Food retail with large supermarkets consumes significant amounts of energy. The environmental impact is also significant because of the indirect effect from CO2 emissions at the power stations and due to the direct effect arising from refrigerant leakage to the atmosphere. The application of trigeneration (local combined heat, power and refrigeration) can provide substantial improvements in the overall energy efficiency over the conventional supermarket energy approach of separate provision of electrical power and thermal energy. The use of natural refrigerants such as CO2 offers the opportunity to reduce the direct impacts of refrigeration compared to conventional systems employing HFC refrigerants that possess high global warming potential. One approach through which the overall energy efficiency can be increased and the environmental impacts reduced, is through the integration of trigeneration and CO2 refrigeration systems where the cooling generated by the trigeneration system is used to condense the CO2 refrigerant in a cascade arrangement. This research project investigates experimentally and theoretically, through mathematical modelling and simulation, such a system and its potential application to supermarkets. A small size CO2 refrigeration system for low and medium food temperature applications was designed and constructed to enable it to be integrated with an existing trigeneration system in the refrigeration laboratory at Brunel University to form an integrated trigeneration and CO2 refrigeration test facility. Prior to the construction, the design of the system was investigated using mathematical models developed for this purpose. The simulations included the CO2 refrigeration system, CO2 evaporator coils and the integration of the trigeneration and CO2 refrigeration systems. The physical size of the design and component arrangement was also optimised in a 3D AutoCAD model. A series of experimental tests were carried out and the results showed that the medium temperature system could achieve a very good COP, ranging from 32 to 60 due to the low pumping power requirement of the liquid refrigerant. The low temperature system performed with average steady state COP of 4, giving an overall refrigeration system COP in the range between 5.5 and 6. Mathematical models were also developed to investigate the application of the integrated trigeneration and CO2 refrigeration system in a case study supermarket. The models were validated against test results in the laboratory and manufacturers’ data. The fuel utilisation efficiency and environmental impacts of different trigeneration and CO2 refrigeration arrangements were also evaluated. The results indicated that a system comprising of a sub-critical CO2 refrigeration system integrated with a trigeneration system consisting of a micro-turbine based Combined Heat and Power (CHP) unit and ammonia-water absorption refrigeration system could provide energy savings of the order of 15% and CO2 emission savings of the order of 30% compared to conventional supermarket energy systems. Employing a trigeneration system with a natural gas engine based CHP and Lithium Bromide-Water sorption refrigeration system, could offer energy savings of 30% and CO2 emission savings of 43% over a conventional energy system arrangement. Economic analysis of the system has shown a promising payback period of just over 3 years compared to conventional systems.

Att det har blivit en ökad digitalisering i handeln de senaste 10 åren är ingen hemlighet. Internet har skapat möjligheter som tidigare inte funnits och att handla elektroniskt har blivit en stor företeelse på marknaden. Elektronisk handel, med andra ord e-handel, har ökat kraftigt de senaste åren och förutspås även att bli ännu större i framtiden. Digitaliseringen har gjort att människor har fått nya beteenden och att konkurrensen på detaljhandelsmarknaden har förändrats. Med både förändrat beteende och en annorlunda konkurrens påstås det att detaljhandeln är inne i ett skifte nu, ett skifte som förändrar branschen och med stor sannolikhet påverkar de fysiska butikerna på marknaden. E-handel har gjort det möjligt för minskade sökkostnader och priser, lägre distributionskostnader och att avstånd blir möjliga att sudda ut. Samtidigt har kunder efterfrågat smidiga och enkla affärer vilket har gjort att e-handel har vunnit allt fler kunder.  Syftet med denna uppsats är att se om det blir någon inverkan på de fysiska butikerna inom detaljhandeln när det gäller försäljning, antal sysselsatta och antal arbetsställen när användningen av e-handel ökar i Sverige. Studien baseras på en kvantitativ metod där tidigare studier samt regressionsanalyser utgör grunden. Regressionsanalysen genomförs på data inhämtad från myndigheter samt organisationer och de tre beroende variablerna är omsättning per person i fysiska butiker, antalet sysselsatta i fysiska butiker samt antalet arbetsställen inom detaljhandeln. Resultaten som skattas tyder på att det finns en trend som visar att när e-handelsanvändning ökar så minskar försäljning per person i de fysiska butikerna, det går dock inte att säga att e-handelsanvändningen är det som påverkar försäljningen. Resultatet tyder även på att det inte med säkerhet går att säga att antalet sysselsatta eller arbetsställen kommer påverkas av en ökad e-handelsanvändning i Sverige. / That a digitization has taken place in the retail industry in the last 10 years isn’t a secret. The internet has created new opportunities and electronic commerce has been a large-sized phenomenon on the retail market. Electronic commerce, in other words the e-commerce, has increased sharply in recent years and is predicted to grow even bigger in the future. Digitization has created new behaviors among consumers and new competitive situations on the retail market. With both new behaviors and new competitive situation, the retail industry is changing and with great probability also the brick-and-mortar stores will be affected by it. E-commerce has made it possible to reduce search costs and prices, to have lower distribution costs and make it possible to overcome distance. At the same time, the consumers demand smooth and simple business, which has made e-commerce use even stronger among the customers.  The purpose of this thesis is to see if the brick-and-mortar stores sales, employment or number of workplaces are affected by an increase in the use of e-commerce in Sweden. The study is based on a quantitative method with previous studies and regression analysis as the foundation of the study. The regression analysis is performed with data from retail organizations and the dependent variables in the regression is revenue per capita in brick-and-mortar stores, employment and number of workplaces. The results of the study indicate a trend in the retail market where the revenue per capita decrease in brick-and-mortar stores while the e-commerce use increase, however it cannot be claimed that e-commerce affects the sale in brick-and-mortar stores. The results also indicate that it is not possible to conclude that e-commerce use will affect the number employed or number of workplaces in Sweden.

