Thesis (M.S.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2009. / Thesis advisor: Daniel Larose. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Data Mining." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-39). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 187-197). Also available on the Internet.

Research Project (M.B.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2006 / Theses (Faculty of Business Administration) / Simon Fraser University MBA-SPEC-MIS Program. Senior supervisor : Dr. Jennifer C. Chang.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 187-197). Also available on the Internet.

Internet has brought new opportunities for companies to do business with each other. The company should focus on increasing loyalty to achieve customer retention and long-term relationships. Today, customer loyalty is critical for the company to survive on the competitive market, especially in the context of e-commerce. A loyal customer have higher propensity to stay in the relationship, resulting in long-term benefits for both parties such as reduced transaction costs as well as an enhanced competitiveness. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to explore the factors that drive customer loyalty in a business-to-business context, in order to facilitate the number of sales on e-commerce platform. To fulfill the purpose of this thesis, the study has sent out a survey to a number of business customers. The investigation shows that a several factors drive a customer to become loyal in a business-to-business context. First, recommendations from others as well as guarantees from third parties are factors driving the customer to become interested in the company to begin with. One key concept that is recurrent in this study is simplicity, both on the e-commerce platform but also outside the platform. Another major driver to become loyalty are the factor about the company keeping the promise given to their customer.

With an increasing globalization, companies are forced to develop new products. That is why product development process is successfully used in companies all over the world. The main reason is to stay ahead of the competitors and continually improve the products to more competitive prices.The number of wheelchair users is continually increasing all over the world and the same increase occurs in Sweden. For this reason the Swedish social board stated The Swedish disability policy, which aim is to minimalize differences between people with disabilities and people without. One part, which is emphasized, is transportation. To reach independence, the possibility to drive a car and bring the wheelchair without assistance is of vital importance.This thesis consists of two main parts – theory and its application. The first part is mainly theory regarding a systematic engineering process as well as a part based on empirical research. It contains information related to the topic of the thesis, which are gathered through observation and interviews rather than acknowledged facts. The second one is the implementation of the theory during development of a wheelchair loading device, which are based on customer requirements.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka byråanställda art directors och originalares olika perspektiv på och förhållningssätt till sin yrkesroll med särskilt fokus på kreativitet och kundrelationer.Nio semi-strukturerade djupintervjuer genomfördes med sex art directors och fyra originalare. Respondenterna valdes ut genom ett kombinerat strategiskt bekvämlighetsurval från nio reklambyråer.Professionalism inom yrkesrollen visade sig vara något som respondenterna inte reflekterat över men det framkom att det främst handlar om hur art directors och originalare förhåller sig till kunden. Dessutom framkom det att respondenterna såg variation i arbetet som en positiv aspekt av yrket medan de såg prestationsångest och utomståendes oförståelse av yrket som negativa.Det framkom även att art directors och originalare i första hand ser på kreativitet som problemlösning, dock såg de olika på problemlösning i sina respektive roller. De använde sig av samma metoder för att finna inspirationsamt hanterade ångest på liknande sätt.Studien visade även att kunden och kundrelationen spelade en stor roll för yrket och ämnet berördes återkommande i respondenternas svar under intervjuernas gång. De använde sig av samma metoder för att finna inspiration / The aim of this study was to investigate the agency employees’ different perspectives and approaches to their professional role focusing on creativity and customer relationships.Nine semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with six art directors and four graphic designers. Respondents were selected through a combined strategic and convenience sample of nine advertising agencies.Results showed that professionalism was nothing that the respondents thought about but it turned out that it is mainly about how art directors and graphic designers handle and relate to the customer. Furthermore, results also showed that the respondents saw variation as a positive aspect of the profession while they saw anxiety and outsider's lack of understanding of the profession as negative. Results also showed that art directors and graphic designers primarily look at creativity as problem solving, though they looked at problem solving in their role differently. They used the same methods to find inspiration and tackle anxiety.It was also found that the customer and the customer relationship played a big role in the advertising profession and the subject was discussed repeatedly.

Dell Inc. has a long and storied history that started in a dorm room and through many highs, and some lows, became a $60 billion international powerhouse. Now that the U.S. PC market is so saturated it becomes increasingly important to build long term customer relationships. While Dell transforms itself into an end-to-end solutions provider that will deliver hardware and state of the art services and software it needs to also create a new way to cultivate relationships on the consumer level. Some of these customer relationships have been somewhat damaged due to the extremely rapid growth of the company, its departments, and the amount of customers served. Corporations around the world have been using the same departmental model that has made it easy to manage a company but difficult for a customer to navigate it. This report will analyze the problem with the current departmental model and suggest an alternative that is cost effective and customer centric. / text

Service Apartment, as a new growth real estate sub-market had rapid growth in the past decade. Under the change of market condition and impact from its own characteristic, Service Apartment industry is facing a great challenge. In the marketplace, different organization would adopt different business strategies to confront the challenges. Apart from those common business strategies, Customer Relationship Management is one of the common strategies that has widely adopted by different organization and the effect was highly recognized. Therefore, some of the operators of Service Apartment also adopt Customer Relationship Management into the operation to improve the competitiveness and performance of the apartment. In view of Service Apartment is a new growth industry, we attempt to conduct a case study in a standard class Service Apartment in Hong Kong to identify the importance of CRM to the Service Apartment industry and evaluate the performance of CRM application from operator's and user's view point and hence to identify the potential improvement on the application. 4 / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The purpose of the thesis was to develop a method that simplifies the analysis between reduction of delivery lead time and inventory costs, when the reduction of delivery lead time is achieved through repositioning of the customer order decoupling point.