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An analytical force and surface roughness model for cylindrical grinding of brittle materials
(2017)
An analytical force and surface roughness model for cylindrical grinding of brittle materials
(2017)
The promotion of Fruits and Vegetables (F&V) is challenging, especially in the past
centuries. The difficulties in branding or advertising arise from traits of the produce,
making it less presentable than manufactured products. Modern farming technologies
ensure better produce appearance, therefore, need to re-examine the possibilities of its
promotion. The technology changed, so had the dietary trend. In contrary to modernised
farming, F&V advertising that appeared to be a carry-on from the 40s had seemingly
dissociated itself from consumers. This paper collected results from empirical studies.
Most of the works, however, conducted experiments with manufactured products, might
not apply to fresh produce. Discussions on the relevance of the sources are, therefore,
necessary. This research identifies a lack of branding of fresh produce, which could be a
direct causal for inactive promotion. Further examinations suggest deeper market
segmentation, which helps the marketer to create a better advertisement. The research
also notices many researchers regard promoting nutritional value as equivalent to
effective advertising, which leads to higher consumption. Promoting nutritional value,
however, appears to be merely attractive to the certain consumer. In many cases, other
mechanisms, for instance, originality, health, fun and other emotional tags, could attract
more attentions.
Although sustainability reporting in China receives more attention in the past ten years, effective studies and literature of sustainability reporting are still in urgent need. A good sustainability reporting will provide stakeholders with needed information and guidance in the activities, and it also minimises the potential harm while creating economic, social and environmental values (Schaltegger & Wagner, 2006, 5). The main objectives of this research are not only to have an overall view of Chinese sustainability reporting situation but also to look into how Chinese companies will develop or what needs to be changed for a better development. To achieve this goal, sustainability reporting issued by top 10 manufacturing companies will be studied concerning GRI. During the analysis, the GRI Specific Standard Disclosures and Principle of Defining Report will be adopted to view how Chinese companies perform in sustainability reporting both in content and quality. Further, the possible elements of influencing companies development will be illustrated. Then make an attempt of what will future SR focus. The result obtained from the analysis is that Chinese sustainability reporting still have many problems in both quality and content. Most of them share the similar preference on how and what to disclose, such as focusing on resource saving. After making an explanation of what will affect future development of the companies in China, it is concluded that in the future the focus of SR will be concentrated on adoption of new energy, technology innovation, application of greener supply chain and consumption of green products.
Age-Related Impairments like Reduced Hearing Capacity – A Safety Issue for the Working World?
(2017)
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the impact of Intelligent Automation on individuals, organizations and economy and how organizations can adapt. Within the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the use of new technologies is on the rise and rapidly developing and the world is becoming more and more digital.
Organizations in financial services like banks and insurance companies are reevaluating their processes, however, automation has not been applied yet and their back office processes still contain a huge amount of paper and many repetitive tasks, which make the processes inefficient. In processes like this, there is a huge potential for Robotic Process Automation and Artificial Intelligence, which allow organizations to automate end-to-end processes with humans only handling exceptions and doing small configurations. The results are higher quality and speed at lower cost.
Despite the fact that the implementation of Intelligent Automation can be done fast and simple, companies have to involve the right people, analyze which processes are actually automatable and follow necessary steps in the implementation process in order to successfully implement Intelligent Automation.
Nowadays Islamic banking is relatively unknown in the Western world, but Islam has around 1,57 billion believers worldwide and is the second largest religion in the world. The number of Muslims is constantly increasing over the years. Not only for Muslims, but also for all other people this system provides a new and different way of banking.
Since ever humans strive for recognition and success. That could be put down to the fact that centuries in the past the rule of the survival of the fittest was valid. According to Darwinians the fittest person is therefore more successful in surviving than the other ones. This rule is still in the head of humans. For instance, the competition between women regarding beauty can be seen as its legacy. It is almost a certainty that more beautiful women are more successful than not that beautiful ones. Humans do always try to be better than others to gain prestige and recognition.
Also the American psychologist Abraham Maslow illustrated this in the “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs”. It says that humans have different kind of needs like basic needs, psychological needs and self-fulfillment needs. Within the psychological needs Maslow defined the Self-Esteem needs which include the need for prestige and the feeling of accomplishment. Driven by those needs, humans compare with each other.
