Since the introduction of shopping centers, it has become more and more common that the retail trade is taken over by the shopping centers. The shopping centers can offer the customers indoor shopping with stores, cafés and restaurants under the same roof. This comfortability is a competitive advantage for the shopping centers in comparison with other purchasing areas, such as the city core. In Jönköping on the 2nd of April 1987 A6, a large shopping centre at this time the largest in the region, had it opening with great festivities. The merchants located in the city core feared that the large shopping centre would drive them out of business. After negotiations the merchants of the city core of Jönköping, the municipality and A6 made peace. Today the two shopping areas are competing for the same customers, but are they competing on the same grounds? The city core of Jönköping is facing problems with customers leaving, but where are they going? What can be done to attract new customers and gain their old ones? In this report we will try to find out how the city cores can do to gain, maintain and satisfy the customers. This will be done by a quantitative study of the Jönköping city core and the shopping centre A6. Interviews will be done with respondents at both A6 Centre and in the City core of Jönköping. The material we will gather, will be handed over to the organization ‘På Stan’, who is an association working with issues regarding the merchants in the city. Through the interviews with the 200 respondents we accessed three main issues that have an impact on the customer’s choice of shopping location. These three are accessibility, range of stores and environment.

LTE- Long Term Evolution, marketed as 4G LTE, is a new generation of mobile-phone network which enable the mobile operator to provide significantly faster mobile broadband data rates. With the new redesign and simplification of the network architecture, 4G LTE can provide five time faster data rates than the current 3G networks. It will help the mobile operators to cope with ever growing mobile data traffic demands in a cost-effective manner. In Taiwan, the licenses for 4G LTE will be issued by the end of 2013, opening another business opportunities for the mobile industry. It’s expected that all the big mobile operators will acquire for the licenses. Telecom equipment vendor such as Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson are preparing for 4G LTE network trial and deployment as well. In light of the upcoming 4G LTE deployment in Taiwan, this thesis project was conduct to gain a better understanding of the current mobile users in Taiwan. The goal is to identify and understand customers’ attitudes, preferences, and satisfactions towards the current mobile carriers as well as customers’ expectations of the next generation carrier – 4G LTE. The data input of this thesis are survey data collected by on-line questionnaire from the students at National ChengChi University, and people living in Taiwan. The sample size was 872. The collected data was analyzed by SPSS, a computerized statistical program. The analysis report includes description of the sample, customers’ attitudes, and preferences of the current mobile carriers in general, satisfactions towards their current using carriers, expectations of 4G LTE carriers as well as their preferable carriers. The report also discusses the carrier switching pattern, and the factors influencing the switching behavior. After analyzing the findings of the study, the thesis report proposes that the mobile operators should deploy 4G LTE network coverage as soon as possible, concentrate on increasing mobile data service speed, maintain voice call service quality, offer a wide variety of handsets at some attractive prices and setting tariff rate competitively.

Customer Demand Uncertainty is a big obstacle for companies to sustain their competitiveness in the market that responding customer requirements becomes essential. Besides companies need to consider also their cost structures which should have in high consistency to survive as well. Lean and Agile terminologies have been investigated so far in cost and responsiveness to customer manner within internal system perspective i.e. product volume and variety. This thesis aims to link lean manufacturing steps with customer demand uncertainty condition following information systems, marketing issues and human factor for management level in framework that firm’s (manufacturer) current condition can be tested according to answers from questionnaires and implementation of assessment tables since it is used as guideline and provides on which level firms are in demand uncertainty, lean and agile manufacturing. This support enables to firms to create their own flexible leagile decoupling point according to their interior characteristics and capabilities in the market.

The thesis presents a study on important attributes which should be considered by the supplier in buying situations in the electronic manufacturing services (EMS) market. Hence, the importance level of attributes is investigated to see which attributes are more or less important when business-to-business (B2B) customers place an order. This can be interpreted as the relationship between the created value and the accompanying cost. For the success of this research work, both the qualitative and quantitative methods need to be applied. The importance of nine aspects is examined including: payment term, warranty, brand, product quality, delivery, packaging, certificates, supporting service and after-sales service. To identify which one is significant, a classification of the twenty-three attributes covering the nine aspects is conducted using Kano’s evaluation table. The findings through this research indicate that delivery, product quality and supporting service are the three most important aspects. A focus on these aspects is supposed to help the company to get value for the customers and also bring significant benefits for that company.

