The role of lifelong learning (LLL) in the creation of a european knowledge- based society

This chapter appears in Encyclopaedia of Human Resources Information Systems: Challenges in e-HRM edited by Torres-Coronas, T. and Arias-Oliva, M. Copyright 2009, IGI Global, www.igi-global.com. Posted by permission of the publisher. URL:http://www.igi-pub.com/reference/details.asp?id=7737

Renova black toilet paper: The creation of a glocal market space

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Drivers and barriers to value creation in mobile service delivery

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Creation of a web application for smart park system and parking prediction study for system integration

In the last few years, we have observed an exponential increasing of the information systems, and parking information is one more example of them. The needs of obtaining reliable and updated information of parking slots availability are very important in the goal of traffic reduction. Also parking slot prediction is a new topic that has already started to be applied. San Francisco in America and Santander in Spain are examples of such projects carried out to obtain this kind of information. The aim of this thesis is the study and evaluation of methodologies for parking slot prediction and the integration in a web application, where all kind of users will be able to know the current parking status and also future status according to parking model predictions. The source of the data is ancillary in this work but it needs to be understood anyway to understand the parking behaviour. Actually, there are many modelling techniques used for this purpose such as time series analysis, decision trees, neural networks and clustering. In this work, the author explains the best techniques at this work, analyzes the result and points out the advantages and disadvantages of each one. The model will learn the periodic and seasonal patterns of the parking status behaviour, and with this knowledge it can predict future status values given a date. The data used comes from the Smart Park Ontinyent and it is about parking occupancy status together with timestamps and it is stored in a database. After data acquisition, data analysis and pre-processing was needed for model implementations. The first test done was with the boosting ensemble classifier, employed over a set of decision trees, created with C5.0 algorithm from a set of training samples, to assign a prediction value to each object. In addition to the predictions, this work has got measurements error that indicates the reliability of the outcome predictions being correct. The second test was done using the function fitting seasonal exponential smoothing tbats model. Finally as the last test, it has been tried a model that is actually a combination of the previous two models, just to see the result of this combination. The results were quite good for all of them, having error averages of 6.2, 6.6 and 5.4 in vacancies predictions for the three models respectively. This means from a parking of 47 places a 10% average error in parking slot predictions. This result could be even better with longer data available. In order to make this kind of information visible and reachable from everyone having a device with internet connection, a web application was made for this purpose. Beside the data displaying, this application also offers different functions to improve the task of searching for parking. The new functions, apart from parking prediction, were: - Park distances from user location. It provides all the distances to user current location to the different parks in the city. - Geocoding. The service for matching a literal description or an address to a concrete location. - Geolocation. The service for positioning the user. - Parking list panel. This is not a service neither a function, is just a better visualization and better handling of the information.

A matter of time: Phases of customer co-creation community participation and their impact on customer behavior

Despite the growing relevance of co-creating customer communities only little scientific evidence is available on their impact on transactional behavior of participants. Previous research has mostly used self-reported data or distinguished only between during and pre-community phases obtaining mixed results. However, the author proposes that co-creating community activity takes place in five distinguishable phases and changes in transactional behavior are limited to certain phases. Using 33 months of transactional data of a Dutch online auction provider a study was conducted covering all five phases of the community co-creation process from community planning over community set-up, co-development and co-testing to post-launch. The overall results indicate mixed effects of community participation on the different transactional variables during the co-creation process. Community participation had positive effects on auctions listing behavior at the community set-up, co-development and post-launch phases, whereby the number of auctions listed peaked during the community set-up phase. These results suggest that the impact on transactional behavior differs between co-creation phases and different psychological mechanism limited to certain phases might trigger the respective changes.

How to take advantage of wine tourism: Creation of a new concept for central Alentejo based on its potential and worldwide success factors

Wine Tourism is gaining importance in today’s world and more destinations and establishments have been arising. After understanding the importance of this economic activity and the factors it must have to succeed, a new project was conceived for Central Alentejo taking into account its potential. This project is an example of how to take advantage of Wine Tourism in wine regions that are underexplored, such as Aldeias de Montoito, the village near Redondo to which a Business Plan will be created, explaining the strategies to pursue in order to have a successful Wine Tourism destination.

Mohammad Yunus and microfinance: The creation of a glocal marketspace

This paper reveals how Grameen has been following a Glocal vision in microfinance and defends that following such will ultimately benefit the social and financial objectives of microfinance institutions. Furthermore, this study identified that microfinance institutions are facing various environmental and organizational constraints in the implementation of a Glocal approach. The research follows a case-study methodology and makes a comparison between Grameen Bank, two of its replicator programs in Pakistan and India and two microfinance organizations in Portugal and France.

Lifetime-value creation through a customized offer adressed to diferent lifestyles

This paper purposes a method for marketing segmentation based on customers‟ lifestyle. A quantitative and qualitative segmentation established by the Whitaker Lifestyle™ Method was created in order to define a concrete and clear identification of the customer, by understanding the behavior, style and preferences of each segment. After conducting 18 in-depth interviews, it was concluded that four main personas characterize the customer base of the company. These four personas will be the support for the creation of „quick-wins‟ that address to the expectations of each lifestyle, projecting a significant impact on the lifetime-value of the company‟s customer base

Value creation in the nursing home real estate investment market - A case study

The underlying thesis examines the value drivers of direct investments in nursing home real estate in Germany. A survey among investors and operators is conducted in order to identify significant value drivers. Moreover, based on survey results, a framework for assessing German nursing home real estate is developed. This is applied in a case-study about the set-up of a nursing home value-add fund which will demonstrate the value creation process of redeveloping an existing nursing home real estate portfolio. Through a concluding analysis the sources of value creation, sensitivities and future prospects of direct investing into German nursing home real estate are concluded.

The value creation radar applied to the space engineering sector

This case study illustrates the application of the Value Creation Radar (VCR) to SenSyF, an Earth Observation (EO) system which was developed by Deimos Engenharia S.A. (DME), the Portuguese affiliate of Elecnor Deimos. It describes how a team of consultants adopted the VCR in order to find new market applications for SenSyF, selected the one with the highest potential, and defined a path to guarantee a sustainable market launch. This case study highlights the main challenges of bringing a technology-driven company closer to the market in the pursuit of long-term sustainability, while not compromising its technological capabilities

Connect to success- consulting program of the U.S. embassy Lisbon creation of a business plan for “Quinta dos I’s”

The purpose of this project is to analyse and evaluate if the rural tourism cottage Quinta dos I’s will be profitable within the first five years of operation. It starts with a brief description of the business, followed by an industry analysis of the rural tourism market in Portugal and an intensive competitor analysis to evaluate Quinta dos I’s’ competitive advantages. The project then defines a marketing plan to generate awareness and establish the cottage in the market. Finally, a financial analysis is performed to examine the outcome of Quinta dos I’s’ recommended strategic activities. The results of this project show that the cottage is profitable after the first year of operation and expects to grow annually.

Value creation for Amorim Turismo through the optimization of its strategy, resources and processes

With the final purpose of adding value to Amorim Turismo, several papers were analysed, key stakeholders were heard, competitors were studied and so was the market. After this evaluation, it was concluded that there is a chance to consolidate the quality of the service offered and it was with this goal in mind that several recommendations were given. However, such recommendations suffer a cost restriction, which was not neglected, and should be considered into further complementary research activity. Risk assessment was also conducted so that future issues can be anticipated and dealt with preventively.