<p>Background:</p><p>During the last years, the boom of the Internet has carried along with it new possibilities for communication, in addition, other technological developments of society together act to form a new reality in which companies have to rethink their means for com-municating with consumers.</p><p>Problem and Purpose:</p><p>In a new reality where consumers seem to reap all the benefits of the technological changes, how then, should companies adjust to the changing environment? The authors first investigated the modern media environment and found some trends in how it is evolving, and after listening to what some experts within the field think about the future and of what should be done, they them-selves endeavoured to generate some guidance for companies in this matter.</p><p>Method:</p><p>This thesis is somewhat of a Delphi study, which means that it heavily relies on the statements of experts. What they have said has played a crucial role in the authors’ own formulation of guid-ance. The experts were interviewed either face-to-face, or through the exchange of e-mails.</p><p>Conclusions:</p><p>Major trends in how the media environment is transforming are; technology as an enhancer to rather becoming a determinant, segmentation to fragmentation, decreasing- to increasing returns to scale, an opening for entirely new business concepts and an in-creasing value of intangible assets as a complement to traditional, tangible assets. The authors then presented some elements that would be of crucial significance in this new environment, and they also formulated some more specific guidance in how these ele-ments could be instigated in companies. They were; Speed and flexibility, customization and sustainability. Advice in how they could be instigated where then summarized and illustrated in the “New Digital World Market Communication Diamond”, which basically emphasizes the need for updating the values and the cor-porate culture, the need for streamlining supply chains, the need of truly finding and using information about consumers, and fi-nally, the need for adaptive experimentation.</p>

There is much literature covering strategic change under different circumstances but very little concerning how companies act strategically under sudden and radical changes to market conditions. Based on three different events (the terrorist attack in the USA September 11th 2001, the Tjernobyl accident April 26th 1986 and the Islamic revolution in Iran 1979) with such radical changes as a result we chose three companies that were affected (SAS, Asea Atom and Atlas Copco). The result of the events that were studied in this thesis is extremely unusual to their character. The events themselves were sudden and of a temporary nature but the results were long term changes of market conditions. Through personal interviews the authors have tried to establish how the companies have perceived the events and how the top management has strategically handled the situation. It seems like the interpretation of the importance the event will have on the company's future has been the basis for what measures that where taken. Furthermore, the authors have, after having compared the actions of the companies with some already established theories concerning strategic change, been able to see that the existing theories cannotcompletely explain the actions of the companies and reactions under such extreme conditions. The time aspect and the resistance to change are factors that are affected by the radical changes of market conditions, since the planning of the changes takes place under a very compressed period of time, and the resistance to change that becomes unusually low within the company.

Background: During the last years, the boom of the Internet has carried along with it new possibilities for communication, in addition, other technological developments of society together act to form a new reality in which companies have to rethink their means for com-municating with consumers. Problem and Purpose: In a new reality where consumers seem to reap all the benefits of the technological changes, how then, should companies adjust to the changing environment? The authors first investigated the modern media environment and found some trends in how it is evolving, and after listening to what some experts within the field think about the future and of what should be done, they them-selves endeavoured to generate some guidance for companies in this matter. Method: This thesis is somewhat of a Delphi study, which means that it heavily relies on the statements of experts. What they have said has played a crucial role in the authors’ own formulation of guid-ance. The experts were interviewed either face-to-face, or through the exchange of e-mails. Conclusions: Major trends in how the media environment is transforming are; technology as an enhancer to rather becoming a determinant, segmentation to fragmentation, decreasing- to increasing returns to scale, an opening for entirely new business concepts and an in-creasing value of intangible assets as a complement to traditional, tangible assets. The authors then presented some elements that would be of crucial significance in this new environment, and they also formulated some more specific guidance in how these ele-ments could be instigated in companies. They were; Speed and flexibility, customization and sustainability. Advice in how they could be instigated where then summarized and illustrated in the “New Digital World Market Communication Diamond”, which basically emphasizes the need for updating the values and the cor-porate culture, the need for streamlining supply chains, the need of truly finding and using information about consumers, and fi-nally, the need for adaptive experimentation.

<p>There is much literature covering strategic change under different circumstances but very little concerning how companies act strategically under sudden and radical changes to market conditions. Based on three different events (the terrorist attack in the USA September 11th 2001, the Tjernobyl accident April 26th 1986 and the Islamic revolution in Iran 1979) with such radical changes as a result we chose three companies that were affected (SAS, Asea Atom and Atlas Copco). The result of the events that were studied in this thesis is extremely unusual to their character. The events themselves were sudden and of a temporary nature but the results were long term changes of market conditions. Through personal interviews the authors have tried to establish how the companies have perceived the events and how the top management has strategically handled the situation. It seems like the interpretation of the importance the event will have on the company's future has been the basis for what measures that where taken. Furthermore, the authors have, after having compared the actions of the companies with some already established theories concerning strategic change, been able to see that the existing theories cannotcompletely explain the actions of the companies and reactions under such extreme conditions. The time aspect and the resistance to change are factors that are affected by the radical changes of market conditions, since the planning of the changes takes place under a very compressed period of time, and the resistance to change that becomes unusually low within the company.</p>

Market changes are held to occur at an ever-faster rate due to forces such as technologicaladvancements, shifting consumer preferences and habits and increased competition. This hascaused a rise in interest for developing more agile working methodologies in marketing.Marketing agility is a capability that allows firms to quickly sense and respond to marketchanges. The assessment of when and how much marketing agility is needed is based on theknowledge of when the business environment is uncertain. Uncertainty is not always presentor constantly at the same level, indicating marketing agility is not as necessary in all contexts.The need for agility is also influenced by characteristics of the firm and their businessenvironment. Utilising a research design based on interviews with marketing managers inSweden, the purpose of this research is to determine how characteristics of the firm and theirbusiness environment influence the need for marketing agility. The results indicate that bothmarket uncertainty levels and different characteristics of the firm related to size, structure,resources, brand and product, influence the need for marketing agility. We emphasise how theneed for marketing agility can be constant or occur only in specific situations. The paperconcludes with implications for research and practice in relation to when marketing agility isneeded.Keywords: Marketing Agility, Iteration, Sensemaking, Speed, Marketing Decision, Uncertainty,Dynamic Market Changes

Bakalauro baigiamajame darbe nagrinėjamos lanksčios darbo organizavimo formos bei jų taikymo galimybės. Tema analizuojama dviem aspektais: teoriniu ir praktiniu. Teorinėje dalyje aptarti pokyčiai darbo rinkoje, lanksčių darbo formų įvairovė, pateikti argumentai „už“ ir „prieš“ nestandartinių formų taikymą bei atlikta situacijos Lietuvoje analizė užimtumo aspektu. Praktinėje dalyje pateikiami trijų tikslinių grupių – dirbančių, nedirbančių bei studentų, tyrimo rezultatai. Nustatyta, kad nedirbantys asmenys sutiktų dirbti pagal lanksčias darbo organizavimo formas, o dirbantys nėra linkę keisti esamo darbo modelio. Studentai studijų metu pageidauja dirbti 4 valandas per dieną 5 dienas per savaitę. / Undergraduate thesis examined flexible forms of work organization and their application possibilities. Topic is analyzed in two aspects: theoretical and practical. In the theoretical part there are discussed changes in the labour market, flexible forms of employment diversity, the arguments for and against non-standard forms practise, and situation analysis of Lithuania. In the practical part there are proposed the examination results of three target groups - employed, unemployed and students. It was found that the unemployed are linked to accept work under flexible forms, and employed workers are reluctant to change the current working model. Analysed that students want to work 4 hours per day 5 days per week during the studies.