Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge about technology based services affection of the ability of retail banks to build customer based brand equity among students. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model has been developed from theories regarding customer based brand equity, switching barriers and choice criteria. Based on this conceptual model, seven in depth interviews including several brand elicitation techniques were conducted. Findings – The findings show that students perceive the target banks to be rather similar, especially regarding technologies. In addition, the students are satisfied with their bank, however; the technology based services have difficulties in creating true customer based brand equity. Behind this difficulties are the special character of financial service combined with the student role. Together, these results suggest that the banks need to do something besides the actual services in order to build customer based brand equity and keep the customers for a long term relationship. These strategies must be developed and implemented carefully in order to keep the current image of credibility. Research limitations/implications – The paper has not included comprehensive eliciting techniques and this must be taken into account when reflecting about unconscious brand associations.  Practical implications – The findings include good insights and advices that bank managers can use to create meaningful differentiations in the future and attract and keep students as customers for a long time.  Originality/value - The paper combines customer based brand equity with switching barriers, which give valuable insights to both banks and researchers. Moreover, the time period of the study related to the technological innovation provides the brand equity research in the financial sector with updated knowledge.

El treball desenvolupat en aquesta tesi consisteix en l'adaptació a la llengua catalana d'un model de mesura de la qualitat en el sector serveis, el model servqual, i la seva contrastació a través d'una aplicació empírica al sector de les entitats financeres de les comarques gironines. El primers capítols del treball constitueixen un bloc introductori al tema principal de la tesi, la mesura de la qualitat en el sector serveis, i indiquen la necessitat i la conveniència d'obtenir una mesura fiable de la qualitat per tal d'aconseguir un avantatge competitiu sostenible tant en el mercat nacional com en el mercat internacional actual. El desenvolupament metodològic de la tesi es realitza en dues vessants diferents, per una banda es procedeix a l'adaptació a la llengua catalana de l'instrument de mesura que es vol contrastar, i per l'altra es descriu, es discuteix i s'aplica la metodologia estadística que permet descobrir variables latents, és a dir, constructes no observables directament, a través de l'estudi de la covariació de les variables observables o indicadors adequats. L'objectiu general que es vol aconseguir és l'avaluació de la qualitat percebuda del servei que ofereixen les entitats financeres de la província de Girona. Els objectius específics que es planteja el treball, a part de la obtenció de l'instrument adaptat a la llengua catalana per a la mesura de la qualitat percebuda en el sector de les entitats financeres, són: a) L'estudi de la validesa i de la fiabilitat de l'instrument, així com l'anàlisi de l'estabilitat de les dimensions inherents al model i que porten a la formació del constructe qualitat percebuda. b) L'anàlisi de la relació entre les percepcions i les expectatives com a manera d'avaluar la qualitat percebuda. c) La discriminació deis constructes qualitat, qualitat percebuda i satisfacció i les possibles relacions existents entre ells. d) L'estudi del poder predictiu del constructe qualitat percebuda sobre el comportament futur dels clients. e) L'impacte que tenen les característiques socioeconòmiqes deis clients, així com la distinció entre tipus d'entitat (caixes i bancs), en l'avaluació de la qualitat percebuda. L'elecció del sector empíric d'aplicació del treball no ha estat gratuïta i obeeix a dos motius principals. En primer lloc, i a diferència d'altres treballs empírics d'aplicació de l''escala servqual, no es vol fer l' estudi sobre una mostra de conveniència o sobre una llista de clients d'una determinada entitat sinó que planteja l'estudi sobre una mostra aleatòria geogràfica presa sobre el total poblacional censat a les comarques gironines. L' altra motiu l'imposa la mateixa metodologia al exigir que el client ha d'haver pogut escollir lliurament l'entitat que avalua i per tant que el seu judici sobre l'entitat no ha estat condicionat a priori. La mostra s'ha seleccionat realitzant mostreig aleatori simple proporcional a la mesura de l'hàbitat prèvia estratificació dels municipis segons tinguin mida censal inferior als 2.000 habitants, entre 2.000 i 10.000 habitants, entre 10.000 i 50.000 habitants i superior als 50.000 habitants. El total de la mostra de la primera fase (500 persones), s'ha administrat mitjançant entrevista personal per enquestadors entrenats prèviament. El nivell de resposta útil consta de 430 qüestionaris. La mostra utilitzada en la segona fase consta de 150 persones, seleccionades aleatòriament entre les que havien donar resposta valida en la primera fase i l'administració es va fer per correu. Les anàlisis exploradores realitzades mostren la poca estabilitat de les dimensions del model encara que l'escala de les percepcions recull un percentatge de variabilitat superior a l'escala servqual i proporciona valors superiors per l'alfa de Cronbach. Les anàlisis confirmatòries efectuades per a contrastar l'existència de les cinc dimensions del model (tangible, fiabilitat, interès, seguretat i empatia), com a variables latents associades als seus corresponents models de mesura. ens permeten rebutjar-les globalment encara