<p>Begreppet kommunikativa upplevelser kommer i denna uppsats att användas i sammanhanget om hur Volvo använder sig av dem i sin varumärkeskommunikation samt vad som kommuniceras. Det kommer även att appliceras på kundperspektivet då det beskriver hur individer uppfattar företags utsända kommunikation.</p><p>Uppsatsens syfte är att analysera innehållet, budskapet och utformningen av Volvos marknadskommunikation i Nordamerika för att diskutera hur begreppet kommunikativa sinnesupplevelser framställer vad varumärket står för. Samtidigt ska jag undersöka hur individer som exponerats av Volvos markandskommunikation uppfattar den och hur de ser på Volvo som varumärke.</p><p>I mitt forskningsarbete har jag använt mig av tre kvalitativa metoder för att samla in data: Intervju med John Maloney Vice president för Volvos marknadskommunikation Nordamerika, deltagande observation hos en Volvoåterförsäljare i Minneapolis, fokusgrupp diskuterande reklamfilmer från Volvo.</p><p>Då det inte finns någon teori genererad för mitt nyfunna begrepp har jag valt att bygga en teoretisk ram på närliggande begrepp. I basen har jag valt att visa teorier gällande marknadskommunikation och traditionell marknadsföring. Jag har sedan valt att utveckla med flera nytänkande perspektiv i marknadsföringen där påverkan genom upplevelser, sinnen och servicelandskapet diskuteras Mitt syfte med uppsatsen är att analysera kommunikativa sinnesupplevelsers roll i Volvos varumärkesbyggande därför anser jag det relevant att diskutera teorier gällande varumärken och hur våra sinnen kan påverka upplevelsen av varumärken.</p><p>Volvo kodar meddelande i symboler som sedan sänds i exempelvis TV-reklam, kunden avkodar dem och upplever kommunikativa sinnesupplevelser som skapar känslor vilka ger en uppfattning av varumärket och organisationen. Individer exponerade av Volvos marknadskommunikation uppfattar till största del budskapet Volvo sänder. På plats i Volvos servicelandskap upplevs inte den kvalitativa känsla deras externa marknadsföring kommunicerat. Deras kärnvärden är inte heller alla representerade för kunderna att uppleva. Dock fanns på plats kunnig personal som beskrev vad Volvo som organisation arbetar för.</p>

<p>The world economy is in a transition period never experienced before, One of the main realising factors, boosting economy growth, is the catch up of many emerging countries. The emerging countries impose new competitive dimensions to the global economy, forcing well established multinational corporations into new competitive situations, brining both opportunities and threats.</p><p>The construction equipment industry has entered a condition of unprecedented growth. The total market demand has increased significantly and the demand development is prospected to continue for many more years. To keep up with the market demand and the sales opportunities, it is important to have machines available in the market. This impose that the logistic strategy is getting more important for companies in order to keep up with the prospected sales opportunities.</p><p>This Masters thesis is initiated by our case company, Volvo Construction Equipment International, currently suffering from an inefficient logistics strategy constraining international growth.</p><p>Based on our analysis and conclusion, Volvo Construction Equipment is recommended to move from transaction selling, spot market like international logistics strategy towards a relationship marketing based logistics strategy establishing in-depth collaborations with key account shipping suppliers. Furthermore, we recommend that Volvo CE should consider a logistics management function in order to facilitate the inter-organizational flow of logistics information.</p>

No description available.

<p>This thesis work resulted in a template for how the thermal spray process can be controlled through robot programs. The robots today and their programs need to be replaced, therefore a new structure which can be matched with the new robot systems is needed. The work is limited to only concern structured programming on the new robots on Thermal Spray Centre (TC) with the programming language Rapid. The basic data for the program was retrieved from interviews with concerned personnel at TC, from studies on process parameters for thermal spray and from existing specifications at Volvo Aero Corporation (VAC). The thesis work briefly describes the process thermal spray and the four methods used at VAC. A literature survey on Jackson Structured Programming, Human Machine Interface and structured programming was made and used to compare, evaluate and suggest improvements for the thermal spray work cell. A functional suggestion for a menu system in a robot program for the thermal spray robot was presented. This will be in the robot permanently for uploading of detail programs from a network connected computer. An example of such a detail program was made but without robot movement and communication with the process computer. Testing of the programs has therefore only been made on a robot not suited for thermal spraying. The new detail program shows its parameters directly on the screen so they can be controlled against the operation papers. A programmer\2019s guide to the detail program has been made which is presented in the report.</p>

