Generation of a business plan for a logistics service provider

The purpose of this Master’s Thesis was to study the suitability of transportation of liquid wastes to the portfolio of the case company. After the preliminary study the waste types were narrowed down to waste oil and oily waste from ports. The thesis was executed by generating a business plan. The qualitative research of this Master’s Thesis was executed as a case study by collecting information from multiple sources. The business plan was carried out by first familiarizing oneself with literature related to business planning which was then used as a base for the interview of the customer and interviews of the personnel of the case company. Additionally, internet sources and informal conversational interviews with the personnel of the case company were used and these interviews took place during the preliminary study and this thesis. The results of this thesis describe the requirements for the case company that must be met to be able to start operations. Import of waste oil fits perfectly to the portfolio of the case company and it doesn’t require any big investments. Success of the import of waste oil is affected by price of crude oil, exchange rate of ruble and legislation among others. Transportation of oily waste from ports, in turn, is not a core competence of the case company so more actions are required to start operating such as subcontracting with a waste management company.

Creating and measuring customer value in digital businesses

Most economic transactions nowadays are due to the effective exchange of information in which digital resources play a huge role. New actors are coming into existence all the time, so organizations are facing difficulties in keeping their current customers and attracting new customer segments and markets. Companies are trying to find the key to their success and creating superior customer value seems to be one solution. Digital technologies can be used to deliver value to customers in ways that extend customers’ normal conscious experiences in the context of time and space. By creating customer value, companies can gain the increased loyalty of existing customers and better ways to serve new customers effectively. Based on these assumptions, the objective of this study was to design a framework to enable organizations to create customer value in digital business. The research was carried out as a literature review and an empirical study, which consisted of a web-based survey and semi-structured interviews. The data from the empirical study was analyzed as mixed research with qualitative and quantitative methods. These methods were used since the object of the study was to gain deeper understanding about an existing phenomena. Therefore, the study used statistical procedures and value creation is described as a phenomenon. The framework was designed first based on the literature and updated based on the findings from the empirical study. As a result, relationship, understanding the customer, focusing on the core product or service, the product or service quality, incremental innovations, service range, corporate identity, and networks were chosen as the top elements of customer value creation. Measures for these elements were identified. With the measures, companies can manage the elements in value creation when dealing with present and future customers and also manage the operations of the company. In conclusion, creating customer value requires understanding the customer and a lot of information sharing, which can be eased by digital resources. Understanding the customer helps to produce products and services that fulfill customers’ needs and desires. This could result in increased sales and make it easier to establish efficient processes.