The end of performance appraisal: a practitioners' guide to alternatives in agile organisations
(2017)
The advertising industry has strongly changed over the past years. Obviously, the coming of digital media has created networking between consumers and revolutionized traditional marketing toward companies building lasting relationship with potential customers and thereby generating an exponential growth in exposure and influence still called viral marketing. Despite the fact that viral marketing is an old topic, its relevancy in the business area is quite recent. However, little research is devoted to the adoption and internal usage of social media in SMEs, which are of high social and economic importance. Findings of numerous researches on this topic have been constructed on the B2C market. For this reasons, the aim of this study seeks to address the gap in knowledge regarding the use of social media in the B2B SMEs in Germany.
The goal of this thesis was to create a sustainable and global training concept for the department Industrialization of the Marquardt Group. For that reason qualitative interviews with global Industrialization employees were conducted to get an overview of the current training situation in all Marquardt subsidiaries. The interviews showed that the employees in the subsidiaries lack a local contact person and support regarding questions arising after the training. Therefore a literature research on learning transfer and global training concepts was performed leading to a focus on the factor trainer of the Baldwin & Ford (1988) model. The proposal includes a restructuring of the headquarter-subsidiary relationship with local trainers for each subsidiary who train the local employees and thereby support the learning transfer.
In 2008 a white paper called “Bitcoin: A Peer-To-Peer Electronic Cash System” was published by Satoshi Nakamoto. This paper describes an electronic payment system that succeeds where many have failed before. The system is called Bitcoin and it deals with the double spending problem. Also, it is a peer-to-peer decentralized system meaning that it works separately from any government or any financial institution. Bitcoin relies on cryptographic proof-of-work blocks any chance of protocol disruption. Satoshi Nakamoto called Bitcoin an electronic payment system but the public now calls it a cryptocurrency because of its similarities to a currency.
Many pessimists thought that Bitcoin could never be successful and that this technology will not have any value in the future. Despite that, a considerable amount of people believe in the possibilities of cryptocurrencies and in the possible developments that this futuristic technology could inspire, especially in the financial service sector.
This purpose of this thesis is to investigate cryptocurrencies and the financial service industry in order to examine the challenges and opportunities that cryptocurrencies deliver. Section I of the paper will look into cryptocurrencies and their mechanism. Afterwards, an analysis of whether cryptocurrencies are actual currency will be given. The next section of the thesis will cover government regulations on cryptocurrencies. Then, the paper will analyze public perception and why it is important. Section II of this thesis evaluates the current financial service system and the potential benefits of the blockchain. Central banks and moral hazards in the finance sector are examined afterwards. Then, analysis on inflation and wealth is provided. After that, a summary of the advantages and drawbacks of both the cryptocurrency system and the traditional finance service system are given, followed by a section that estimates the utilities and effects of cryptocurrencies in the future. Finally, a conclusion is derived.
Analysis of the evolution of banking sector stability in Europe since the global financial crisis
(2017)
The period of the global financial crisis followed by the sovereign debt crisis represents the strongest period of recession in Europe since the Great Depression in 1929. The response by regulators and politics were extensive regulatory reforms that influence the banking sector massively. This thesis has the purpose to describe how banking sector stability can be defined, why regulation is necessary in the banking sector and to shed light on the complicated system of the resulting regulatory institutions in Europe by means of a qualitative literature research. In addition, this thesis evaluates the effectiveness of the current regulatory reforms and the current state of banking sector stability on the basis of a quantitative analysis of risk indicators with respect to the newly introduced regulations. It can be concluded that the regulatory reforms are an improvement in stability enhancement with potential for more improvement, however. Individual banks’ stability has also improved, whereas stability in the whole banking sector cannot be considered as much greater.
This thesis has the purpose to investigate the oil price as the global economic factor but also to examine its implications on the worldwide economy. Thereby the determinants of the oil price are investigated by tackling the oil price itself from three different perspectives – the supply and demand framework, the prevailing world oil market structure as well as from the perspective of already statistically proven oil price determinants. In addition, the arising macroeconomic implications of oil price fluctuations on oil-importing and oil-exporting countries are examined. The investigation based on a thought experiment demonstrates the supply and demand framework to be unable to fully explain all past price changes. The examination on the prevailing market structure identifies the world oil market to be best described as a supply, pure, closed, partial and collusive form of an oligopoly. Analyzing the competitive behavior of the world oil market on three levels identifies non-OPEC producers’ competition to behave in a Cournot manner whereas among OPEC producers Saudi Arabia is identified to be a Stackelberg-follower with certain conditions while at the same time permanently bearing the ambition to become the Stackelberg-leader. The identification on the best describing oligopoly model for the overall industry is inconclusive. Investigating OPEC’s cartel hypothesis does not fully exclude its collusive behavior but denies the OPEC to be described as a prime example of a cartel. The examination of already existing econometric analyses identified a total of 13 determinants to play a key role in the oil price definition process. Investigating the arising macroeconomic implications of oil price fluctuations show oil price changes to be of great importance for the overall economic performance and is best described as a form of a positive of negative vicious circle in which the interconnected second or even third round effects intensify the implications on the macroeconomic activity.
