<p>The interest for doing business with China is increasing constantly. Demands from customers and financial limitations force companies to seek more cost effective solutions to make their businesses profitable. Moving production to or just buying ready made products from China is an alternative that meet these requirements.</p><p>This thesis examines four SME’s (small and medium sized enterprises) on their mission to find a producer in China and how their import process is set up. With the goal to identify and analyse the aspects of the import process, the authors hope to provide a broader understanding on how trading with China works.</p><p>Using a qualitative study, with in-depth interviews, the authors could reach down to the actual feelings and experience of the interviewed subjects. They gave a picture of China being a country surprisingly easy to deal with although they had not all found their producers in the same way.</p><p>Concluding that acting friendly and ethically will take an importer far, theory of Chinese business culture is somewhat disregarded as important knowledge. Each company’s network looks different. Comparing these to what is written is interesting as it shows that all companies do not need great help to succeed with the import process. When dealing with logistics, surprisingly few problems have been caused even though the great distance between Sweden and China. When it comes to the product quality, it is experienced as good even though many have presumptions about Chinese products.</p>

<p>Enterprise Resource Planning systems are business systems that are expected to integrate all the business’ processes within organization, and since ERP systems are complex and re-quire extensive changes in the organization, it is crucial that the implementation is success-ful. However, the implementation of ERP systems is described as both risky and complex projects.</p><p>The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the importance of different critical success factors across the ERP project life cycle within SMEs. Furthermore, we will compare our findings to see if there are differences between larger corporations in the USA and SMEs in the county of Jönköping, Sweden and try to explain the potential differences.</p><p>In order to fulfill our purpose, we used a quantitative approach to collect primary data from the SMEs in the county of Jönköping. Our data was thereafter qualitatively analyzed in order to describe our findings.</p><p>The conclusions drawn in this thesis is that the following critical success factors are per-ceived to be most important within the SMEs investigated:</p><p>• Infusion stage: Careful selection of package</p><p>• Adoption stage: Top management support</p><p>• Adaptation stage: Project champion</p><p>• Acceptance stage: Project champion</p><p>• Routinization stage: Education on new business processes</p><p>• Infusion stage: Vendor support.</p><p>It was apparent that the critical success factors identified in our research differed from the critical success factors identified for the Fortune 500 companies in the USA. However, we have failed to find any valid and reliable reasons for the differences even though we have discussed possible reasons for them.</p>

<p>Background: For Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME), international expansion is important strategy for growth. However, considering the facts that SMEs often are characterized by limited personal and financial resources, and that new international markets pose challenges in terms of differences in for instance culture, language and political systems, international expansion is a risky business. We argue that there might be an easier way for SMEs to enter challenging markets and regions through establishing in a springboard country. Such a country is characterized by a possibility to in a westernized context accumulate learning about countries in the rest of the region and also to develop and utilize networks. At the moment, Asia is a rapid developing region and is expected to contribute with two thirds of the world’s GDP in 2050. Hence, the Asian region provides immense opportunities for companies, however particularly for SMEs, also severe challenges. We argue that Swedish SMEs could learn how to overcome these challenges establishing in the westernized Singapore, hence finding an easier way when entering more difficult Asian countries.</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore the phenomenon of SMEs expanding their international activities via a springboard country. This will be done by studying how Swedish SMEs perceive that their establishment in Singapore has affected (1) the development of their networks with other actors in the Asian region, and (2) their accumulation of knowledge and experience regarding doing business in Asia.</p><p>Method: In order to fulfil the purpose, we have conducted a qualitative multiple case study including seven Swedish SMEs that are established in Singapore. We have primarily used semistructured telephone interviews for our data collection.</p><p>Conclusion: We found that there is support for the existence of the Springboarding phenomena. We can conclude that Swedish SMEs, by being established in Singapore, can develop and utilize their networks as well as gaining general market knowledge of other countries in the Asian region. We can also see tendencies regarding how these benefits associated with the Singapore establishment can decrease the perceived uncertainties of doing business in other more difficult Asian counties.</p>

