The objective of the thesis is to analyse the German export and to analyse German indirect foreign trade promotion. The first part examines export weaknesses and risks and their impacts on German economy. The second part investigates and evaluates the institutional arrangement of the foreign trade promotion system and compares it with selected European economies.

This research aims to explore the borrower-specific financial constraints that prevent black youth entrepreneurs in Tshwane from accessing finance to for their own start-ups. To achieve its goal, the research seeks to explore whether there are significant differences between black youth entrepreneurs in Tshwane in terms of their personal demographics, business information and personal factors towards business. The empirical results and theoretical literature are examined to facilitate a better understanding of the borrower-specific financial constraints preventing access to finance for start-ups by youth entrepreneurs. These learnings contributed to the body of knowledge relating to entrepreneurship development in South Africa. The literature review revealed that although youth entrepreneurial activity is vital to sustained economic growth, access to finance is the challenge that negatively impacts youth entrepreneurial activity globally. More specifically, the literature indicates that borrower-specific factors to a large extent prevent youth entrepreneurs from accessing finance for their start-ups. The borrower-specific financial constraints are described. During this research, data was obtained by way of a judgment sample using a structured questionnaire consisting of 40 questions. A total of 110 useable questionnaires were returned. The findings of the study reveal that there are no significant differences for respondents in relation to factors for personal savings, business acumen and credibility differences. There are significant differences to certain factors for borrower-specific financial constraints, such as the intention to commence business start-up, gender and the educational level of respondents in relation to their attempt to access finance. Finally, significant learnings from the research are that the poor attitude of black youth towards saving are similar to youth reviewed in the literature, and the culture of South African black youth towards entrepreneurship has improved. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / The Blueberry situation in Peru is in a stage of development, in which it is necessary to incorporate good management practices as well as productive to raise the competitiveness of the enterprises. The findings were synthesized and analyzed, to propose improvements and to support the growth of the small companies in the long term. The improvement proposal is based on the best practices and supply chain models applied in the industry. Also, the research was based on sources of information from researchers with experience in evaluating and analyzing the supply chain of the perishable sector in different scenarios worldwide. / Revisión por pares

This Master’s thesis deals with the analysis of current situation in a company ARMO Green, its environment and with the analysis of factors with which is company influencing its market surroundings. On the basis of findings, the work includes the proposal of support of future development of this business company.

As firms intend on entering low-income markets as a result of stagnation in developed economies, they face numerous organisational barriers within their firms and external that hinder entry and ensure continued success in these markets. In order to successfully serve these BoP consumers in emerging markets, new innovative business models are required; however there are entities that are currently serving the BoP successfully – these are Small and Medium Enterprises.The purpose of this study was to deepen our understanding of why small and medium sized businesses have been successful in low-income markets through an understanding of their business models and their competitive advantages over MNCs.The objective of this report, hence, was to explore the business models for firms that are currently serving the BoP successfully and what their competitive advantages are as compared to their MNC counterparts within the South African context. Using the grounded theory approach of building theory from data that offers a new perspective on the BoP for MNCs a framework resulted and was theorized from the data from interviews with owners of SMEs in the FMCG manufacturing domain. The BoP Blueprint is a framework that describes elements of business models of SMEs in the context of SME Fundamentals – basic business fundamentals and the Customer Core – focus on the customer. Eleven in-depth interviews were conducted with owners from 11 different companies to test the research questions that were derived from the literature.As a result of the grounded theory, no unique or innovative business models were discovered that made these SMEs successful contrary to the literature and the essence of the findings is that MNCs need to focus on fundamental business practises with the customer as the centre of their decisions when entering BoP markets. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The need for this research stemmed from the fact that most of what we know about the internationalisation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) emerges from developed countries; little is known about internationalisation of African SMEs or, in particular, South African SMEs. The impact of globalisation, trade liberalisation, and technology advancement on SMEs is that they face increased competition right on their doorstep. To remain in existence and sustain their growth, SMEs are concertedly seeking opportunities in foreign markets. In order for SMEs to succeed and exploit international opportunities, they develop and rely on networks to compensate for their liability of foreignness, as well as their lack of resources in terms of finance, marketing, human capital, reputation, and technology.This research investigated the effect of resource acquisition networks on the internationalisation of small and medium enterprises. The study involved SMEs who had internationalised their operations. Data were collected through unstructured interviews in Phase One and semistructured interviews in Phase Two of this research study, with SME owners and their managers who were responsible for international operations. The key focus was the three research propositions dealing with networks, which focused on three network characteristics: network diversity, network density, and network size.The findings show that the South African SME internationalisation process is highly influenced by resource acquisition networks. SMEs use their networks to exploit international opportunities by accessing resources that they lack internally. A highly diversified and highly connected network is significant to the SMEs’ opportunity identification of and access to resources, while the size of the network is quite important. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

ABSTRACTPurpose: The purpose of this study is to assess and examine the nature and scope of brandingduring exportation within SMEs in the B2B context. The findings of this study will increaseknowledge of the relative challenges that SMEs are faced with when it comes to branding duringexportation and how it influences their export performance.Research Methodology: This research uses an exploratory approach with a qualitative methodfor understanding the in-depths of the subject matter because it is mostly appropriate for smallsamples, while its outcomes are not measurable and quantifiable.Research Findings: This research points out to the main challenges faced by SMEs in the B2Bduring exportation from this study which are; lack of resources, time and talents for brandmanagement activities. Hence, showing that previous research on branding has in SMEs has beenlacking in the Marketing literature.Contributions: It contributes to the branding literature by comprehensively identifying andsynthesizing relevant studies on B2B SMEs during exportation which makes a call for theadvancement of theory by suggesting the need to examine more issues raised in different economiccontexts, as well as business sectors.Research Type: Academic ResearchKey Words: Branding, Business-to-business sector, Exportation, Small and medium sizedenterprises.

