As competitively tendering for work is becoming increasingly difficult, and with profit margins reducing, UK construction companies are looking to differentiate their offering to clients. Safely delivering on time, within budget and to the required quality standard is no longer a differentiator in a market where clients are demanding increased value, building information modelling and life cycle provision. Construction companies are therefore looking to extend their activities into business consulting, financing and operational services, which will provide new sources of revenue in addition to their core production activities. This holistic service should provide solutions that meet their client s business needs, not just their building needs, ultimately resulting in long-standing relationships that over time yield a more predictable, long-term return. Over half of the top 20 UK construction companies, by turnover, have stated their intent to provide solutions to their clients - the case study organisation in which this research has been carried out is one of those companies. Part of a group of companies, the case study company, Shepherd Construction Ltd (SCL), has a vision to deliver integrated solutions to their clients, with the ultimate aim being that companies across the group can pool their expertise and deliver a service offering unique to the industry. Existing literature states the characteristics that integrated solutions providers need to possess, and proposes models for how an organisation needs to structure itself to deliver a service. However, the applicability of these models to SCL was unknown, and along with current literature on how to enact the transition pathway being vague, highlighted an area for investigation. Since the aim of integrated solutions provision is the delivery of a service to the client that adds value, it was proposed that lean thinking could provide a means of enacting the P-S transition: the starting point for lean thinking is value (Womack & Jones, 2003). Lean thinking principles (Womack & Jones, 2003) state that value needs to flow through the value stream the series of actions that transform inputs into the completed output raising the further proposition that flow is required through the stages of the integrated solutions lifecycle (the value stream) in order to successfully deliver all aspects of the client s value proposition, i.e. the desired solution. As a long established main-contractor, or product provider, SCL s challenge to transition from products-to-services was set against a backdrop of inconsistent performance and loss of continuity of service at crucial pinch-points in the delivery process. The action research carried out therefore sought to understand these problems and develop practices based on lean thinking that could be implemented in the company to enable consistent delivery of integrated solutions, i.e. enable the products-to-service transition, and in doing so provide the basis for the wider group vision. An abductive approach was taken to the research strategy; the experiences of the participants involved in the changes prompted by the action research process were used to inform the development of new theories and practices, and evaluate them once implemented. The methods used for collecting data and accounting for the experiences of people in the company included observation, both participant and non-participant, semi-structured interviews and analysis of company records. The research findings show that lean thinking has a role to play in enabling an organisation to transition from the provision of products to services. Standard processes and tools, based on lean thinking and developed through the action research framework, are shown to be the basis for consistent and repeatable performance within the phases of the integrated solutions lifecycle. Flow of information through and between phases of the lifecycle is then shown to be essential to ensuring the client s value proposition is realised and information is not lost during the transitions between lifecycle phases. The operational framework for service delivery , one of the practices developed, itself a form of standardised work, draws on lean thinking to provide a structured, yet flexible, means of developing a plan for service delivery that is focused on the client and ensuring the client s definition of value flows through the integrated solutions value stream and is therefore continually understood, and ultimately delivered, by the whole team as the project progresses. The practices developed through the research the standard company management system, operational framework for service delivery , service delivery plan and maturity assessment are shown to have improved consistency and company performance, and to have contributed to improved customer satisfaction (the ultimate aim of delivering a service) such that the company is starting to be perceived in the marketplace as an integrated solutions provider. This research also contributes to existing theory by evidencing that the transition pathway from products-to-services isn t as smooth as current literature portrays. In trying to implement current models in a construction setting, the products-to-service transition has been problematised and deficiencies in existing characteristics and models identified. Along with showing that lean thinking provides a theoretical framework for enacting the products-to-service transition, the hybrid model of the integrated solutions lifecycle developed, along with the maturity assessment, provide new theoretical insights, such as the need for feedback loops between all phases of the lifecycle.

Transitional care is an important process for professionals to consider, particularly as recent studies have shown how a mental health difficulty in adolescence will persist into adulthood. This indicates that a number of those seen in Child and Adolescent mental health services are likely to make the transition into Adult services. For professionals from both services, barriers can arise when supporting young people across service boundaries and recent studies have stated that the current practice of transitional care in mental health is deemed to be problematic. However at the time of conducting this study, there was a paucity of literature, therefore the aim of the study was to add to the existing knowledge. The study followed a Social Constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) approach to explore the experience of stakeholders of the transition process. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals, young people and parents. There were a total of eight interviews which were transcribed and analysed. The findings present the core category as Facing the transition, with three sub- categories: Changing status, Manoeuvring the boundaries and Reflections on the process. The tentative theory explains how facing the transition involves stakeholders adjusting to the changing status of the service user. This category triggers the service transition but also describes how societal perceptions about adulthood influence the expectations placed on young people. Manoeuvring the boundaries describes and explains service transition, identifying a range of barriers and strategies to overcome these. One of the most significant barriers was identified as cultural differences between the two services. The third category describes how stakeholders make sense of their experiences, and how these are managed within the therapeutic relationship.