<p>Malaysia is one of the developing countries in the world that is on the verge to become de-veloped (Internationella Programkontoret, 2003). In 2004, Malaysia had a growth rate around 7% (United Nation Statistic Division, 2005) and it is implied that the Malaysian market is continuously growing. One factor that can increase the growth rate in Malaysia is foreign direct investments (FDI), which is, according to Chino (2004), one factor of sus-tainable growth. It has been noticed that the world is getting smaller and more companies are looking for opportunities outside the country boarders and in this situation Malaysia is an attractive alternative for establishment.</p><p>The purpose of this study is to investigate and deepen the understanding of cultural factors affecting the establishing process for Swedish companies in Malaysia, and through that cre-ate an awareness that can simplify the establishing process.</p><p>To answer the purpose of this study, a qualitative research has been used. Interviews with Swedish companies newly established in Malaysia have been performed. The respondents have been asked about the establishing process in Malaysia and the Malaysian culture. Ad-ditional interviews with the Swedish Trade Council and the Swedish Embassy have also been performed. The interview guides have been based on theories about FDI, the estab-lishment process and culture. Hollensen’s market entry strategies, Hollensen’s network model and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are the main theories used throughout this study.</p><p>The authors have found through this study that the different ethnic groups in Malaysia are highly influential on the business environment and that foreign companies establishing in Malaysia have to be aware of this situation. The multicultural society is an advantage for Malaysia, through the locals’ ability to adapt to different cultures and the many different languages in the country. However, foreigners moving to Malaysia need to be aware of the special treatment of the Malays and how that affects the business environment. Two main problems have been found by the authors; the Malaysian bureaucracy and the locals unwill-ingness to let foreigners into their networks. This can be problematic for foreign compa-nies, but can be handled through the help of governmental functions such as MIDA or MSC, or through a company secretary or auditor.</p><p>Through this visualization of the cultural factors that affect the establishing process of Swedish companies in Malaysia, the authors hope to minimize the risk of them running into the same problems and obstacles.</p>

<p>Unibrands is a small company that has implemented a postponement strategy without knowing it. However, they have not implemented completely because they do not know the theories behind it. This report is an attempt to understand and analyze the problems of the implementation of postponement in the supply chain of Unibrands, in terms of examining the theoretical succeeds factors of postponement implementation in the case of Unibrands.The purpose is to determine what type of postponement strategy the supply chain use and what factors can hinder the use of postponement strategy in a SME fashion supply chain by applying an qualitative research approach. The collection of empirical data was through the interview guide approach in which we used meetings and telephone interviews with people representing Unibrands and their contact trading company. The results of this research can be concluded in few perspectives. Unibrands is imple-menting postponement in an improper format, with the results of several gaps in the supply chain related to the success factor in postponement. The request for the fully customization in colors and materials, the bottleneck of relationship developing which is caused by factory manager,  complicated procedures for sample testing, and lack of knowledge of different relationships in the supply chain. Postponement is never perfect, but for Unibrands some problems could very well hinder the efficiency in the supply chain. Solutions are proposed to solve the problems in chain. The proposals suggest re-lationship improvement and information sharing. In addition, culture adaptation by in-volving the right people in the right process.</p>