This research was initiated due to the popularity brand community phenomenon is gaining among companies through last several years. Growing number of companies on the market and shortening of the life cycle of products, make companies work hard in order to retain existing customers and gain new ones. Brand communities may provide many benefits to companies such as ability to build customer loyalty, increase of the marketing efficiency and enhancement of a brand. We wish to explore brand communities from two perspectives: inside, factors that may influence brand community members in particular purchase of augmented products and word of mouth communication and outside, the perception of brand communities as a future value by prospective customers.Due to our philosophical considerations and non-geographical nature of brand communities, the research method that we have chosen is quantitative. In order to collect a large amount of primary raw data we have used a survey approach. Therefore the self-administered questionnaire was designed. Two sampling techniques were used in data collection process – convenience and snowball. The survey was distributed via e-mail and Internet. The predetermined respondents were asked to answer questionnaires and distribute them further. During the data collection period 258 respondents were surveyed.The findings of this research suggest that prospective customers, who have a favorite brand, see brand community as a future value, hence may have an incentive to buy products or services of a particular brand. A managerial implication in this case is that brand communities are a good opportunity for a company to build long term relations with existing customers by involving them in brand community activities. Brand community events such as meetings, festivals, and promotional activities also influence an incentive of consumers to buy augmented products or services of a company; hence giving a firm an opportunity to earn additional profits by selling more additional products, paid services or accessories. Word of mouth communication is another valuable asset that companies may use. In our research we have proved that word of mouth inside brand communities may influence its members to buy products or services of another brand under the influence of an opinion leader or the majority. So managers of companies that sell related or supplemented products may jointly organize events, and reach more consumers.

Nowadays, market situation has moved from the mass marketing towards the era of customized marketing. To keep abreast of technological development, new approach should substitute for the traditional business models. The issue that CRM as a tool to create values for customers in developing countries has become much more attractive. The purpose of this dissertation is to figure out how to create values for the customers in the operating process of enterprise. This study is built on a model of CRM process and performance, which helps the company to create values for customers. The authors use case study to conduct this research, and data collection through the semi-structured interview.   Some findings are obtained: strategic goals and customer orientation are critical for a CRM project. The small firms’ success is derived from the effective customer orientation and meeting customer needs. CRM process contained firm resources, management of customer relationships, customer-company exchange process and people-related components. The tangible performance of successful CRM process is to increase company profits through enhancing customer behaviors. Managing relationships with customers is beneficial for the company. If a company focuses on trust, commitment, and communication between company and the customers, their relationship performance will be boost up. It will achieve the customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, customer retention. Furthermore, customer satisfaction has direct relationship with customer values, and is the chief purpose of any business and is associated with the business success.

Key words:         Customer value, value-adding factors, e-commerce, apparel industry, Vietnamese market, customers’ perception.  Background:      Along with the development of many applications from Internet, Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) has changed the business scene in the global economy by emerging as a new, efficient channel of doing business. The apparel industry has also been approaching this way of doing business as an attempt to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of operations at various extents. In the Vietnamese market, Ninomaxx being well-known as leading fashion brand for young and proactive people is in the process of launching its very first online shop. However, the lack of information and the vagueness in regard to customers preference and shopping habit in the context of e-commerce leads to many difficulties for fashion companies like Ninomaxx. These lacking can all be traced back to one universal cause that is the insufficiency in understanding customers’ perceived value. Accordingly, it raises the authors’ interests to conduct a research of customers’ perception concerning customer value in Vietnamese apparel industry within the e-commerce context. Purpose:             The purpose of this thesis is to identify elements of e-commerce that customers perceive as value-adding factors in the context of Vietnamese apparel industry. Accordingly, thesis will examine how value can be created and enhanced for customers in the case of Ninomaxx and Vietnamese apparel firms in general. Method:              In this thesis, authors chose to collect and analyze data mainly through a quantitative approach. Prospective customers of Ninomaxx, whose ages were from 17 to 30, were the surveyed group. A questionnaire was employed to collect response from the group and was distributed in two ways: an online link and offline papers. Various nonparametric statistical techniques and one extensive model were used to analyze results of the survey. Conclusion:    From the perception of Vietnamese customers from 17 to 30 years old, there are 5 elements of e-commerce that are identified as very strong value-adding factors, namely, availability of information on the website, accuracy of demonstrating products’ color on website, seller’s ensuring products’ quality, seller’s trustworthiness and safety of using products. There are additionally 11 strong value-adding factors from perception of apparel customers in Vietnam. However, there is evidence of differences in customers’ response regarding their demographic characteristics and Internet usage. Apparel companies should consider accordingly in order to form the optimal strategy for e-commerce retail channel in Vietnam.