This diploma thesis deals with the implementation of ICT projects according to the third release of internationally respected IT infrastructure library (ITIL v3). To be specific, it is about two projects executed by the Renault company -- ToIP which deals with the voice transmission using the data network and S.P.T. concerning workstations' standardization. The objective of this thesis is to describe the implementation process of both projects into the business life and to evaluate the processes and outcomes based on the ITIL v3 recommendations. This goal will be delivered by studying available theoretical materials, authors personal work experience from the position of IT support in Renault and by confrontation praxis with theoretical knowledge. The main benefits of this work are the evaluation of the implementation process correctness according to the ITIL best practices, eventual deficiencies revealing and possible improvement propositions. This work is divided into theoretical and practical part. First, theoretical part is then divided into two captures -- the opening section describes the ITIL v3 best practices with the main focus on Service Transition and Service Operation. Second section is dedicated to the VoIP (voice over internet protocol) technology, part of which is also theoretical knowledge of voice transformation into the digital form, components of VoIP network and the most frequently used architectures. Second, practical part focuses on the projects` implementation. In conclusion the implementation process will be confronted with the ITIL v3 and based on detected failures possible improvements will be proposed.

The purpose of this thesis was to map and analyze how ITIL works together with SaaS in a specificproject at a company. This study has not only confirmed that ITIL and SaaS can work together, but hasalso produced recommendations for specific areas worth focusing on during implementation of thesetwo techniques. It’s worth mentioning that these recommendations have been produced from a veryspecific context and that customization of said technologies needs to be made to fit each organization.The results from this study implies that there might be a connection between the choice of developmentmethodology and how one chooses to deliver and maintain said product. This might be seen as trivialbut is highly relevant for new actors in the market, and something that should be mentioned in the officialITIL documentation. The same goes for customization of ITIL and SaaS. The results of this study mightlook different if the case study company had been using another development methodology.Earlier research made by Karkošková and Feuerlicht (2014) is confirmed, where one of their hypothesesis that there needs to be extra customization between the cloud (SaaS) and ITIL. They continue theirwork by successively adapt ITIL to SaaS from a consumer perspective. In their paper, they also mentionthe importance of beginning this adaption from the other end; the service provider perspective. Thisthesis begins said perspective, and not only starts to analyze, but also produce four recommendations onhow to proceed with the adaption of ITIL and SaaS. / Syftet med denna studie var att kartlägga och analysera hur ITIL fungerar tillsammans med SaaS i ettbefintligt uppdrag hos ett företag. Denna studie har inte bara bekräftat att ITIL och SaaS fungerartillsammans, den har även tagit fram rekommendationer för vad som tål att fokusera extra på under enimplementationsprocess när organisationen använder SaaS som sin leveransmetodik. Det bör docknämnas att dessa rekommendationer är utarbetade från ett väldigt specifikt fall, och att anpassa lösningarefter organisationerna alltid är och bör vara av hög prioritet.Studien antyder också att det finns ett samband mellan valet av utvecklingsmetodologi och hur mansedan ska leverera och hålla utvecklingen uppdaterad. Detta kan ses trivialt men är relevant för nyaaktörer på marknaden, något som bör antydas i ITIL:s dokumentation. Detsamma gäller anpassning avITIL och SaaS. Hade studiens resultat sett annorlunda ut om företaget istället använt en annanutvecklingsmetodik?Tidigare forskning av Karkošková och Feuerlicht (2014) bekräftas också, där en av deras hypoteser äratt det krävs extra anpassning mellan molnet och ITIL, varpå de börjar med att teoretiskt anpassa dessatvå begrepp, men endast från ett konsumentperspektiv. De nämner att steg två hade varit att anpassa frånett leverantörsperspektiv, och det är precis det som denna studie gör. Arbetet med att anpassa ITIL ochSaaS praktiskt är påbörjat och kan fortsätta att byggas upp av kommande studier. Denna studieproducerar även fyra rekommendationer till anpassningsarbetet.

Diploma thesis is focused on utilization of best practices from IT Infrastructure Library v3 in specific company. ITIL v3 is described in 5 books and by 26 core processes. The objective of this diploma thesis is to find only relevant processes which are designed and described for selected company. General information about ITIL and benefits which are delivered from using ITIL can be found in theoretical part. Frameworks and standards that have synergy with ITIL are also described in theoretical part. Specific company is introduced in practical part, where can be also found quantitative research method, which is used for choosing specific project. Release and Deployment Management, Supplier Management, Asset and Configuration Management is chosen based on results from research.