The topic of simplicity has drastically increased in branding in recent years, as it allows companies to conquer a competitive world dominated by growth and complexity. There are studies explaining the benefits and power of simplicity in business in general. Nevertheless, simplicity is a field that has not been explored extensively for single industries.
The bachelor thesis attempts to investigate the critical importance and power of simplicity in the customer journey of the car rental business and to provide an overview of possible improvements for the customer experience on the example of car rental company Hertz. Secondary data adopted from academic books, academic journals, study reports and press articles are used to develop a comprehensive analysis and a theoretical framework on the topic of customer experience, customer loyalty in connection with simplicity. The car rental company Hertz and its customer journey are being investigated through the lens of simplicity. Qualitative and quantitative research is adapted to cover insufficient information on Hertz and to uncover the pain points in Hertz’s customer journey. An expert interview with a Hertz executive is conducted to gather first-hand insights on Hertz's viewpoint of simplification and to what extent the company aims to use simplicity as a tool for its customer journey. A succeeding customer survey is executed to gain a better understanding of Hertz customers' perceptions and towards Hertz and to collect a broader picture of Hertz's customer journey. The conclusion drawn is used to derive possible simplification enhancements for Hertz in order to achieve various desired business results. A critical assessment for future research on the topic and limiting conditions are discussed in the conclusion.
Reconstruction of conductivity change in lung lobes utilizing electrical impedance tomography
(2017)
A simulation study on the ventilation inhomogeneity measured with Electrical Impedance Tomography
(2017)
Internationally standardized POS layout considering success factors - the example of Würth Group
(2017)
This work is part of the project “International expansion – Standards”. The overall objective of this thesis is to develop an internationally standardized POS layout which ensures a uniform international appearance. The situation in Germany as the headquarters and development center and the surrounding countries Austria, Switzerland and France has been taken into consideration. An analysis of the current layouts regarding shelving system, arrangement of the product groups, guidance system and design factors has been carried out in selected pick-up shops in these countries. In addition, a customer survey has been conducted whereby orientation, overview and legibility of the store have been focal points. As a third analysis the assortments of the respective countries have been analyzed and compared. It was found that some areas at the POS vary from country to country. Major differences exist in the assortments of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France. Among the areas of arrangement of the shelves and product groups, size of the sales area, guidance system and coloring scheme, differences have been revealed as well. Taking into consideration the differences and similarities in the layouts and assortment optimization possibilities have been worked out. As a result an ideal layout has been developed on the basis of the conducted analyses. The layout itself can be implemented cross-nationally. Due to limitations in the analysis of the assortment, it must be analyzed in more detail in order to implement it for the new shop concept. However, a cross-national uniform appearance can only be reached if in addition to the new stores all existing pick-up shops are adapted to the ideal layout.
The subject of this bachelor thesis is a review of literature concerning the development of methods for the improved estimation and management of employee relocation costs. According to the reviewed literature, the problems of developing a uniform method are determined including the lack of standard practices, guessing costs rather than estimating them, the lack of metrics for both costs and benefits and the difficulty of collecting all relevant data. Moreover the approaches of creating a uniform process, the expatriate return on investment as the most important one, are discussed.
As a result, this thesis presents recommendations for establishing an improved employee relocation cost management.
Already having surpassed the previous generation in terms of size of the workforce, Millennials have received extensive attention in media and literature. As critical as this generation might be portrayed in media and sometimes also academic literature, the reality and underlying message of it all is that this generation is rapidly entering the workforce with high expectations, implications are made and companies need to react and adapt accordingly. For a company like thyssenkrupp Presta North America, consisting mainly of employees with an engineering background and seeking for these in a highly competitive job market, understanding this generation, specifically the Millennial Engineers, in order to successfully recruit and retain candidates is imperative for successfully operating in the future. Being natives to information technology, highly motivated, ambitious and determined, Millennials have the potential to have an extremely positive impact on the success of businesses. Reported high self-esteem and narcissistic characteristics make this generation require extensive adaptation and adjustment. Change in the engineering role is happening towards a more dynamic workplace. A modern engineer works in a team environment and interfaces with many different stakeholders. With this development in recent years away from the very traditional role of an engineer, the importance of social and soft skills greatly increased. In order to facilitate this, the processes of organizational socialization play a major role and are an opportunity for employers to influence and shape the adjustment. A well-structured process facilitates adjustment and positive long term outcomes. The question was raised, whether the high expectations of Millennial engineering graduates before their first job reported in literature will change once the work life has been entered. Through a series of qualitative interviews with Millennial engineers at thyssenkrupp Presta North America, the high expectations reported previously were not found. The main objective for the employees surveyed was to simply get started in the work life. In regards to change of expectations, however, much greater emphasis on career progression and training and development possibilities was placed.