<p>Denna uppsats behandlar e-fakturering och hur små företag ser på ett framtida användande av e-fakturering när en ny standard är på väg att lanseras. Vi har valt att undersöka huruvida små företag ser några fördelar med att börja använda e-fakturering jämfört med den traditionella pappersexercisen. Den nya standarden svenska bankföreningen i samarbete med de svenska storbankerna utvecklar, är tänkt att underlätta för användarna och företagarna så att dessa skall kunna sänka sina kostnader per faktura samt i ett längre perspektiv förenkla hanteringen.</p><p>De teorier som presenteras i arbetet beskriver begreppet e-faktura, samt andra begrepp kopplade till detsamma. De använda teorierna, kopplat till frågeställningarna och syftet, utgjorde sedan grunden till de frågor vi skapat för att ställa vid intervjuer med olika småföretagare i Jönköpingsregionen.</p><p>De intervjuer som genomfördes skedde antingen genom personliga möten med nyckelpersoner ute hos företagen eller genom telefonintervjuer. Frågorna berörde hur företagen ställer sig till e-fakturering, huruvida de ser fördelar och vilka eventuella fördelar de anser viktigast för just dem. Den efterföljande analysen utfördes genom att jämföra svaren mot uppsatsens huvudfrågeställningar, något vi även gjorde med teorierna. Därefter jämförde vi det empiriska materialet mot det som skrevs i teorin.</p><p>Några av slutsatserna vi dragit är att företagen ser positivt på en ny standard för e-fakturering samt att företagen inte känner någon större oro rörande implementationen av standarden. Detta då väldigt många arbetar i standardiserade affärssystem. Vi kom fram till att företag med större mängder fakturor har större nytta av e-fakturering, främst när det kommer till att minska arbetsbördan och i slutändan även kostnaden per faktura.</p> / <p>This thesis discuss e-invoicing and what view small businesses has on a future use of e-invoicing as a new standard is about to be launched/introduced. Our attempt has been to examine whether SME’s see possible advantages through use of e-invoicing compared to traditional paperwork. The new standard, a joint initiative between Svenska Bankföreningen and the major Swedish banks, is set to make it easier for users, the businesses, to reduce cost of invoices and, in a longer perspective, ease the way in which they are handled.</p><p>The theories presented in the thesis describe the concept of e-invoicing and concepts linked to it. Theories collected, linked with research questions and the purpose of the thesis became the foundation when questions for interviews, to ask SME’s in the Jönköping region, were created.</p><p>Interviews were carried out either through personal meetings with key informants at their respective offices or through telephone interviews. The questions touched respective business view on e-invoicing, whether they see any advantages and what advantages was considered most important to them. The analysis was performed through analyzing the presented theories to our research questions independent of what was found during the interviews. The empirical findings were analyzed in the same manor and summed up through a comparison of the theories and the empirical findings.</p><p>Some of the conclusions we made were that the businesses are positive concerning a new standard for e-invoices as well as them not being worried over the implementation of the standard, due to most of them having standardized information systems. Furthermore we believe businesses handling larger quantities of invoices will gain more from use of e-invoicing, mainly concerning workload and, in the long run reducing cost per invoice.</p>

<p>The increasing competition on today’s globalized markets creates drivers for new business models in order to create competitive advantage. By integrating services with the physical product, unique offers that aim at fulfilling customer needs rather than just providing physical goods can be created. This type of offers, in the literature often referred to as Product-Service Systems (PSS), are more difficult to imitate than pure products. Furthermore, the focus on fulfilling customer needs rather than just providing physical goods can reduce the use of resources, decreasing both costs and the environmental impact of the offer. From the customers’ point of view, PSS offers can bring increased flexibility and reduced risk. The development of successful PSS offers requires structured methods. Much of the research within the area, and consequently models and guidelines, has focused on large companies. However, since small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) constitute the foundation of economic growth in all developed countries, there is an important gap in the existing research within this area. One research initiative to fill this gap is the ongoing IPSE project (Integrated Product and Service Engineering), which aims at developing a methodology for efficient development of PSS offers in manufacturing SMEs. The methodology developed in the IPSE project is however at a conceptual level that is not applicable for the management in smaller companies. This thesis hence aims at <em>developing a concrete and useful business development method applicable for the management in manufacturing SMEs, with the focus on generation of PSS offer concepts</em>.</p><p>Based on earlier research within the PSS area, with the emphasis on the IPSE methodology, a concrete business development method for the generation of PSS concepts was created, which was then tested on three SMEs in order to verify and improve the method. The method consists of the three steps <em>internal analysis</em>, <em>external analysis </em>and <em>planning of the new PSS offer. </em>Each step contains a number of tools to be used in order to analyze different aspects of the business context. After analyzing the studies of the three case studies a revised method was developed, which was then summarized in managerial guidelines to be used by managers in manufacturing SMEs. The revision of the method mainly regarded simplifications of some of the tools in order to ease the use and increase the applicability.</p><p>The method proved to be useful and concepts could be generated for all the case companies. The method thoroughly examined the possibilities of creating PSS offers, even though it was found that it was also useful for the development of conventional business offers. Since the drivers for the case companies were specific threats or opportunities that would require changes in the offer, rather than a purpose in itself to integrate more services in the offer, this implies that the method can be useful as general business development method for manufacturing SMEs.</p><p>An important learning from our studies is that the day-to-day business is strongly focused by the managers in manufacturing SMEs, leaving little time for long-term business development. As stated by a manager in the case companies:</p><p><em>“It is like running beside the bicycle, but we do not have the time to get on it.”</em></p><p><em></em>The developed method can work as a tool for structuring the information needed in the business development process and hence reducing the time needed. However, if the reduction in time needed for long-term business development is enough to get the managers on their bikes is a question assigned to further studies.</p><p> </p>