que observem ajustos menys dolents per al' escala de les percepcions que per a l'escala servqual. L'anàlisi en profunditat del model ens porta a la conclusió que els aspectes més significatius en l'avaluació de qualitat són els corresponents a aspectes de seguretat, fiabilitat i interès i que els percentatges de variabilitat explicada són superiors en tots els casos per a l' escala de les percepcions que per al' escala servqual. Atès que l' anàlisi de la bateria servqual indica que les percepcions dels clients només superen les seves expectatives en tres dels ítems corresponents a la dimensió tangible, que les valoracions de qualitat i de satisfacció global són molt bones i que la comparació de les puntuacions mitjanes a les expectatives amb puntuacions mitjanes d'importància dels diferents aspectes avaluats indiquen criteris semblants, concloem que l'escala de les percepcions té un poder explicatiu superior i que la interpretació de l'escala servqual s'ha de contextualitzar en el sentit que no es poden interpretar de la mateixa manera els gaps amb mateixa puntuació, sinó que la diferencia entre percepcions i expectatives és més important si la puntuació donada a les expectatives és més alta. Les anàlisis efectuades a través de proves Anova i interpretades a través d'anàlisis de classificació múltiple indiquen que els aspectes socioeconòmics que més incideixen en les valoracions de qualitat són els que fan referència a la mida de l'hàbitat i al nivell d'estudis. Veiem el paral·lelisme en l'explicació de les dues escales, percepcions i servqual, però sempre a favor de l'escala de les percepcions pel que fa a significativitat i a percentatge de variabilitat explicada. El model estructural saturat entre els constructes que mesuren de manera global la qualitat, les percepcions de qualitat i la satisfacció global, ens permet rebutjar la hipòtesis que es tracta de mesures de tres constructes iguals i ens permet establir relacions entre ells. El modelat amb equacions estructurals de dos models equivalents excepte pel que fa a la direccionalitat entre qualitat i satisfacció entre les percepcions, la qualitat, la satisfacció i el comportament futur del client, ens porta a ajustos completament equivalents. De la mateixa manera, el planteig de models equivalents per discernir quin dels dos constructes, qualitat o satisfacció, és el que causa un efecte directe sobre el comportament futur del client ens porta també a ajustos equivalents. Les principals conclusions del treball són que les percepcions de qualitat dels clients de les entitats financeres de les comarques gironines són molt bones i que els aspectes més importants per a la valoració de la qualitat són els que fan referència a seguretat, fiabilitat i interès. Els aspectes que fan referència a les dimensions tangibles i d'empatia són molt poc significatius estadísticament. Destaca el fet que l'escala de les percepcions té un poder predictiu més alt a nivell individual que l'escala servqual analitzada i que l'escala de les expectatives permet relativitzar la importància de les conclusions extretes a través de l'escala de les percepcions. S'ha comprovat la validació de criteri de l'instrument a través de la predicció del comportament futur del client en l'ajust estructural realitzat i la fiabilitat de l'instrument s'ha comprovat a través de la prova test-retest efectuada entre les dues fases del treball empíric sobre la mateixa mostra de persones en dos moments de temps. Qualitat i satisfacció són la mesura de dos constructes diferents entre els que no hem pogut decidir el sentit de causalitat. El poder predictiu del constructe qualitat percebuda sobre el comportament futur dels clients es mesura a través d'un efecte indirecte a través de les variables de qualitat i de satisfacció global i és significatiu. Les variables socioeconòmiques són importants per entendre millor el comportament dels diferents sectors de mercat així com dels dos tipus d'entitat avaluades (bancs i caixes). L' escala servqual és un esquelet vàlid per a la mesura de la qualitat dels serveis però cal un treball qualitatiu previ a la seva implantació en un sector concret per recollir una part més gran de la variabilitat de les respostes i la seva força està en la utilització repetida al llarg del temps per captar canvis tant en les expectatives com en les percepcions de qualitat dels clients. / During the last years the attainment of quality has become a goal of business environment and, moreover, quality has been proven to be an important tool in the obtaining of sustainable competitive advantages. The measurement and the control of quality in services have a distinctive feature in the sense that focus is put on perceived quality. In services, intangibility is a fact and firms have to strengthen in customers and in the way in which customers form and update their perceptions about quality. In this thesis we adapt the servqual model to the Catalan language in order to analyse customers of financial institutions services in the area of Girona, Spain. A population study is realised. A distinctive feature of our analysis with respect to the majority of previous ones is that ours is a population study. That is to say, instead of directly address on customers of a firm we randomly sampled the population of the province of Girona, Spain. In particular, first stratified random sampling and then simple random sampling within each stratum are applied. Total population reported by the last census (1995 local elections) was N= 421487. The stratum considered were for towns below 2000 inhabitants, between 200 l and 10000 inhabitants and between 10001 and 50000 inhabitants.The questionnaires were individually administered during a face-to-face interview in the home of the individuals of the sample for previously entrained interviewers.Expectatives are specifically analysed. Our aim is to compare such expectatives with perceptions about services. Using the modified servqual methodology, the dimensions of quality are analysed using factor analysis, relative weights for each one of these dimensions and a causal model relating perceived quality, experienced satisfaction, global quality and future intentions of customers about the firm is estimated.The adaptation of the model to the reality is discussed and some proposals about the sampled sector (financial institutions) and the analysed area (the province of Girona) are commented.In addition, anova was used to determine if there were differences among the various sociodemographic categories in regard to each service quality item and each service quality dimension. Posterior MCA were realised to test the overall effect of the different sociodemographic categories on each dimension of service quality.