This Bachelor Thesis aims to review previous studies in the broad field of M&A. It assesses whether M&A activities are beneficial for shareholders in terms of their returns. Effects on shareholder wealth, both in the short- and long-run, will be evaluated within this thesis. For this purpose, a large data set covering a time horizon of 64 years starting in 1950 until 2014 is used in the short-run. The long-run period involves 81 years lasting from 1929 to 2010. After an overall comparison, taking into account all takeover deals, a more detailed analysis of the announcement effects of M&As considering several different takeover characteristics will be executed. In the short-run, returns for bidder, target and combined firms’ shareholders are considered. For long-run shareholders’ wealth, data only for bidder firms will be evaluated.
The results show that shareholders of target, bidder and combined firms earn significantly positive returns upon the announcement of M&As. Most gains however accrue to target firms’ shareholders. Long-run returns to bidder firms’ shareholders seem to be negative across all three event windows. The longer the event windows, the more negative returns to shareholders. The results also demonstrate that takeover characteristics can significantly influence shareholder wealth.
Furthermore, this thesis aims to address following research questions: (1) what drives M&A activity and what are the individual motives for M&A decisions? And (2) how do several takeover characteristics impact the outcome of M&As?
For the last hundred years an increasing number of women pushed into male dominated employment but today women still claim to face gender specific inequalities on many levels (Torre 2014). This shift to recruit more nontraditional work force once was generated by a mismatch of labor market demand and labor market supply as well as the economic pressure to be cost efficient. Nowadays it can be observed that employers are more sensitive to society valuation but still they are not able to prevent inequalities caused by sex distinction (Reskin 1993).
Creating successful teams after an M&A is challenging enough when employees share the same location and the same cultural background, but when the team consists of people coming from different cultures and is working in different locations, social distance can cause misunderstandings, distrust and miscommunication which makes successful M&As even more challenging. After the acquisition of Letrika in Slovenia and Kokusan Denki in Japan, the workforce within MAHLEs mechatronic division became highly diverse. On the one hand, this diversification is regarded as added value, but on the other hand it bears numerous challenges in day-to day business.
This thesis aims to outline cultural differences between Japan, Slovenia and Germany that affect collaboration within this division. Using literature research and an online questionnaire, the author intends to compare theoretical concepts with actual data collected at MAHLE Mechatronics. The questionnaire also includes multiple open questions that allow examining the current situation and supports the findings with real-life examples.
The first part focuses on the theoretical framework for this thesis. In chapter two an understanding for the concept of culture is given. Different models and explanations provide fundamental knowledge to grasp the construct of culture. Chapter 2.1. depicts the Lewis model, a model developed in 1996 categorizing cultures into three groups. In chapter 2.2., the paper continues with the GLOBE model which forms the basis of the empirical research conducted at MAHLE. Afterwards, culture specific characteristics of Japan, Germany and Slovenia are portrayed and compared in order to predict possible clashes that might emerge in work-related encounters (chapter 3). The illustration of the concept of intercultural competence, a skill to manage, understand, decode and interpret behaviors and mindsets of people from different cultures, will conclude the first part of this thesis (chapter 4).
Chapter five describes the methodology used in this paper. The findings of this study are presented in chapter six and are followed by the discussion and reflection (chapter 7). The paper concludes with an analysis and interpretation (chapter 7.1.), recommendations for future action (chapter 7.2.) and limitations of the study (chapter 7.3.) highlighting the main findings of the study and emphasizing the development of intercultural competence at MAHLEs mechatronic division.