As an effect of the exploding e-commerce, an increasing number of stores have been forced to shut down the last years, which has resulted in an increased interest in what will be required of the physical stores in order to survive a digital era. Digitization has changed the global retail industry for consumers and has changed the playing field for commerce and challenged successful business models. Competition in the retail industry is harder than ever and more companies are expected to step in and take market share. The purpose of the thesis is to increase the understanding of how the physical stores work with their customer relations in order to create customer loyalty in a digital era. Previous research has shown important factors that affect customer relations, but this research is mainly carried out outside Sweden. Therefore, this thesis focuses on physical stores' customer relationship work in Sweden. In order to gain a deeper understanding of how physical stores work with their customer relations, semi-structured interviews were conducted with standardized questions and follow-up questions and analyzed using previous research in the field. The conclusions of the analysis were that the work with customer relations is an important factor that affects the customer's loyalty to physical stores and the choice of online stores. In addition to that, the personal contact, the expertise and competence of the staff, service, the importance of customer analysis were important factors.

The focus of this research questions the role of change management in successfully implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning solution in the retail industry. The importance of the study could reveal a change approach more useful and relevant to the retail industry and offer opportunities for further research in this industry. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBA

The rapid growth of the internet and e-commerce provide new opportunities for China’s retailers, and a new battle for China’s retail industry has begun. The purpose of this research is to explore the barriers and factors for achieving successful e-tailing in China’s retail industry. Some past studies have investigated the success of e-commerce in the western context. This study aims to partially fill the gap created by the lack of research into e-commerce in the Asian context, by investigating successful e-tailing in China’s retail industry, and is based on a case study of the Shanghai Brilliance Group. Therefore, the research question is ‘How can successful e-tailing in China’s retail industry be achieved?’ Accordingly, three research issues are addressed:Research issue 1: How is e-tailing being used in the Shanghai Brilliance Group?Research issue 2: What are the barriers to the implementation of e-tailing in theShanghai Brilliance Group?Research issue 3: What are the factors for achieving successful e-tailing in theShanghai Brilliance Group?To investigate the research question and the three research issues, the following approaches were applied. Firstly, three parent disciplines were reviewed, namely, ecommerce, retail in China, and e-tailing success factors, in order to generate the research gap and a theoretical model. A theoretical model was developed, which included six factors and their variables. These six factors are: senior management factors, organisational factors, e-commerce strategies, external factors, consumer factors, and ecommerce system measurements. Secondly, the primary data for this research were collected from interviews (16 in-depth interviews and 3 focus group interviews) and a survey questionnaire (200 valid questionnaires).The findings for the first research issue showed that e-commerce is poorly implemented in the Shanghai Brilliance Group and its subsidiaries, but that e-commerce in the supermarket subsidiaries is more advanced than in the department stores. Only one department store is offering online shopping to their customers, while both supermarket subsidiaries offer online shopping. The rest of the department stores only use websites for advertising and promotion, or for limited customer service, such as award point checking. Moreover, only the Oriental Shopping Centre and Lian Hua Supermarket have specific teams or an out-sourced company controlling their e-commerce project. This shows that e-commerce is not being taken seriously in the Shanghai Brilliance Group to date.In relation to the second research issue, a total of nineteen barriers were identified from the interview data. Those barriers can be divided into two categories, namely, external barriers and internal barriers. Most of those barriers are consistent with those mentioned in the literature. However, some new barriers emerged from the data analysis process, including the mission of the organisation, and high profit objectives.The findings in relation to research issue 3 identified other important factors of e-tailing, besides those barriers answered in research issue 2. Most of the success factors reviewed in the literature were confirmed by the collected data and in addition, some new variables were explored. Overall, six groups of factors and 64 variables were addressed in this research as success factors for e-tailing. This included 57 out of the 59 variables which were previously mentioned in the literature and seven emergent variables.This research has made a contribution to both the theory and practice of e-tailing.Through qualitative analysis, this research not only identifies the important factors of e-tailing, but also generates a comprehensive model to guide the implementation of e-tailing by China’s retailers, especially the Shanghai Brilliance Group. Furthermore, this is the first study to investigate successful e-tailing in China’s retail industry. Accordingly, the proposed framework of this study provides a foundation for future research.