Research questions: How can event marketing be studied as a part of relationship marketing?How can event marketing be used to strengthen customer-brand relationships? Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study event marketing as a part of relationship marketing, by analysing the elements of trust, commitment, brand involvement, brand emotions, brand attitudes and customer value. Method: This research was conducted using a quantitative research method, where the primary data was collected via an online-survey distributed to visitors at Chokladgästabudet at Waxholms Hotel and GastroNord, two food-related events. In total, the study received 102 respondents. Conclusion: The study found support for previous studies regarding events having an effect on the customer-brand relationships. However, this study also found that events have a particular effect on the emotional aspects of the theories used in the study, which are believed to lead to stronger relationships.

The main objective of my diploma thesis was to conduct an analysis of the shopping atmosphere at a selected retail unit from the perspective of Czech consumers, and the development of recommendations for its possible improvement. The main method selected for the analysis and for the actual investigation consisted of a questionnaire survey among customers. The retail unit selected for the research was Electro World České Budějovice. An analysis of the shopping atmosphere of ElectroWorld České Budějovice shows that most customers perceive it positively. This can be confirmed and identified by the fact that customers return to this store and make repeated purchases.

Diferenciar-se é uma questão de agregação constante de valor, pensamento enxuto, retenção de talentos, atenção as boas práticas de gestão e a todas as partes envolvidas. Alcança sua missão aquela organização que aproveita o maior número de oportunidades lançadas a todos, porém aproveitadas por aqueles que as identificam e executam ações a frente dos demais. Manter essa atitude de vanguarda é o grande desafio que se lança. E a resposta a esta necessidade, a história de gestão e empreendedorismo nos mostra que não haverá resposta definitiva nem mecanismo permanente eficaz. É inserido neste contexto, que este projeto se desenvolve, buscando observar dentro de uma indústria de bebidas, o que seu método de custeio atual contribui para a busca de sua missão e implantar os conceitos atualmente modernos de time driven activity-based costing, voltando-as cada vez mais para a agregação de valor. / The ability to differentiate oneself as a professional is a matter of constant aggregation of value, lean thinking, retaining talent, attention to good management practices and to all parties involved. The company which can achieve its mission is the one that takes advantage of the greater number of opportunities thrown at all involved, however, seized by those who identify and take action ahead of others. Being able to maintain that vanguard attitude is the greatest challenge. In response to this need, the history of management and entrepreneurship shows us that there will be no definitive answer or an effective permanent mechanism. It is in this context that this project is developed, aiming to observe within a beverage industry, what its current cost method contributes to the pursuit of its mission and implement the modern concepts time driven activity-based costing, focusing constantly on the added value.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo central a proposição de ferramentas de gestão do relacionamento com os clientes, tendo como base analítica a utilização da segmentação dos clientes com foco no mercado industrial ou B2B. Para tanto, a metodologia de segmentação pós-fato proposta pelo autor, denominada de Focometria, terá como base de dados o comportamento histórico de compras dos clientes mensurado pelos descritores: valor, recência e frequência. O valor mede a margem de contribuição gerada por cada cliente; a recência mede o tempo transcorrido entre a data de corte estabelecida e a última operação comercial; e a frequência mede o número de operações comerciais realizadas no período de análise. A metodologia propõe a realização de dois estágios classificatórios da carteira de clientes, onde o primeiro estágio definirá os grupos de clientes e o segundo estágio os categorizará a partir de um ranking proposto. Para isso, o trabalho será estruturado em quatro artigos principais, os quais fazem uso das ferramentas propostas, com o objetivo de melhorar e qualificar a tomada de decisão na gestão do relacionamento dos clientes das organizações. Complementando, a Tese faz referência a um quinto artigo que reforça a aplicação da metodologia de segmentação Focometria na gestão orçamentária de vendas das empresas. Com base nos artigos apresentados conclui-se que a metodologia de segmentação de dois estágios a Focometria, é uma ferramenta eficiente para qualificar e focar a gestão comercial da carteira de clientes das empresas. / The present work has as main objective the