A Long Swim for Science
(2017)
Incentive Europe Premiums Concepts & Licensing (IEPC) is a Dutch company that specializes in the sales and distribution of premiums and promotional products. Its goal is to support companies all over Europe in terms of boosting sales numbers, increasing brand awareness or attracting new clients. In order to achieve these goals Incentive Europe has a number of assets to assist this endeavour; namely an in-office design department, over a decade of experience and a good relationship with several sourcing and production sites in China, headquarters in Amsterdam and Shenzhen (China) and a dedicated team of regional account managers.
Currently Incentive Europe Premiums Concepts & Licensing is active in several different markets within different business segments. The company has put its main focus in producing branded USB sticks and power banks and is quite successful in this regard in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and Italy but now the company is aiming higher.
IEPC is already active in the segments of premiums and merchandising and are presently facing the challenge of entering the German premium market in the best way possible. The competition in the German market is unexplored and Incentive Europe has to find a way to gain traction in the premium market.
For this reason, this bachelor thesis is related to the German market of premiums and merchandising in order to discover and explore entry strategies and analyse the possible options.
EMD inspired filtering algorithm for signal analysis in the context of non intrusive load monitoring
(2017)
Life cycle management of key products (franchises) offered by a company is one of its most strategically important tasks. As their overall ability to capture and use sales data improves, companies have been able to investigate and manage their franchises better than ever before.
This thesis explored the franchise management framework of Nike Inc., a global leader within the sporting goods retail industry. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part explored the current franchise management framework of Nike and its effectiveness. The second part applies this framework to one of Nike’s biggest franchises and prime sources of revenue for the ‘Running’ category. ‘Nike Free’, the franchise in question, suffered a big decline in sales and surgical franchise management had to be applied in order to revive it. The results indicated that this framework delivered positive results and helped improve the performance of this franchise.
Fact based decision making, enabled by effective gathering and processing of sales data was used during this study. Overall, the goal of the thesis is to help understand and lay a foundation for effective franchise management for a sales organization.
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and optimize accounts receivable management for the locations of the automotive supplier IMS Gear in the United States consisting of IMS Gear Holding Inc. and four subsidiaries. The tangible asset accounts receivable has a significant impact on profit and liquidity of a company and influences cash flow, working capital and customer relationships. An effective, transparent and comprehensive accounts receivable management is therefore crucial for the successful continuation of a company. In the course of this thesis the reader will be provided with definitions of all relevant terms and concepts, followed by theoretical knowledge about process management, including process analysis, problem diagnosis and process optimization. The differences in accounts receivable management between the United States and Germany as well as possibilities of measuring the effectiveness of accounts receivable management and goals of accounts receivable management are treated both practically and theoretically.
On the basis of internal benchmarking and a detailed process analysis, five fields for improvement were defined: creditworthiness, contract management, cash discount, dunning, and avoidance of bad debt. When optimizing a process, it is important to additionally consider all processes influencing the outcome of the concerned process. The optimization suggestions therefore do not only concern the finance and accounting area but rather affect a number of other departments in the company including sales, logistics and the business units. The reader will furthermore be provided with a discussion of suggestions to improve problems detected in the process analysis and internal benchmarking. A summary of the suggested improvements together with their probability of implementation is presented. Discussed suggestions include, among others, the consideration of country specific payment habits, the offer of cash discount for payment in advance and the introduction of the payment term “cash in advance”.
This thesis has proven that even if a process is functioning, optimization is still necessary in order to provide a more effective, reliable, and transparent process. Moreover, process optimization secures the future success and growth of a company and is therefore crucial in today’s fast changing business environment.
It is not a mystery that us humans want what is not necessarily good for us. The fundamental desire, want and even need for foods high in fat, salt and sugar is embedded deep within us. It is part of our evolutionary biology, that we crave these unhealthy substances, due to their original scarcity, and our physical need for them in order to survive.
Delegated Audit of Cloud Provider Chains Using Provider Provisioned Mobile Evidence Collection
(2017)
The Influence of Macroeconomic Indicators Towards Sovereign Credit Rating and Sovereign Bond Spread
(2017)
The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate and to identify the macroeconomic indicators, as the determinants that could impact the sovereign risk. The sovereign risk here is represented by sovereign credit rating and sovereign bond spread. The world economy nowadays has become more globalized. It is becoming essential for all stakeholders in the global economy to become aware of the economic and the financial situation of a country. Sovereign risk interestingly represents not only the economic and financial situation of a country, but also the ability of a country to meet its financial obligation. This indicator plays an important role in attracting capital inflow and investment in a country. By using panel-data
framework, the estimations were built and analyzed to investigate the impact and the influence of the macroeconomic indicators towards the sovereign risk. The sample data of the research consists of 9 macroeconomic indicators as the explanatory variables, each of them includes 50 countries and 10 years of time period. Two separate panel data estimations with fixed effects model were created for each of the dependent variable, sovereign credit rating and sovereign bond spread. The results indicated that central bank rate, government debt level, total government reserves and unemployment rate have significant effects on the sovereign credit rating. Moreover, the results also indicated that current account balance, GDP growth rate, government debt level and unemployment rate have significant influence on sovereign bond spread. As both estimation share 3 significant explanatory variables, this implies that they are closely related.