<p>AbstractThere is a great diversity in marketing strategies that brands can use to develop their name, image and products. The selection of the appropriate strategy is the basis of the image a brand wants to present and how it will be perceived by the market it attempts to approach.However when a brand aims at different segments of a market it has to adapt its marketing strategy to suit better the new segment compared to the first one. Hence in this thesis our interest has brought us to compare Volvo‟s marketing strategy in Sweden and in France as we study in the first country and we come from the second one. We tried to identify the similarities, the differences, and understand how Volvo manages to evaluate and adapt to the needs and expectations of the different consumers in those two countriesOne of the first things we noticed when arriving in Umeå was the number of Volvo cars in the street in contrast to what we are used to seeing in Paris. We understood that the brand was famous and even natural for the Swedes leaving here, whereas it seemed that the French were not truly aware about the brand‟s products. Thus to comprehend this difference we decided to carry our researches on what defines the brand in the consumer‟s mind: marketing.The method we used to conduct this study was based on the objectivist ontological position and on the positivist epistemological assumption combined to a deductive approach – implying a quantitative study in our case. We used secondary data to create our theoretical framework and then we distributed 100 questionnaires in both countries – 50 each.The observation and the analysis of the results have been divided into two parts in order to elucidate the similarities and differences between the two countries studied. These separated parts then lead to a cross-case observation and analysis.Our conclusion mostly corroborates our assumptions as we observed that the majority of our Swedish respondents had a good idea of what represents Volvo, whereas it is still seen as an outdated car manufacturer for our French sample which does not spot enough advertisement about the new models of the brand and which is more demanding on design. This is why, among other recommendations, we suggest Volvo to advertise more on certain values like ecology which is not well recognized and to focus more on some channels of communication, depending on the location.AbstractThere is a great diversity in marketing strategies that brands can use to develop their name, image and products. The selection of the appropriate strategy is the basis of the image a brand wants to present and how it will be perceived by the market it attempts to approach.However when a brand aims at different segments of a market it has to adapt its marketing strategy to suit better the new segment compared to the first one. Hence in this thesis our interest has brought us to compare Volvo‟s marketing strategy in Sweden and in France as we study in the first country and we come from the second one. We tried to identify the similarities, the differences, and understand how Volvo manages to evaluate and adapt to the needs and expectations of the different consumers in those two countriesOne of the first things we noticed when arriving in Umeå was the number of Volvo cars in the street in contrast to what we are used to seeing in Paris. We understood that the brand was famous and even natural for the Swedes leaving here, whereas it seemed that the French were not truly aware about the brand‟s products. Thus to comprehend this difference we decided to carry our researches on what defines the brand in the consumer‟s mind: marketing.The method we used to conduct this study was based on the objectivist ontological position and on the positivist epistemological assumption combined to a deductive approach – implying a quantitative study in our case. We used secondary data to create our theoretical framework and then we distributed 100 questionnaires in both countries – 50 each.The observation and the analysis of the results have been divided into two parts in order to elucidate the similarities and differences between the two countries studied. These separated parts then lead to a cross-case observation and analysis.Our conclusion mostly corroborates our assumptions as we observed that the majority of our Swedish respondents had a good idea of what represents Volvo, whereas it is still seen as an outdated car manufacturer for our French sample which does not spot enough advertisement about the new models of the brand and which is more demanding on design. This is why, among other recommendations, we suggest Volvo to advertise more on certain values like ecology which is not well recognized and to focus more on some channels of communication, depending on the location.</p>