People in Sweden have become more aware and interested in environmental issues. This has led to an increased demand for environmental friendly food products. Previously the price often determined if a customer bought the product or not. During the recent years internet has become a more widely used media than ever before. This has led to that inter-net is one of the important tools to gather information and knowledge, among other things environmental issues. With such aspects in mind the authors found it interesting to investigate if companies could use internet as a marketing tool for environmental friendly products. Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to: investigate if and how companies display environmental friendliness in their marketing strategy and how it is presented on their company webpage’s. In order to fulfil the purpose five general dealer’s home and webpage’s were examined. As a supplementing research one store for each of the five general dealers were visited and ex-amined. The used theoretical framework is focused on value and green marketing. How to create a specific value is often the core when formulating and creating a strategy for a company. Green marketing is such marketing that include environmental concerns in the marketing offers. The sales of ecological food has increased and according to SCB (2006) represented 6 Billions in revenue between 2004 and 2005. The literature indicates that green marketing have to change and become more like conventional marketing, in order to reach the larger consumer segments. As a supplement to this theory, a section with home and webpage de-sign and chromatics are added. The analysis and conclusion showed that there were some differences in how the re-searched companies used green marketing. Two of the companies used their webpage’s and displayed environmental awareness, while two had a clear focus on price. One company had a health focus. It was also found that there are differences between the messages and information on the home and webpage’s, compared to the findings in the stores. What also was found was that green marketing not only should target the already green consumers, but instead aim at the larger consumer segment. To do this green marketing should become more like conventional marketing and not only focus on the product, but also other value factors. The findings also suggest that the companies could use their home and webpage’s to a higher extent than they do today.

The future of the sawmill industry is uncertain; this is partly due to its internal structural changes, but also due to structural changes amongst their customers. Concurrently, competition within the industry is increasing, and therefore focus is constantly being placed on reducing costs and leveraging economies of scale. However, in order for sawmills to benefit from economies of scale, it is necessary to work with a well thought-out logistics strategy. This doctoral dissertation aims at identifying and describing the customers' logistics service requirements as well as describing and analyzing logistic strategies in the sawmill industry. The dissertation identifies and defines some of the sawmills customers' logistics service requirements and establishes a theoretical framework for logistics strategies, as well as it studies logistics strategies in the sawmill industry. House-builders and traditional retailers appear to focus on similar logistics service requirements, whereas the logistics service requirement of the DIY multiple retailers differ. Furthermore, this dissertation provides a general definition of logistics strategy that has been operationalized by generic logistics strategies. The sawmill industry makes use of generic logistics strategies such as differentiation and postponement. The individual sawmills ought to consider improving their process performance by implementing additional generic logistics strategies as well as increasing their utilization of generic logistics strategies that are already implemented. The sawmill industry's utilization of generic logistics strategies is however restricted by its own supplier market (including uncertainties of quality of incoming material), and also by the inherent nature of commodity products, as well as divergent material flows.

Introduction As the world is becoming increasingly integrated, many firms search for partners overseas with hope to find benefits. Internationalization is today the industrial norm, and in this new and ever-expanding environment, international purchasing has become a major challenge that firms have to face in their daily operations. Yet, despite the growing importance of international purchasing by retailers, previous studies have mainly focused on international purchasing by manufacturing firms, and as the authors have acknowledge the retailers' significance on the national markets, a gap has been identified. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to examine and map out the current state of Swedish retailers' international purchasing activities. Method In order to fulfill the purpose, a quantitative research was chosen. In total, 74 telephone interviews have been conducted, resulting in a response rate of 80 percent. The sample was based on the 120 largest retailers in Sweden, with regards to turnover. Conclusion Swedish retailers have been grouped into four distinctive clusters; the Veterans, the Freshmen, the Cravens, and the Intellectuals. Each cluster showed clear and specific characteristics that distinguished them from each other. One common feature existed; regarding what risks that were connected with international purchasing. Almost everyone highlighted the loss of control, due to long distances, as being the main risk with international purchasing. The different clusters had diverse suggestions for how to overcome this; the Veterans focused on long-term relationship-building, the Freshmen spread their purchasing activities on multiple suppliers, the Cravens contracted trade companies to take the risk, and the Intellectuals invested in a high level of integration among all actors involved.

