Refine
Year of publication
- 2015 (136) (remove)
Document type
- Bachelor Thesis (136) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- No (136)
Keywords
- China (3)
- Fachkräftemangel (3)
- Marketing (3)
- Strategy (3)
- Willkommenskultur (3)
- Automobilindustrie (2)
- Change Management (2)
- Demographischer Wandel (2)
- Employer Branding (2)
- Generation Y (2)
Course of studies
Fast Fashion industry is a great example of a market with similar products and similar target groups of customers where marketing plays a key role in the competition for market share. In the era of Web 2.0. and Social Media boom businesses are facing a rise in customers’ forces and its pressure by influencing corporate communications and marketing campaigns. Ordinary people turn to influentials who reach broad consumer audiences and often have an impact on the decision-making-processes. In this way, brands are less protected by PR and advertising tools, as well as more vulnerable. Therefore, understanding the current communication environment and in particular how, when, where and who interferes with corporate image is important from managerial point of view and what strategy to be deployed. For these reasons, the thesis focuses on multichannel marketing in order to provide an understanding of how businesses have been connecting to
people and then it continues with exploration of social media and the blogosphere as ways consumers have been complicating and influencing channels. In the end, it has been concluded that Social Media and the phenomenon of Blogosphere has led to the appearance of new self-made opinion leaders who tend to influence consumer behavior and respectively company’s reputation and brands’ image. On the other hand, it has been observed this can be positive for businesses since it provides relatively useful market information which could be helpful for marketing and communications managers by enabling them to observe their target groups in a more efficient ways. In the pursue of findings, the thesis includes primary research with two interviews with a bloggers and a fashion brand affiliate person, and secondary research covering literature review on relevant topics.
In a fast-paced change and development of the work environment, organizations are faced with the need to adapt efficient and proactively on a continuous basis. Correspondingly it is important for companies to readjust their tools, requirements and processes. Performance appraisal is not an exception. Moreover it is an important part of an organization’s performance management system that assures an integer alignment of the employees’ activities and performances with the company’s strategy and goals. It is a tool, which directly addresses companies’ most important and susceptible to change resources - it’s employees and strategy. Therefore the scope of this paper was to analyze whether the traditionally used performance appraisal system of the present, would work and fit under the challenges and changes of the future of work trends. First, the paper focuses on the analysis of the future of work environment. There are initially researched the forces that will influence future organizations and then the impact on organizations is described. The above mentioned were followed by the analysis of the currently perceived drawbacks of performance appraisal as from studies and researches done by experts in the domain. The analysis points out the most important features referred to as being of a tremendous impact on the success and result of the tool. These faults of the traditional approach would be then compared with the main trends determining future of work, and as a result of the study is the determination whether the tool would perform better in the future organizational setting or worse depending on how the criteria concluded as being most influential would co-work. In conclusion it was observed that performance appraisal as such would still be an important tool in the future organization as it’s commonly perceived scope would gain in importance. However, the approach and implementation would have to be drastically reconsidered. As most of it’s currently perceived drawbacks would be in an even more devastating conflict in the upcoming time of business and employment. It refers to it’s form, owner, customer and implantation, all of these would need an radical transformation.
Over the past years, operating conditions of German retail banks have been significantly altered by increased regulation, digitalization and new competitors. Consequently, numerous market participants have begun supplementing or replacing traditional processes with technology-based ones. Wüstenrot Bank AG Pfandbriefbank (WBP), a midsize financial corporation located in Ludwigsburg, Germany, is a primary example for this development. Notwithstanding all reforms, WBP suspects that many of its online products are unprofitable, yet has been unable to perform accurate measurements. Research shows that this is by far no exception and that in spite of digitalization’s proven impact in other industries there are very few empirical studies comparing traditional and technology-based processes in retail banking. This paper aims at filling this gap by determining the present efficiency of technology-based processes at WBP and their potential for aiding optimizations in the field. The paper uses process costing for evaluating present profitability, a methodology proven in manufacturing and other service industries yet relatively new to banking, and thus also sets a methodological recedent. For this method processes are first modeled using the ARIS concept of Scheer (1990); following Cooper and Kaplan (1988) and Horváth and Mayer (1995) costs are then determined for individual process steps based on their resource consumption and finally aggregated into the entire process. In a second step the present
situation serves as basis for simulating hypothetical scenarios used for assessing the effectiveness and impact of technology on further optimizations.
The research finds that in the case of daily money, a typical online product, neither WBP’s traditional nor its technology-based processes are profitable in the first year after account generation. In fact, losses are so extensive it is likely the product is generally unprofitable. In addition, the analysis finds that, contrary to the initial hypothesis, technology-based processes are even less efficient than traditional ones. Through subsequent simulations it becomes clear, however, that rather than digitalization all together, it is the insufficient degree of use of technology that causes costs to be so high. Therefore, optimization potential is much higher for technology-based than for traditional processes. Consequently, the paper recommends further increasing the use of digital technologies and finds process costing to be the ideal tool for capturing the best of digitalization both within WBP and in the industry.