The accounting information system comprises budgeting, accounting, and costing. The accounting information system has, traditionally, constituted an integrated system where the different elements collaborate. If ABC is introduced this order is disturbed, since ABC is based on another logic which cannot easily be integrated with budget and accounting. ABC, therefore, is usually used parallely to the conventional costing method. There are, however, companies that have taken its ABC one step further by letting it replace the old costing model and integrate it with the accounting information system. Our purpose is to describe how a well-integrated ABC has been designed and analyse its general possibilities to create an integrated ABC and accounting information system. In order to fulfil this purpose we have based our empirics on interviews and internal documents from our case company; a subsidiary to Volvo. In the case we have studied, a high degree of integration has been achieved through a partial adaptation of ABC as well as the remaining components of the accounting information system. The account of overhead revenues has changed from focusing on hours to register based on articles produced. The budget, at a whole, continues unchanged, but some rationalisations in the budget process have been a positive consequence of the adoption of ABC. ABC has been adapted by letting the accounts plan and the cost pool structure remain unchanged and no division based on activities has been realised. The procedure of the studied case can be applicable to other constructing enterprises facing the decision to adopt or integrate ABC to its accounting information system.

Background: The literature concerning M&amp;A has thus far concentrated on the merging companies, and on what kind of effects an acquisition has on these companies. The effects on the involved companies´ (customers and) suppliers have largely been ignored in the M &amp; A literature. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse how the suppliers relationships to the aquired company are influenced by an acquisition and how the suppliers handle the following situation. Method: The paper has been carried out in the form of a case-study and we have interviewed some suppliers to the automotive industry. Results: The full effect on the suppliers relationships to Volvo has not been seen yet, due to the fact that only two years has passed since the acquisition and that the current products have a lifecycle of 3-5 years. A number of changes have been discovered, but we don't consider theese tendencies to be results of the acquisition. However have their penetration strengthens through the acquisition.

En stor utmaning för ett säljföretag i dag är inte bara att identifiera och attrahera en specifik målgrupp. Det bör även skapa sig en bild av hur organisationen bör kommunicera med den presumtiva kunden för att skapa en stadig relation, som i sin tur kan borga för återköp. Situationen som uppstår då en försäljare för första gången interagerar med en kund kallas sanningens ögonblick. Det är vid detta ögonblick som grunden till en hållbar relation mellan säljare och kund förhoppningsvis läggs. Det är av högsta vikt för ett företag att försäljaren är införstådd i det beteende som företaget anser vara korrekt, och på så sätt återspeglar den attityd och kundbild som organisationen har för avsikt att förmedla gentemot kunden. Denna uppsats utreder hurvida event marketing vid samma tillfälle kan fungera som ett intern- och externmarknadsföringsverktyg för att påverka den interna organisationens bild av den presumtiva kunden, samtidigt som den ger kunden en positiv bild av företaget. Detta görs genom en fallstudie av evenemanget Volvo Roadshow.

Background: Increasing globalization makes companies more influenced than before by actors and factors in their environment. For some this has lead to a more dynamic and complicated business context. Therefore it is of strategic importance to understand what is currently going on as well as to have a general idea of what the future brings. Purpose: To contribute to a deeper understanding of how a corporate management can perceive its business environment and how it affects he gathering of business information from a strategic perspective. Realisation: In-depth interviews were conducted with all four members of the management in the studied company, Volvo Competence Center in Skovde, Sweden. Conclusions: The company's business context was perceived predominantely congruently by the management. Business intelligence was found to be linked mostly to personal areas of resposibility. A model was produced to show the connection between perception of environment and gathering of business information, and VCC was applied in this model.

Background: A constant market pressure on companies to increase their competitiveness has compelled managers to explore business models outside of the traditional ones. The Shared Service Center (SSC) forms part of these untried models, and can be seen as a hybrid. When it comes to its management control, the research is scarce, and hence, there are no obvious paths to follow when it comes to the designing and use of management control systems in such organizations. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe the design of the management control system in a SSC, and further to analyze the underlying reasons for its outlining. Demarcation: The study is limited to the investigation of the SSCs of Electrolux, SKF and Volvo. Moreover, the problem is highlighted from the perspective of the SSC management. Realization: In the form of a case study, the thesis was realized through the undertaking of four interviews with individuals in the SSCs’ respective management or its close surrounding. Results: Sprung out of the process orientation, SSCs in their management control primarily focus on customers, process improvement and people. In their striving to obtain cost reduction and service quality, several control tools are used, the choice of which depends on variables such as organizational structure, external environment, technology and strategy.