proposition of relationship management tools with customers, based on the use of analytical customer segmentation with focus on industrial or B2B market. To this end, the methodology proposed by the author pos-fact segmentation, called Focometria, will be based on the data of customer purchase history behavior measured by key words: value, recency and frequency. The value measures the contribution margin generated by each client; the recency measures the elapsed time between the date of court established and the last commercial operation; and frequency measures the number of commercial operations performed during the analysis period. The methodology proposes two qualifying stages of customer, where the first stage will define the customer groups and the second stage will categorize them from a proposed ranking. For that, the work will be structured in four main articles, which make use of the tools proposed, with the goal of improving and qualify the decision-making on customer relationship management of organizations. Complementing the thesis references a fifth article that reinforces the application of the methodology of segmenting Focometria on budget management of enterprises sales. On the basis of articles presented it is concluded that the two-stage segmentation methodology to Focometria, is an efficient tool to qualify and focus on the commercial management of customer businesses.

The business environment is impacted by technology both negatively and positively. To this extent, therefore, it is only prudent that the business environment adopts technological platforms, such as e-commerce, but there is a need to ascertain the risks involved, in order to optimize the benefits. This study set out to determine the impact of e-commerce on corporate governance in the retail sector in Zimbabwe. The corporates under investigation were Total Zimbabwe, Complete Solutions Architects, Venturecom and Kenac. The study included gathering the views of suppliers, customers, employees, government, and trade as well as investors. It employed a quantitative research design which involved the ultimate determination of the regression equation and a qualitative design which used interviews from stakeholder respondents. Some of the notable results from the questionnaire indicated poor customer relationship management on e-commerce platforms, a more stringent control than regulatory requirements and inadequate monitoring of the behaviour and activity of clients on e-commerce platforms. The investors also felt that the impact of electronic commerce impact on shareholder activity was not satisfactory especially with regards to meetings, but they indicated satisfaction with the enhancement of resources with regards to the generation of organizational profits. The regression equation finally revealed that for overall satisfaction, as a proxy for good corporate governance, as the dependent factor the statistically independent factors were investors and government as a trade, which could imply that these are the definitive stakeholders. From the interviews, there was indication some of the salient issues about e-commerce that were indicated included the untrustworthiness of intermediaries, the difficulty in describing physical goods and the difficulty of eliminating unethical practices on electronic commerce platforms. Inter-organizational compliance between the organizations and their stakeholders was also revealed as being a major factor that was needed in order to reduce the contagion effect. This action was followed by the view that the boards’ responsibilities and roles of the corporate boards needed had to change to manage risk on e-commerce platforms. The study concluded by suggesting a longitudinal study of the same topic incorporating more stakeholders and including more hypotheses to test all the possible and proposed relationships. More time is also recommended to cater for the fast development of ecommerce and IT in general / M. Sc. (Computing Science (Information Systems)) / School of Computing

The shifting focus in the role of academic libraries entail a better understanding, awareness and responsiveness to the needs of the library users. In an environment of change and an age of accountability academic libraries have to determine and demonstrate the impact their resources and services are having on their institutional mission. Service quality is not based exclusively on the perception of the librarians, but also dependent on the perception of users. Only customers judge quality; all other judgments are essentially irrelevant" (Zeithaml, Parasuraman, Berry 1999). The reason of this study was to assess quality in the library and to determine the perceptions of the Vaal Triangle Campus Library users as they relate to quality service and to develop a model to improve service quality. The aim was to determine library users' minimum expectations for services, their desired level of service and then to identify the extent of service they currently perceive on three dimensions of service quality: affect of service, library as place and access to information. A triangulation, mixed method research methodology was employed in this study. Data was collected using focus group as well as individual interviews and the LibQUAL questionnaire. Purposive sampling was used to determine participants for the interviews while a total market survey was employed for the questionnaire respondents. Findings indicate that there is a gap between the users' expectations and perception of service quality. The results indicate that there are variations within the different user groups regarding the expectations and perceptions of service quality at the Vaal Triangle Campus library. In view of the findings, the study concluded by developing a service quality model based on Deming's PDCA cycle, the ISO model and the Hoshin Kanri process / Information Science / M. Inf.

