes being triggered by microgalvanic effects. Similar corrosion products were identified upon laboratory exposures with chlorides for both the Zn-Al and the Cu-based alloys as observed after short and long term marine exposures at field conditions. For the Zn-Al alloys the sequence includes the initial formation of ZnO, ZnAl2O4 and/or Al2O3 and subsequent formation of Zn6Al2(OH)16CO3·4H2O, and Zn2Al(OH)6Cl·2H2O and/or Zn5(OH)8Cl2·H2O. The patina of Cu sheet consists of two main layers with Cu2O predominating in the inner layer and Cu2(OH)3Cl in the outer layer, and with a discontinuous presence of CuCl in-between. Additional patina constituents of the Cu-based alloys include SnO2, Zn5(OH)6(CO3)2, Zn6Al2(OH)16CO3·4H2O and Al2O3. General scenarios for the evolution of corrosion products are proposed as well as a corrosion product flaking mechanism for some of the Cu-based alloys upon exposure in chloride-rich atmospheres. The tendency for corrosion product flaking was considerably more pronounced on Cu sheet and Cu4Sn compared with Cu15Zn and Cu5Al5Zn. This difference is explained by the initial formation of zinc- and zinc-aluminum hydroxycarbonates Zn5(OH)6(CO3)2 and Zn6Al2(OH)16CO3·4H2O on Cu15Zn and Cu5Al5Zn, corrosion products that delay the formation of CuCl, a precursor of Cu2(OH)3Cl. As a result, the observed volume expansion during transformation of CuCl to Cu2(OH)3Cl, and the concomitant flaking process of corrosion products, was less severe on Cu15Zn and Cu5Al5Zn compared with Cu and Cu4Sn in chloride-rich environments. The results confirm the barrier effect of poorly soluble zinc and zinc-aluminum hydroxycarbonates Zn5(OH)6(CO3)2 and Zn6Al2(OH)16CO3·4H2O, which results in a reduced interaction between chlorides and surfaces of Cu-based alloys, and thereby reduced formation rates of easily flaked off corrosion products. From this process also follows reduced metal release rates from the Zn-Al alloys. / Bättre molekylär förståelse för metallers atmosfäriska korrosion kräver en fördjupad kunskap i det dynamiska samspelet mellan atmosfärens korrosiva beståndsdelar och metallytan. Denna doktorsavhandling omfattar laboratorie- och fältundersökningar av korrosions- och metallfrigöringsprocesser av två grupper av legeringar som exponerats i kloridrika atmosfärsmiljöer: två kommersiella Zn-Al beläggningar på stål, Galfan™ (Zn med 5% Al, förkortat Zn5Al) och Galvalume™ (Zn55Al), samt fyra kopparbaserade legeringar (Cu4Sn, Cu15Zn, Cu40Zn och Cu5Zn5Al). Undersökningar har genomförts i renodlade laboratorie-miljöer med för-deponerade NaCl-partiklar i en atmosfär av varierande relativ fuktighet. Syftet har varit att utvärdera betydelsen av kloriders deposition och legeringarnas mikrostruktur på korrosionsmekanismen samt bildandet av korrosionsprodukter. Jämförelser av korrosionsmekanismer har även gjorts efter flerårsexponeringar av samma legeringar i en marin fältmiljö i Brest, Frankrike. Undersökningarna har baserats på ett brett spektrum av analysmetoder för detaljerade studier dels under pågående atmosfärisk korrosion (in-situ), och dels efter avslutad korrosion (ex-situ). Legeringarnas mikrostruktur och tillhörande variation i ädelhet hos olika faser har undersökts med svepelektronmikroskopi och energidispersiv röntgenmikroanalys (SEM/EDS) samt med en variant av atomkraftsmikroskopi (engelska: scanning Kelvin probe force microscopy, SKPFM). Korrosionsprodukternas tillväxt har analyserats in-situ med infraröd reflektions-absorptionsspektroskopi (IRAS), samt morfologi och sammansättning av bildade korrosionsprodukter ex-situ med SEM/EDS, konfokal Raman mikro-spektroskopi (CRM) samt röntgendiffraktion vid strykande ifall (GIXRD). Det multi-analytiska tillvägagångssättet har medfört att det komplexa samspelet mellan de skilda legeringarnas mikrostruktur, korrosionsinitiering och bildandet av korrosionsprodukter kunnat studeras i detalj. En tydlig påverkan av mikrostruktur på det initiala korrosionsförloppet har kunnat påvisas. Korrosionsinitieringen sker företrädesvis i mer zinkrika faser för såväl Zn-Al- som Cu-Zn-legeringar och orsakas av mikro-galvaniska effekter mellan de mer zinkrika, mindre ädla, faserna och omgivande faser. Deponerade NaCl-partiklar påskyndar den lokala korrosionen oberoende av mikrostruktur. Snarlika sekvenser av korrosionsprodukter har kunnat påvisas såväl efter laboratorie- som fältexponeringar. För Zn-Al-legeringar bildas först ZnO, ZnAl2O4 och/eller Al2O3, därefter Zn6Al2(OH)16CO3·4H2O och Zn2Al(OH)6Cl·2H2O och/eller Zn5(OH)8Cl2·H2O. På ren koppar bildas ett inre skikt dominerat av Cu2O, ett mellanskikt av CuCl och ett yttre skikt med i huvudsak Cu2(OH)3Cl. Beroende på legeringstillsats har även SnO2 och Zn5(OH)6(CO3)2 kunnat identifieras. En mekanism för flagning av korrosionsprodukter på kopparbaserade legeringar i kloridrika atmosfärer har utvecklats. Tendensen för flagning har visat sig vara mycket mer uttalad på ren Cu och Cu4Sn än på Cu15Zn och Cu5Al5Zn. Skillnaden kan förklaras med hjälp av det tidiga bildandet av Zn5(OH)6(CO3)2 och Zn6Al2(OH)16CO3·4H2O på Cu15Zn och Cu5Al5Zn som fördröjer bildandet av CuCl, en föregångare till Cu2(OH)3Cl. Därigenom hämmas även den observerade volymexpansionen som sker när CuCl omvandlas till Cu2(OH)3Cl, en process som visar sig vara den egentliga orsaken till att korrosionsprodukterna flagar. Resultaten bekräftar barriäreffekten hos de mer svårlösliga faserna Zn5(OH)6(CO3)2 och Zn6Al2(OH)16CO3·4H2O, vilken dels resulterar i en minskad växelverkan mellan klorider och de legeringsytor där dessa faser kan bildas, och dels i en reducerad metallfrigöringshastighet. / <p>QC 20140915</p> / Autocorr, RFSR-CT-2009-00015 Corrosion of heterogeneous metal-metal assemblies in the automotive industry / Atmospheric corrosion and environmental metal dispersion from outdoor construction materials