ABSTRACT   Title: Mobile Marketing: Study of ICA – Correlation between mobile marketing and customer loyalty Level: Master Degree in Business Administration Authors: Bolor Amarsanaa and Joshua Anjorin Supervisor: Ernst Hollander Date: 2012 – January Aim: Having loyal customers is a key for successful organizations. There is increased complexity and competitiveness in the market place as regards to what companies need to do and how to do them in meeting the needs of customers. Is that why companies today are exploring the potentials of mobile phones to ultimately earn customers’ loyalty? However, there is not much research done in this area, especially in finding correlation between mobile marketing and customer loyalty. Thus, this research aims to examine correlation between mobile marketing and customer loyalty. Method: Data collection methods included literature reviews, a questionnaire and interviews. These were analysed by hypothesising, comparing with theories, and the use of descriptive analysis, correlation, and other methods presented as discussions, tables, and charts. Results & Conclusions: The theoretical and empirical research findings show that customer loyalty is positively related with mobile marketing. Use of mobile marketing such as mobile application, mobile web and SMS can perhaps enhance customer loyalty by meeting the demand of customers; increasing interaction and communication with customers; and increasing customer satisfaction. However, due to the research limitations and due to the fact that mobile marketing is a relatively new field of study, it needs some more time and more extensive research to make a general assumption about relationship between them and the strength of such relationship. Suggestions for future research: For further research, more extended research with broader samples is essential. It will be also crucial to investigate how much of an effect mobile marketing has on customer loyalty by scrutinizing company’s cost and profit measurements of mobile marketing besides opt-in and opt-out measurements of customers. Contribution of the thesis: We hope that this research has scratched the surface to this new field of study and made an addition to existing theory. It also stirs up interests in the emerging research on mobile marketing’s untapped potentials. Key words: Mobile Marketing, Customer loyalty, mobile phone, customer satisfaction, communication with customers.

Purpose of the Study To study how Apoteket AB can retain its customers after the government decision to implement de-regulation in Swedish pharmaceutical market. Apoteket AB was the only state-owned pharmacy for more than 38 years but now they are in competition with other pharmacy operators including supermarkets and gas stations. The main purpose of this study is to find out those vital factors which are important to customers in selecting pharmacy operators for buying prescription and non-prescription products. Approach The study begins by reviewing the Swedish pharmaceutical market and parliament decision of de-regulation about Apoteket AB monopoly. The literature then reviews the PESTEL framework, Porter model, customer relationship management and 7 P’s of marketing mix. We use Umeå university library for gathering material for our literature review. After that the authors reviewed different pharmacy operators and potential entrants in the Swedish pharmacy market. For this case study the authors have gathered the data through customer survey and semi-structured interview. The data was collected in Umeå (Sweden) with the help of questionnaire. We have collected the data with the help of convenience sampling technique at different locations in Umeå. Interview was conducted with Apoteket AB brand manager to understand their point of view about our research question. SPSS was used for analyzing the quantitative data, mainly descriptive statistic and Mann-Whitney U test were used for this purpose. Finally all the information’s were carefully analyzed by comparing with theories before drawing the final conclusion. Findings Four important aspects of customer’s retention were found; which are more community pharmacies, extended opening hours, low prices of over the counter products and added value to individual customers. Our respondents also show great confidence over the Apoteket AB personnel (Pharmacists). On the other hand we have also found that people appreciate the removal of Apoteket AB monopoly. Furthermore, we have found that after the implementation of de-regulation in Swedish pharmacy market over the counter (OTC) products have shown a 20% growth. The reason behind this growth may be the easy excess to such products and extended opening hours of supermarkets. The authors have also observed that people are willing to buy prescription products from other operators.

