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- MBA - International Business Management (7) (remove)
Cost Optimization is a persistent discipline to adjust expenses and reduce costs while maximizing business value, and it has proven to be one of the most influential strategies to generate profits and stay competitive in the market. In this study, technical and strategic solutions that can lead to manufacturing cost optimization were considered. For this purpose, a test environment was created according to the DFMA methodology using the DFMA Concurrent Costing V4.1 software developed by Boothroyd Dewhurst Inc. and the production expenses of a JED029M3 aluminum bushing product from WABCO Group were analyzed.
Results revealed that these charges can be assigned to five main cost drivers Material, Machine Setup, Process, Scrap and Tools, of which Tooling was the most influential driver at lower volumes, while Material and Process remained two of the considerably substantial drivers across all ranges of volumes produced. Furthermore, among the optimization alternatives, the right choice for machine and raw material shape demonstrated to have a relative effects of less than 5% in reduction of manufacturing cost for 1,000 pieces, while outsourcing to China and transitioning toward economies of scale lowered could impact the total costs by -40% and -70%, respectively.
The platform business model replaces the traditional linear value chain model, demonstrating how value can be created differently. The emergence of new platforms in various industries during the last decade has made it difficult to imagine a business without naming at least a handful of active platforms. The platform business model has been proven to revolutionize industries, and this study investigates the possibility of launching a platform business model in unprecedented arenas which still use conventional pipeline business models.
The study explores the process of generating ideas for a new opportunity in the platform business model. After generating 11 ideas, screening and evaluating methods were studied.
This thesis examines causes and effects of El Salvador’s transition to official dollarization conducted in 2001. The document analyzes preliminary and final impacts in the real, financial, fiscal, and external sectors of the country, and it also provides an economic and social perspective on how these effects have caused little effect on Salvadoran society. Several authors remark official dollarization might have positive effects on countries with macroeconomic disorders such as high inflation rates and drastic exchange rate variations. After more than 20 years of adoption of the U.S. dollar, official dollarization does not appear to have affected positively life of Salvadoran citizens but rather has prevented governments from using monetary policy to apply irresponsible economic policies and has also helped to prevent high inflation rates. To take advantage of the benefits official dollarization can offer, it is highly recommendable for El Salvador to implement transformative social and economic investments and policies that boost human development and economic competitiveness.
As a leading medical technology company, KARL STORZ SE & Co. KG continuously wants to bring innovations and applications into the market and expand its existing product portfolio. As strategic initiatives, the company has set priorities and goals to ensure its sustained success. One of those strategic initiatives is to start developing new products in the field of robotic surgery and compete in this segment. To achieve these ambitions, the company decided to spin off its robotic solutions department and establish a new business called KARL STORZ VentureONE Pte. Ltd. With a smaller and more agile structure, the new venture seeks to implement new ways of working and promote innovation.
This new-born company is playing in a fast-growing market that one single competitor has traditionally dominated. However, robotic surgery still has much potential, and existing suppliers have not yet reached different market segments. One segment that has called the attention of the spin-off is the ambulatory surgery centers in the US.
These surgical institutions are growing and gaining relevance in the American surgery landscape. Hence, the company is particularly interested in developing a robotic solution for this segment. Before introducing a product, the company must understand the target customer intended to address. Management at the new venture is also convinced that new business models can be successfully implemented in this segment. Thus, this academic work aims to evaluate the ambulatory surgery center market in the US and propose a suitable business model for this target customer.
For this purpose, this thesis was divided into two main parts. The first aimed to conduct market research on the ambulatory surgery centers in the US by collecting secondary data from articles, reports, and governmental publications. The second part focused on proposing a business model for the ambulatory surgery center segment. To do so, primary data was obtained by interviewing experts in this market.
The research found that the ambulatory surgery centers segment is a growing market where robotic surgery has not yet been fully implemented due to its high cost and reduced reimbursement rates for outpatient procedures. Another barrier to robotic surgery in surgery centers is the high upfront investment needed to buy the technology. Based on these insights, different business models, such as leasing, renting, pay-per-use, and subscription, were assessed. A subscription model was selected and further developed by presenting the most advantages. Using the “Business Model Navigator” methodology, this work defined and documented the target customer, the value proposition, the value chain, and the profit mechanism.
Abstract
In today's business world, it is evident how, thanks to digital transformation, new business models have emerged, especially in the retail industry. Changes in customer preferences have been one of the main reasons why the vast majority of companies within the retail industry have accelerated their digital transformation processes. Evidence has also been found that this change in consumer thinking is related to one of the side effects left by the Covid-19 pandemic, where digital channels gained more strength due to the limitations of physical contact between product providers and their customers. Therefore, changes in consumer thinking and the use of new digital platforms have brought new challenges for companies transforming their businesses from offline to online. The biggest challenges for those companies are not only related to implementing new business models such as online sales or so-called E-commerce platforms but also attributed to the creation of unique and invaluable experiences for the customer, allowing the companies to retain their consumers and create loyalty.
Creating an outstanding customer experience is not an easy task on these platforms since the reach of digital channels is almost infinite, which makes the new entrepreneurs in this industry rethink over and over again the best strategy to approach their customers so that they feel delighted in their customer journey. The present work seeks to provide a solution to the challenge evidenced in the E-commerce platforms, where the main objective is to recognize, through the customer journey, all the critical touchpoints and elements to add value to the shopping experience and to raise levels of customer satisfaction. With the help of tools that measure the levels of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, such as the Kano model, and through a recommendation system, the current paper provides com- panies that trade their products online with a detail of what services should be improved in the shopping experience to be highly attractive. In addition, a guide is provided where its application in each company will show in a quantitative way what the customer satis- faction levels are like. This work, through exhaustive research in academia, concludes that the factors that most stimulate customer satisfaction are those related to e-services quality and highlights the importance of “Personalized information”, “Online sales agent”, and “Website reviews and rating” services to add value to customers in one of the most competitive markets, such as E-commerce.
The business environment has changed within the past few decades. Growing global competition and the trend of shortening product life-cycle have reshaped the market, coercing companies into reconsidering their business strategies and product development. Higher quality, better time-to-delivery, and cost optimization are crucial factors for firms to compete in this tumultuous market. Therefore, companies are adopting a New Product Development (NPD), which is agile and customer-centric. The path toward change, however, is not identical for every enterprise since companies have their own unique organizational architecture and culture, demanding a thorough consideration of various facets of change, which is the focus of this study. EKU Power Drives, the company case study for this research, is actively involved in innovating electrification solutions and embedded software control for mobile power generation in the oil and gas industry upstream segment. The firm is considering transforming to an agile-based framework to fulfill its vision, which is becoming the most preferred partner for the key players in the target markets. This study aims to investigate the optimal Agile methodology and framework for the case study according to its business context, identify the challenges and how to address them, and outline an implementation procedure.
This thesis analyzes the effects that product label certification of Fairtrade products and the retail format where they are bought by consumers (Supermarkets vs. Discounters) have on the Willingness-to-Pay (WTP) of common grocery store goods. The thesis builds on data obtained from an online-conducted survey where participants had to respond if a determined price point was deemed as cheap or expensive to them and based on the average reaction times of their answers we determined the individual WTP. Two-way ANOVA analysis were performed with this data and some interesting findings were discovered: while a difference can be observed in consumers WTP for goods depending on the retail environment where they are acquired, there is no evidence of multiplicative effect of product labeling and retail format.