The European economy today is built on small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) and SME’s recieve a lot more attention in the litterature now. Even though SME’s have earned more attention in the litterature there is a significant lack of information regarding purchasing and supplier selection in these companies’. This report aims to create bigger understanding of SME’s and their purchasing by showing how seven swedish SME’s select their suppliers. The report also try to create understanding regarding the trade economy, that is believed to exist in the certain region where the companies’ in the study are located and in what way this trade economy effects the supplier selection decision in the different SME’s included in the study.

Background Every company nowadays needs to use ICT artifacts to cope with the business development. The adoption and use of ICT involves different actors who make sense of ICT in relation to their work environment. This thesis focuses on the relationships between the actors involved in SME’s ICT adoption and their influence upon the process. Purpose          The purpose of this thesis is to explore the interactions between different actors in the SME’s network and analyze how they influence the SMEs ICT adoption process. Method          An embedded single case study strategy was chosen as research strategy, in line with the explorative nature of the purpose. A conceptual framework was created giving structure to the entire research. The empirical data was gathered through observations, one in-depth interview and ten semi-structured interviews. The method used for data analysis had the same qualitative and deductive nature following the areas highlighted by the conceptual framework; the data was summarized condensing meanings around the relationships between actors and the evolution of the sense-making process of ICT adoption, in order to provide answers to the two research questions. Conclusion    The research has shown that the customer and the strategic suppliers as human actors have an important influence on the sense-making process of ICT adoption as well as the non-human actor - the ICT artifact. The actors are influencing the ICT adoption process through series of adaptive processes generated by an inter-organizational sense-making process shaped by the design of the ICT artifact. The study contributes to the body of knowledge through a new construct that enriches the conceptual framework with the findings of the research.

The purpose of this thesis is to conduct an international market selection which will result in a suitable choice of market for an SME that is about to place offshore production in an emerging market. A focus during the thesis is directed towards potential risks that may occur and how SMEs can manage these. In order to fulfill this purpose the authors have developed two main research questions:How can an SME use the IMS-framework to select an emerging market for offshore production?How can an SME manage potential risks when placing offshore production in an emerging market?The theoretical framework consists of the description of the international market selection process that is relevant as it is the framework from which the selection of a target market originates. Further, a description of theories on entry modes and risk management is presented in order to provide insight on how SMEs can manage risks when placing production in an emerging market. The empirical chapter consists of interviews from a case company as well as Business Sweden and is structured in accordance to the theoretical chapter.In the analysis the theoretical frameworks are discussed and connected to the empirical findings. In the initial part of the analysis the international market selection is presented and discussed before it culminates in the authors chosen target market. The latter part of the analysis addresses the risk management SMEs is faced with when placing offshore production in an emerging market.The conclusion provides the reader with the chosen target market for the case company. It also shows that SMEs ought to apply a risk averse mindset when placing their production in an emerging market. The authors finally present suggestions for further research regarding SMEs ventures to place production in emerging markets.