Sammanfattning Akademi: Akademin för hållbar samhälls- och teknikutveckling, Mälardalens Högskola Nivå: Kandidatuppsats i Företagsekonomi/Vårtermin 2008 Titel: Kundlojalitet, en studie av försäkringsbranschen Författare: Maria Bergström, -79 Åkersberga Fredrik Karlsson, -84 Västerås Anders Melkersson, -66 Västerås Handledare: Jonsson, Claes Problem: Allt fler företag använder sig idag av relationsmarknadsföring för att få lojala kunder. Anledningen är att företagen vill ha lojala kunder då dessa anses vara den mest lönsamma kundgruppen. Hur företagen definierar en lojal kund är avgörande för hur detta arbete utformas. Syfte: Uppsatsens syfte är att beskriva och jämföra hur företagen Skandia i Västerås, Folksam i Stockholm och Försäkringscenter i Västerås definierar lojala kunder. Syftet är även att beskriva och jämföra hur dessa företag arbetar för att uppnå/öka kundlojalitet. Metod: Vi använder oss av en kvalitativ insamlingsmetod i vår uppsats. Utifrån den teoretiska referensramen har intervjufrågor sammanställts. Därefter genomfördes sex intervjuer, två på respektive företag. Grunden för analysen utgörs av den teoretiska referensramen. Primärdata har analyserats utifrån en mellanfallsanalys och en inomfallsanalys. Slutsats: Vi fann inte någon större skillnad i hur företagen beskriver och definierar lojal kund. Vår studie indikerar att företagen fokuserar mer på kundens historiska beteende och i mindre grad på kundens attityd och framtida beteende. Studien visar att företagen arbetar aktivt för att ge ett bra bemötande och inge förtroende via sina arbetsmetoder. Personlig kontakt anses av företagen som väsentligt för att uppnå/öka kundlojalitet. Nyckelord: Lojalitet, kundlojalitet, försäkringsbranschen, loyalty, customers loyalty, lojal kund, relationsmarknadsföring / Abstract Academy: School of Sustainable Development of Society and Technology, Mälardalens Högskola Level: Bachelor Thesis in Business administration/Spring term 2008 Title: Customer loyalty, a study of the insurance branch Authors: Maria Bergström, -79 Åkersberga Fredrik Karlsson, -84 Västerås Anders Melkersson, -66 Västerås Tutor: Jonsson, Claes Problem: More and more companies are starting to use relationship marketing to get loyal customers. The reason is that companies want to have loyal customers because they are seen as the most profitable customer group. How companies define a loyal customer is a determining factor for the chap of this work. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and compare how the companies Skandia in Västerås, Folksam in Stockholm and Försäkringscenter in Västerås define loyal customers. The purpose is also to describe and compare how these companies work for reach/increase customer loyalty. Method: In this thesis we are using a qualitative method of collection. The interview questions have been put together out of the theoretical frame of reference. There after we were carrying through six personal interviews, two of each company. The ground of this thesis is the theoretical frame of reference. Primary data where analyzed thru a cross-case synthesis and a within-case synthesis. Conclusion: We found no bigger difference between the companies in how they describe and define a loyal costumer. Our study indicates that the companies are more focus on the costumer’s historical behaviour than on the attitude and future behaviour. The study shows that the companies work actively to give a good treatment and infuse confidence thru their working methods. The company consider that personal relation is essential for reach/increase customer loyalty. Keywords: Insurance branch, loyal customer, loyalty, customer’s loyalty, relationship marketing.