The Thesis is conducted based on analysis of a business shared service centre, all factors to consider before the establishment, its scope, model, and the most important is to see advantages as well as to realize the shortcomings of this kind of business model. The country which is analyzed is the Czech Republic; more particular is the city of Prague; and the company is SAP Business Service Centre of Europe (BSCE). In this Thesis, first of all, the PEST (Political, Economic, Social and Technology) environmental analysis has been conducted. The work continues with the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of the company SAP AG, from which, we can see that opening a SAP BSCE is a part of SAP strategy which supposes to benefit the company. In order to establish the BSCE, the SAP management board has to consider the factors such as Organization, People, Processes and IT Infrastructure. After analyzing approximately 20 cities in Europe, SAP has chosen Prague as the best mix of quality and costs factors. SAP BSCE covers the functions of Human Resource and Finance and Administration, which provide services to internal and external customers of many countries in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. SAP BSCE has brought back many advantages such as cost-savings, high quality service, business availability and flexibility, and business transparency and legal compliance. On the other hand, there are still many short-comings, such as the high turn-over rate of staff, difficulties in harmonization and standardization of processes and IT infrastructure, and how to prove the quality of service. Despite these challenges, SAP BSCE has put efforts into trying to overcome these problems. At the end of the Thesis, as per analysis of SAP financial results of business activities during the crisis, it is proven the setting up a shared service centre was a good decision of SAP and it paid off with the contribution to help SAP overcome the impacts of crisis.

Off-shoring is a wide-spread instrument for strategic management of companies. According to OECD, 60% of global trade is carried out among subsidiaries of multinational companies. This thesis describes possibilities and methods of using off-shoring which are supported by examples of real companies. The thesis does not deal with off-shoring in the form of production transfer to another state, but with off-shoring in the form of earmarking certain activities, such as purchasing, sale, financing, intellectual property, which are the ways to real cost reduction by means of tax optimisation. Tax savings can thus be used for reducing direct production costs in situations when the production cannot be transferred or when investment costs of such transfer would be too high. It can be also used for off-shoring the production activity.

Submitted by Milena Rubi (milenarubi@ufscar.br) on 2016-10-17T12:15:05Z No. of bitstreams: 1 BENATTI_Glauco_2016.pdf: 4657385 bytes, checksum: c8b25df3de46eef54924ed992b7bf785 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Milena Rubi (milenarubi@ufscar.br) on 2016-10-17T12:15:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 BENATTI_Glauco_2016.pdf: 4657385 bytes, checksum: c8b25df3de46eef54924ed992b7bf785 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Milena Rubi (milenarubi@ufscar.br) on 2016-10-17T12:15:55Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 BENATTI_Glauco_2016.pdf: 4657385 bytes, checksum: c8b25df3de46eef54924ed992b7bf785 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-17T12:16:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 BENATTI_Glauco_2016.pdf: 4657385 bytes, checksum: c8b25df3de46eef54924ed992b7bf785 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-26 / Não recebi financiamento / This paper presents a case study on the restructuring process of a Brazilian operation of a century-old Fortune 500 American multinational manufacturer of industrial equipment. The focus of the work lies with the dissonance between discourse and the result of that process, raising the hypothesis that capital market pressure is behind such restructuring. The annual reports of this company portray the restructuring as a recurring corporate strategy, through which the company seeks to boost confidence in the capital market itself and its ability to deliver better results (or reverse bad ones) without, however, such results are achieved in fact, as this case study aims to show. This institutional literature proved to be a flagship tool company speech aimed at telling the actors of the capital market, stories about the strategies set in motion in defense of the interests of shareholders. The examination of such documents for this case study revealed that these strategies unfold in sometimes more tangible actions, sometimes more performing ones and, while restructuring proved to be more performing actions; the strategy of acquisitions / divestiments in series proved to be the most tangible ones. / Este trabalho apresenta um estudo de caso sobre o processo de reestruturação da operação brasileira de uma multinacional americana centenária, fabricante de equipamentos industriais e presente na Fortune 500. O foco do trabalho recai sobre a dissonância entre o discurso e o resultado desse processo, levantando a hipótese de que a pressão do mercado de capitais esteja por trás de tal reestruturação. Os relatórios anuais desta empresa retratam a reestruturação como uma estratégia corporativa recorrente, através da qual, a empresa busca reforçar a confiança do mercado de capitais em si e em sua capacidade de oferecer melhores resultados (ou reverter os ruins), sem que, no entanto, tais resultados sejam alcançados de fato, como o presente estudo de caso pretende mostrar. Tal literatura institucional revelou-se uma ferramenta emblemática do discurso da empresa que visa contar aos atores do mercado de capitais, histórias sobre as estratégias colocadas em movimento em defesa dos interesses dos acionistas. O exame de tais documentos para este estudo de caso revelou que tais estratégias se desdobram em ações ora mais tangíveis, ora mais performáticas sendo que, enquanto as reestruturações se revelaram ações mais performáticas, a estratégia de aquisições / alienações em série revelaram-se as mais tangíveis.

This paper investigates the impact of the increased off-shoring in business and manufacturing to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Since the off-shoring process is a relatively new activity, there is no precise definition of how to measure its direct impact on a country’s economy. Thus the study is dedicated to identify the main economic factors associated with off-shoring and to examine their impact on the economic growth. The study has used a dataset on economic characteristics for 9 CEE countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia) during the time period of 2000 - 2008. After applying fixed and random effects econometric model to the panel data for 9 countries, empirical results showed that FDI inflows that enter the country with offshoring processes have a positive influence on the GDP of those countries. Additionally, exports of manufactured products and ICT services are also shown to have a positive influence on GDP. At the same time, indigenous investments and private consumption do have a stronger impact on economic growth compared to foreign direct investments and exports, respectively.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the process where the bacteria develop resistance towards the treating effect of an antibiotic drug. AMR poses an alarming threat to human health causing around 700,000 deaths per year around the globe. If appropriate measures to combat the resistance are not taken, the number of deaths globally could increase to around 10 million by the year 2050. There are various factors driving the growth of AMR of which antibiotic shortages are common. A clear insight into the pharmaceutical supply chain is necessary to understand the reasons causing antibiotic unavailability. Ensuring access to medicines is one of the major objectives of pharmaceutical supply chains. Pharmaceutical firms compete in a volatile market to increase their profits. Antibiotics render slim profit margins to pharmaceutical firms; declining profits and increasing costs of production have led to firms outsourcing their operations to suppliers in different geographical locations. This in turn forms complex supply chain structures with various actors of a single drug chain being dispersed across the globe. The complexity in these supply chains lead to antibiotic supply interruptions. National drug shortages drive the risk of AMR, and these shortages are caused when pharmaceutical supply chains are weak or fragile. Therefore, the pharmaceutical supply chains need to be thoroughly analysed. This thesis aims to explore the different possible upstream supply chain structures that could exist in pharmaceutical supply chains. The study also highlights the factors that motivate the firms to choose different supply chain structures. This research is based on the existing literature on pharmaceutical supply chains. Qualitative semi-structured interviews, reports and existing research articles guided the authors in building a typology of upstream pharmaceutical supply chains based on: how different processes are handled by the MAH, the geographical location of operations in the chain, and the sourcing strategy of the Market Authorisation Holder (MAH) who owns the license for the drug. The findings of this study outline how a pharmaceutical firm could possibly structure the upstream supply chain based on its strategies. This study is limited to conceptualizing only the actors involved in the direct supply chain of the focal firm (MAH), further research including actors in the extended supply chain needs to be performed to get deeper insights into pharmaceutical supply chains.