Digitalization is invading every aspect of our lives and modern technologies are at the helm of much disruptive change in all spheres of life. Hailed as the 4th industrial revolution every company has a mind to understand the implications of the Industry 4.0 suit of technologies and their multiple innovative applications for its operations. In this paper, we explore how the industry 4.0 transformation might affect Small and Medium sized
enterprises in Germany over a 15-year horizon. We focus on SMEs because they play a significant role in ensuring the prosperity of Germany as a global industrial and economic
powerhouse. We develop alternative pictures of the possible futures using the foresight technique of Scenario planning in which the factors that shape the business environment
SMEs and indeed all companies operate in are identified and used to build the most plausible alternative realities. The outcome is four distinct scenarios that reflect the possible growth trajectories regarding the impending transformation for SMEs.
Sensors
(2017)
Pricing
(2017)
Business-to-business services make up an increasing share of the total economy. Due to growing specialization companies are more and more outsourcing non-core services. The aim of this thesis is to examine the market trends, the competitive landscape and success factors for proving IT supply chain services.
IT supply chain services are service provisions that encompass the procurement of equipment, the staging and personalization, as well as the logistics of end-user devices. This thesis explores the business case of Computacenter, a European IT-service provider. Given the complexity of IT supply chain service provisions and the distinct characteristics of services, major contracts in this area are examined in order to derive good and best practices. Two research questions are addressed. The first one examines how Computacenter performs against major trends in the IT service market by reflecting customer demand and competitors’ strategies. The second research questions aims at identifying in which areas and how Computacenter could improve the delivery of its IT supply chain services.
The applied research methods include secondary data, such as competitors’ websites or industry reports, primary data like surveys or observation, as well as descriptive and comparative methods. The research is divided into three sections. First, the theoretical fundamentals of IT service management and the Service Supply Chain Management are outlined, focusing on reference models and methods used by the respective company. Second, the company itself and the market environment including competition and customer aspects are examined. Third, an empirical study conducted in the form of a survey on selected projects assesses Computacenter’s best practices. In the final part of this thesis practical recommendations are given including all investigated aspects.
Due to fierce competition in the recent decades, focus on customer service is becoming increasingly important in all industries including grocery retail. The purpose of this study is to discover the different services offered by grocery stores in Egypt and Germany, to examine the reasons behind offering different services in the different countries and to learn the effect of the same services being offered in different countries.
The data was collected by conducting an online survey and then analyzed with reference to available literature. Findings and conclusions are presented in the form of lessons learned and suggestions for grocery stores in both countries to improve their consumer’s future shopping experience.
Background: In the recent past, the discrepancy between blood supply and future demand may have been overestimated. Nevertheless, as medical progress develops rapidly, it will be essential to permanently monitor ongoing demographic changes in the donor population and re-evaluate retention and recruiting strategies. Thus, it was the aim of the current study to compare first time donor (FTD) characteristics and their return rates, whole blood donations in total and annual donation frequencies 2010 versus 2015/2016. Furthermore, we evaluated whether over the same observation period, medical reasons for deferral underwent a change (2010 versus 2015).
Methods: The return probability of FTD within 12 months was analysed in 2010 and 2015 with respect to successful donation versus deferral and, furthermore, FTD age was determined. Total number of whole blood (WB) donations were investigated and age distribution was compared 2010 versus 2013 versus 2016. WB donation frequencies were calculated with respect to age and gender in 2010 and 2016. In a second analysis, medical reasons for deferral were differentiated into 14 categories and a possible impact of time (2010 versus 2015) on the respective percentage was studied.
Results: We observed a significant decline of the FTD return rate from 42.5% to 38.8% in successful donors while the rate remained unchanged in deferred FTD. At the same time the mean FTD age decreased from 29.1 ± 11.6 to 28.5 ± 11.7 years in 2016. Analysis of total WB donations revealed an increase of donations from donors ≥ 60 years, a constant percentage from donors < 30 years but a declining proportion of donors from 30-59 years of age from 2010 to 2013 to 2016. In parallel, annual mean WB donation frequencies decreased over time. Deferrals due to travel history increased significantly from 2010 to 2015 both in FTD and repeat donors (RD).