Problem: A decisive majority of Swedish firms are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and studies indicate that most of these lack, among other things, financial resources, which often limit smaller firms from implementing sustainable practices. Since SMEs compete with larger enterprises, with more established departments and therefore, they cannot strategize their sustainability work to the same extent. The problem emerges when requirements from stakeholders, based on the 2030 agenda, cannot be met due to lacking organizational abilities. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to gain an understanding of how sustainability consultants support SMEs in their sustainable development work. The research, therefore, investigated the practical processes of consultants when they work with SMEs. The varying processes between sustainability consultants will also be investigated, so similarities and differences can be discovered in their processes. Method: The research conducted follows a grounded theory, an exploratory approach, an abductive research design, all under an interpretive philosophy. The primary data collected consists of semi-structured interviews with sustainability consultants in the Jönköping area. Following the grounded theory, this included three stages of analysis namely open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. During selective coding, it is critical to use an abductive design to ground the empirical findings in existing literature and theory. The analyzed findings were thereafter transformed into a proposed model which is supported by both the empirical findings and theory. Conclusion: Sustainability consultants can support SMEs with their knowledge and expertise when developing sustainable business practices in smaller firms. This research also contributes to a proposed model that shows the process for SMEs and further explains how SMEs and consultants can work together to develop strategic goals for regenerative firms. However, it is noted that contextual factors and specific gains in knowledge cannot be conveyed in a model. Although, describing the processes of knowledge transfer using an adaption of agile methodology was found suitable for this study. Conclusively, the model’s success is highly based on contextual factors such as firm maturity and the knowledge of the consultant in the specific field under development.

This theses project investigates and presents different threats that a network can be exposed to and the common protection techniques that can be applied, with a focus on the network perimeter – specifically the router/firewall between the local area network and the Internet. All Internet connected devices and networks are exposed to and affected by security threats to some degree, hence security is important in almost every type of network. With the constant growth of the Internet the 32-bit addressing scheme ipv4 is proving to be inadequate, and therefore the transition to the 128-bit addressing scheme ipv6 is becoming critical. With ipv6 comes new security threats (while still old threats remain) that requires an understanding of perimeter security. In this thesis we secure a home router and describe these steps to enable home and small business owners to secure their IPv6 network at a relatively low cost. / Detta projekt kommer att undersöka och presentera olika hot som ett IPv6 nätverk kan utsättas för samt de vanligaste skydds mekanismer som används idag, med fokus på nätverkets skallskydd mellan det interna lokala nätet och det yttre publika Internet. I stort sätt all Internet ansluten utrustning och nätverk är exponerad och påverkad i någon grad av säkerhets brister, säkerhet är en viktig del i stort sätt alla nätverk oavsett syfte eller verksamhet. Genom ett ständigt växande Internet börjar de 32-bitar adresser tillhörande IPv4 nätet ta slut, vilket gör behovet av att immigrera till 128-bitar adresser på IPv6 nätet allt mer kritiskt. Med IPv6 kommer nya säkerhetshot, samt att även vissa äldre hot kvarstår, som kräver en förståelse av perimeter skydd. I denna rapport säkrar vi en hemma router och beskriver för varje steg tillvägagångssättet för att hem och små företagare ska få möjlighet att skydda sina IPv6 nätverk till en relativt låg kostnad.

Resource efficiency has become an important topic due to dramatic increase of world-population and globalization. A company that is not able to efficiently utilize its resources is less sustainable. It produces at higher cost as well as with higher environmental impact. Especially small and medium-sized enterprises are mostly not able to deal with these kinds of issues in addition to their daily business. Their characteristics differentiate them from large companies and require approaches that respond to their specific needs. Not only technological aspects but also organizational problems as well as lack of methodology are reasons for low resource efficiency in small companies. This thesis therefore focuses on developing a tool which facilitates the increase of resource efficiency particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.To start with, this thesis investigates the meaning of resource efficiency and the basics of performance measures as well as special characteristics of small and medium-sized enter-prises. Afterwards, measures are designed in order to quantify resource efficiency. A case study is carried out as well to investigate how to ensure applicability of a supporting tool in small and medium-sized enterprises from different industries. In the final part, a computer-based tool is developed which facilitates the assessment of resource efficiency potentials using 12 resource efficiency measures, a consistent approach and a ranking method.Keywords: Resource efficiency, performance measures, small and medium-sized enterprises / <p>QC 20121101</p>