Syfte: Syftet med den studie är att få en djupare förståelse för hur den förändrade kommunikationsmöjligheten via Facebook upplevs av kunder och företag inom dagligvaruhandeln. Vidare är syftet att också få en djupare förståelse för hur dessa upplevelserpåverkar relationen mellan kund och företag inom dagligvaruhandeln. Metod: Studien bygger på både en kvantitativ och kvalitativ undersökningsmetod. Undersökningen har genomförts med både enkät och intervjuer, på två företag och 17 kunder. Resultat: Både kunder och företag är överens om att företag ska ha Facebooksidor, och det ärviktigt att företagen är aktiva på dessa. Däremot är de inte överens om vad huvudsyftet med Facebooksidorna faktiskt är, företagen respektive kunderna har olika önskemål. Båda tror att Facebooksidan kan bidra till en ökad relation men om det i praktiken gör det, varierar pågrund av personliga upplevelser och åsikter. Begränsningar: Resultatet är endast baserat på två svenska dagligvaruhandelsföretag och desskunder. Studien går inte att generalisera eftersom det är för få komponenter som undersökts. Praktiska implikationer: Resultatet kan användas av företag inom den svenskadagligvaruhandeln. Kunder kan också ha nytta av denna studie ifall djupare kunskap om detbelysta ämnet önskas. Ä ven andra företag som är i planeringsstadiet med att börja använda sigav Facebooksidor kan ha nytta av denna studie. Originalitet: Andra liknande studier har gjorts, dock har de flesta av dem huvudsakligenbelyst företagsperspektivet. Denna studie behandlar både företags- och kundperspektiv för attfå fram resultat från båda håll. / Objective: The purpose is to gain a deeper understanding concerning the changes to communication and how these changes are perceived from customers and retail companies.Furthermore the intention is to see if these experiences affect the relationship between customer and company through Facebook. Methodology: This study is based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative approach. Data has been collected with surveys and interviews from two Swedish retail companies and 17 of their customers also participated. Findings: The findings are that both companies and customers agree regarding the importanceof a company Facebookpage. They also believe the significance of a company being constantly active as well. Though they disagree about the main purpose with the company Facebookpage since the customers and companies’ expectations differ. Both parties believe that the company Facebookpage has the possibility to improve the relation however it seemsto depend on personal experiences and opinions when applying to reality-cases. Research Limitations: The result is based upon the answers from only two Swedish retail companies and their customers. Because of the few components involved the findings cannot be generalized. Practical Implications: The result can be of use to other companies within the Swedish retail industry. It may also prove useful to customers for the purpose of gaining further knowledge.The results might also provide guidance and insight to companies which are in the planningprocess or contemplating of creating a Facebook page. Originality: Similar studies have been conducted though most of them put their focus mainly from a company perspective. This study focuses on both company and customer perspective gaining understanding from both sides.

According to World Bank statistics, internet user occupied a quarter of the world population in 2008. In 2010, the number of internet users will be over two billion people. This group will become potential online shopping customers. Online shopping in global market keeps growing. Online shopping has become a trend. The business model of E-continues is facing highly challenge in this market. Enterprises need to look for sustainable way to keep their business continuously growth. This research is based on the external analysis of online retail industry in the U.S.A and the internal analysis of the core resources of the Amazon.com to evaluate the key factors of online M&A targets, to adjust the strategy in highly competitive industry, to utilize the resources acquired by Amazon.com to build up competitive advantage and to implement the effectiveness of strategy. The study mainly research 13 companies acquired by Amazon.com from 2008 to April 2011 on the relationship between core resources and competitive advantage. The study concludes that M&A motivation of Amazon.com is to extend product line, to enter new markets, to obtain the necessary resources and capabilities, to expand the operation scale of the industry. According to the findings and conclusions, the suggestions of the study as followed. 1. In Chinese digital content industry: firms should be focus on content development to build up the competitive advantage of digital content platform. Meanwhile the digital content can be used in each e-reader. In addition, the firms can cooperate with telecommunications firms to provide added-value service. 2. The study found that many internet companies differentiate customer service and build trust from customer by online services to create competitive advantage like creating user community to share knowledge and resources; using word of mouth marketing to attract new customers. Executives should focus on their customer-orientated service to meet market demand.