Conclusion: There is a detectable ongoing demographic change as well as a change of medical deferral reasons in our WB donor population. Our data prove a need for a re-evaluation of retention and recruitment strategies since previous marketing campaigns seem to have neglected the age group 30-59 years. This must be addressed in further studies as this age group will be highly relevant for assuring future blood supplies since donor recruitment from adolescents will be limited due to declining birth rates. Furthermore, deferral due to travel history is increasing significantly. Thus we will require further studies on the possible impact on donor retention.
The objective of this thesis is to examine the recent rollout of Commercial Excellence, a sales-process standardization and improvement project within the currently ongoing integration of TRW Automotive Holding Corporation into ZF Friedrichshafen AG. Focusing on change management and the challenges posed by resistance to change, the aim is to derive recommendations for action during future rollout phases. Based on leading theories regarding change management, expert interviews delivered mixed results. While it is indicated that resistance to change was only a minor issue throughout the rollout the careful analysis of the collected responses still offered the potential for improvements. Therefore the author was able to identify the inclusion of sales support functions into the project as a solution for resistance to change caused by restrictive data release policies. Additionally, it was found that the diversification of the communication mix as well as centrally offering individualized training programs can further facilitate future rollouts of Commercial Excellence.
Free trade agreements are a constantly discussed issue within economies and between relations within the whole world. Every economy is currently dealing with a lot of free trade agreements influencing their economic situation. All over the world, there are currently over 225 free trade agreements in circulation
This research paper is about Mobile Banking. Mobile banking is rapidly growing in emerging countries as compared to emerged countries. The research conducted here will help us to understand as to why mobile banking is so successful in emerging countries and the factors that contribute to its success, the regulations behind it and to see if the Technology Acceptance Mobile (TAM) theory can be proved or linked to the success of mobile banking in the countries used for analysis. The analysis was conducted using a qualitative research method of document analysis
Climate change is one of the most challenging topics to the world and has been subject to international negotiations for more than 25 years, one of the main players being the USA.
Game theory, on the other hand, is a popular tool from economics, frequently used to analyze strategic situations such as international negotiations. Together, the insights from these topics can help understand why the USA’s president Donald Trump has announced to quit the Paris Agreement and which consequences this might have for the US, other countries and for the future of international climate change negotiations. In order to assess the different implications, this thesis gives some theoretical background and presents game theoretic findings on climate change negotiations. It will be found that, from a game theoretic point of view, different reasons might have caused the USA to take this decision and that there is a chance that a withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement could have some effect on the future of climate protection. However, a precise assessment would require further research on the topic.
The aim of this thesis is to elaborate and evaluate the current employer branding concept at a subsidiary of a globally represented organization. This enables the author to draw conclusions and give improvement recommendations.
The first part is based on scientific literature and data. It outlines the concept of employer branding and shows which areas of a company are affected hereby. Next, it is explained why a successful employer branding concept can be advantageous for companies and how to communicate it. To conclude the first part, challenges that come with employer branding in a global company context are elaborated.
The following part of the thesis, is developed from internal data and information. It focuses on the current employer branding concept at the subsidiary. Moreover, it is revealed why an employer brand is necessary and which challenges and opportunities, for this concept, exist at that subsidiary. It is also reflected on the effects, set corporate guidelines and conditions, have on the local employer branding concept.
The last part, attempts to measure the success of the current employer branding concept at the subsidiary. This is conducted by assessing three different sources with regard to their influence and significance on the employer brand. At first, the company’s key performance indicators are evaluated. Secondly, results of two surveys, which were conducted for this thesis, are analyzed and interpreted. Both give insight on people’s expectations and experiences with employers: One survey investigated an external target group while the other questioned the employees at the subsidiary. As a third source, results of a recent internal survey, which evaluated the employee’s perspective on their workplace, are included and assessed.
To conclude the thesis, improvement suggestions on how to have a successful employer brand, according to demographic region, operating business sector and global context are given. The recommendations include content-related adjustments, proposals for the inclusion of corporate standards, ideas on how to raise the employer brand’s awareness and finally suggestions for improved communication of the local employer brand.
The importance of lean management in indirect areas has drastically increased in recent years, as it allows companies to remain competitive. At Bosch Gasoline Systems, lean management has been practiced in indirect areas for some two years now, but the project team responsible still attempts to improve tools and processes wherever possible.