A mudança de comportamento dos consumidores através do advento da tecnologia e das redes sociais gera um grande empoderamento dos mesmos, alterando substancialmente a forma de relacionamento das empresas com seu público final. Atentas a este mercado, as empresas de mídia passam por profundas mudanças, tanto do ponto de vista da entrega de conteúdo ao seu público, quanto no seu formato administrativo, estratégico e financeiro. Sendo assim, a presente dissertação apresenta abordagens apoiadas em técnicas multivariadas para composição de equipes comerciais e de remuneração dos times de venda de uma empresa de comunicação. No artigo 1, objetiva-se gerar um modelo para estimar a premiação comercial das equipes de venda das rádios do Grupo RBS. Para tanto, inicialmente geram-se agrupamentos das emissoras de rádio do Grupo RBS no estado do Rio Grande do Sul e de Santa Catarina com base nos seus perfis de similaridades. Para cada cluster gerado, gera-se uma regressão linear múltipla da premiação comercial validado através de validação cruzada por intermédio do R2 ajustado e Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE). O segundo artigo aborda a clusterização dos top clientes do Grupo RBS e o impacto na composição das equipes comerciais por meio do método da seleção de variáveis. As 7 variáveis originais foram avaliadas através do método de seleção de variáveis “Omita uma variável por vez”; o melhor Silhouette Index (SI) médio, métrica utilizada para avaliar a qualidade dos agrupamentos gerados, foi obtido quando 3 variáveis foram retidas. Os agrupamentos gerados por tais variáveis refletem o comportamento de compra de mídia dos clientes; os agrupamentos foram considerados satisfatórios quando avaliados por especialistas do Grupo RBS. / The change in the behavior of consumers with the advent of technology and social networks generates a great empowerment of themselves, substantially altering the relationship form of companies to their final audience. Attentive to this market, media companies undergo profound changes, both from the point of view of delivering content to their audience, as well as in their administrative, strategic and financial format. Thus, the present dissertation presents approaches supported by multivariate techniques for the composition of commercial and remuneration teams of the sales group of a communication company. In article 1, the objective is to generate a model to estimate the commercial awards of the sales teams of the RBS Group radios. To do this, we initially generate groupings of radio stations from the RBS Group in the state of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina based on their profiles of similarities. For each cluster generated, a multiple linear regression of the commercial award is generated, validated through cross validation through the adjusted R2 and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE). The second article addresses the clustering of RBS Group top clients and the impact on the composition of business teams through the variable selection method. The original 7 variables were evaluated through the variable selection method "Omit one variable at a time"; the best Silhouette Index (SI) average, metric used to evaluate the quality of the generated clusters, was obtained when 3 variables were retained. Clusters generated by such variables reflect customers' buying behavior of media; the clusters were considered satisfactory when evaluated by RBS Group experts.

The theme of my graduation thesis was "Attitudes and buying behaviour of customers of a shopping center". The object that I have explore was the shopping center Tesco Pisek. Marketers must be able to survive on the market competition, so they must know their own consumers. It is important to know the consumer behaviour, to know what is importent for consumers and it is also important to know the consumer knowledge of diferent products. This topic has me interested because of the most important timeliness. To get all those information I must do marketing research, these results was evaluated in this graduation thesis.