Business includes interactions both in societal and organizational dimension. And interactions are done through communication. Communication is not just about sharing ideas through words. Communication is anyway a complex phenomenon. However in the age of the global business, where culture has become the core and with that more complex and therefore is neglected more than before. Besides, cultural aspects seem not to have given enough importance, in spite of doing business internationally, where culture plays an essential role. Thus global business, in form of overseas, offshoring, outsourcing, franchising, expatriates, investment etc. is a game where international entrepreneurship, intercultural challenges, culture, communication and results, leading either to successful and effective cooperation or disputes and conflicts, have a main role. Hence, this thesis, Intercultural challenges for international Entrepreneurs in Nepal and guidelines, instruments and recommendations for solving them, is all about how to combine these elements and deploy strategies by entrepreneurs from Germanic Europe while doing business in Nepal, considering the cultural differences of both cultures. Consequently the aim of this thesis is to provide with essential components concerning cultural differences that should be considered seriously while doing business in Nepal. A research conducted through questionnaire to obtain results in order to identify the most important cultural differences in terms of dimensions facilitated to develop strategies. To get to the recommendations, as the end part of this thesis, first some basic terminologies and concepts will be conceptualized. After, deeper concepts regarding the role of communication and language will be provided to reach the research part. Once, some concepts are explained in research part, results and findings will be illustrated before reaching to recommendations and conclusion. To conclude, strategies in this thesis are presented in form of recommendations and instruments according to the results, which show that there are few differences in some cultural dimensions and there are huge differences in some cultural dimensions, to foster cross-cultural cooperation without conflicts and disputes.
The topic of change management gained significant importance within recent years. Through the internationalization of markets, became relevant to consider factors such as intercultural management and communication. Often managers are not able to control and coordinate these projects in an adequate manner.
One of the main reasons is the c different mindsets, expectations, ideas and working styles. During the planning and execution of change projects there is much focus on the strategy and the lead project teams. Nevertheless, employ because the foreign workforce as a whole consists of many different people from various
countries and cultures. Ensuring that a change can successfully be applied at all locations is a major task and failing in managing those varieties can lead to failure of the entire change. The regional management is often faced with inadequate decisions or poor communication by the headquarters. Additionally, even more than normal mid able to work with decisions they do not understand or support required to follow instructions from the other side of the world requires various skills. The purpose of this research is to identify the requirements of good communication a
management in regional offices in this context and to analyze how a well defined scope of responsibilities can lead an international change project to success.
Globally operating stamping and hybrid parts manufacturer KRAMSKI and the FRANUHOFER IPA have developed a new prosthetic foot designed for developing countries. Although low-cost solutions in developing countries exist, these significantly lack functionality. The new prosthetic foot will be more expensive than most low-cost alternatives, which start from $ 5.00 for a simple SACH foot, but can be sold for a much lower price than most high-tech prosthetics imported from industrialized nations, which can cost more than $5,000. The purpose of the paper was to determine the market potential for the prosthetic foot, to monitor the competition and to create an overall marketing concept for distributing and promoting the product. Therefore market and competitor analyses were conducted. On base of the market and competitor research, strategies were formulated. As a last step, the marketing mix with its four elements was regarded and different distribution and promotional tools have been reviewed to propose marketing activities that could be undertaken by KRAMSKI. Since six different target countries in Asia and Latin America (India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) were chosen in agreement with KRAMSKI, the market potential for each of these countries was estimated. Two different approaches were used to estimate the market potential of each country. Following the first approach, the total market demand of all six countries added up to more than 5.6 million potential. The second approach added up to a total of 6.7 million potential customers for the target regions. The numbers revealed that 95 % of all lower limb amputees lived in India. Therefore India has been chosen as the target country for all further research in the paper. The monitoring of the market change revealed that prosthetic foot demand was going to increase over the next decades due to lost limbs through road traffic incidents and diabetes. Besides, by the year 2030 most of the world’s middle class (80 %) will be living in developing countries As a consequence, more people will be able to afford health care products such as prosthetic feet. It has been found out that customers in developing countries lay emphasis on either low cost or quality. As a second step, the competitive environment within the prosthetic foot sector in India has been analyzed. Although the Indian healthcare system is still underdeveloped, the sector offers future opportunities for the private sector. The biggest commercial manufacturers of prosthetic feet in India are Otto Bock, Endolite and Streifeneder-Collegepark. But also international and local NGOs, such as BMVSS (Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti) with the Jaipur Foot, distribute prosthetic feet. Most of the commercial products are significantly more expensive than the products distributed by NGOs. Most NGOs manufacture prosthesis by themselves in order to save costs and create jobs. Many amputees can receive the prostheses and service for free due to donations which finance the NGOs. The competitive suppliers either own fitting centers or distribute their products through local wholesalers. On base of the market, consumer segmentation has been conducted. The Indian population has been divided into different income levels. Rural aspirers and urban seekers could be seen as the most profitable target segments, but urban customers might be easiest to reach due to location. In a last step, the marketing mix for the prosthetic foot has been analyzed. The prosthetic foot should offer specific features to align with developing countries. The product needs to be priced according to company objectives, demand, cost and competition. Since KRAMSKI does not yet have the capabilities and resources to fit prosthetic feet, the company needs to distribute to the end-user through indirect distribution channels such as wholesalers, clinics and NGOs. Therefore an important activity for KRAMSKI is the acquisition of distribution channels. This can be approached through promotional tools such as personal selling, direct marketing, online marketing or the participation on trade fairs and exhibitions.