This bachelor’s thesis therefore provides an overview of the possible improvements that might be made to the Lean Management System (LMS) in order to facilitate its introduction in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, the US, Japan and Korea.
After an extensive literature review, an “ideal” lean culture profile is developed, which is then compared to the cultural profiles of the countries of interest. The basis of the “ideal” lean culture profile is derived from the study of Liker (2014) and Zollondz (2013) where they present 14 lean principles and then the significance of these principles is analysed using Hofstede’s cultural model.
Thereafter, interviews are conducted with experts from the lean team as well as with locals from the various countries of interest in order to find out about the cultural differences between the countries of interest and Germany, as well as to find out about the applicability of the current version of the lean management system in these countries.
Since there are differences between the developed “ideal” lean culture profile and those of the other countries discussed in this thesis, these differences are then analysed. The conclusions drawn, which are also supported by statements from the interviewees, are used to derive countermeasures and possible ideas for facilitating the introduction of the LMS abroad.
In the conclusion, limitations and further research questions are discussed.
Analysis of the scrum implementation and establishment at Mercedes-Benz Cars 2020 Best Finance
(2017)
In an increasingly complex and dynamic world organizations must be able to be adaptive and act more flexible to remain competitive and sustainable. This also applies for the implementation of long-term projects which is the focus of this thesis. Project organizations increasingly tend towards agile process models (scrum) in project management as an alternative to traditional process models (waterfall) in order to increase the project efficiency through greater flexibility and transparency.
This bachelor thesis deals with an analysis of the scrum implementation and establishment in the project Best Finance at Mercedes-Benz Cars. After the theoretical foundations of the traditional process model are explained another part reviews the implementation of it in Best Finance. In this context, the challenges with this approach based on theory and experienced in Best Finance are identified to justify the transition to agile methods. Main object for the practical part constitutes a research concept to analyze and evaluate Best Finance based on scrum. The basis of the concept constitutes the generally valid project management success factors which are complemented by questions of the agile theory.
The interrogation with the representatives of Best Finance by means of quantitative and qualitative data collection serves as an information source for the research concept. The project management success factors are evaluated and analyzed. Main results show that the agile process model is still at the beginning regarding its operational application, though, the project organization of Best Finance made first positive experiences with this approach. However, the analysis also reveals that there is still potential for improvement regarding the project procedure based on scrum. The practical recommendations suggested at the end of the thesis aim at creating a better understanding of scrum and the promotion of the establishment in Best Finance.
Underperforming employees are quickly put into the low performer category and rash decisions and actions need to be taken. Managers “just want the problem to go away” and human resources must find a solution – transfer, change of contract, disciplinary actions are often the only choices. But it doesn’t need to always end in escalation. Early identification and communication is the first step towards a solution and a win-win situation for all parties involved. Followed by a thorough cause analysis and a matched action plan the foundation for improvement is laid. Raising awareness of plausible causes, the right actions to be taken and empowerment of the management level are the next steps towards a performance improvement oriented culture. Focusing on how to improve low performance is a corrective measure, taking actions and measures to prevent low performance to arise, like implementing a holistic performance management system, is the more effective and easier way.
The department Tachographs, Telematis and Sevices belongs to the Business Unit Commercial vehicles and after market. CVAM is part of the Interior division from Continental and belongs to the Automotive Group.
In this thesis a PEST analysis looks at the factors that influence the fleet management market. Furthermore a SWOT analysis to explore internal and external factors influencing the telematic services at continental. In the theory part an overview is given, about the best already proven methods and measures to implement in finding the customer needs implement them in an early stage of the development process.
Possible solutions were found by conducting interviews with the sales force and development team inside of the company to get their feedbacks and ideas.
Due to the increased complexity in advertising and branding, a shift towards a greater use of emotional branding can be observed. In this context music, especially sogos and jingles, are one of the main elements, which seem to allow organizations to reinforce the transmitted brand image towards the consumers. However, so far no guidelines have been developed, which musical components should be included in the jingle to transmit certain emotions and brand images. The following study examines the fit between 11 brand jingles and the corresponding television commercials and analyses how well the jingles represent the actual and targeted brand image. With the help of a quantitative online survey with 170 participants it could be shown that jingles are indeed powerful tools to transmit certain emotions and the connected brand images. Furthermore, several guidelines for the creation of jingles could be developed in order to create and implement these short and catchy tunes as an extension of the visual advertisement.