Implementation of Customer Relationship Management Strategy in Pulp Company

Työn tarkoituksena oli löytää Asiakkuuksienhallintastrategian käyttöönoton ongelmakohtia asiakkuuksienhallintaan erikoistuneen konsulttiyrityksen asiakasyrityksen taholta. Lisäksi työssä etsitään ratkaisuja asiakkuusteorian viemiseksi käytäntöön. Työn anti on asiakkuusstrategian käytäntöön panon ongelmakohtien paikallistaminen, prosessin vaiheiden kuvaaminen sekä asiakkuuksienhallinnan tutkiminen lähtökohtana asiakkaalle tuotettu arvo. Asiakkuusstrategian implementoinnin ongelmakohtien ja kriittisten menestystekijöiden kuvaus ja vertailu käsitellään empiirisessä osassa suhteuttaen teoriaosuuden materiaaliin. CRM Group:n kannalta työ mahdollistaa osaltaan asiakasprojektien kehitystyön.Kirjallisuusosan pohjalta implementoinnin kannalta kriittisiksi menestystekijöiksi nousivat tietoteknisten ratkaisujen sulauttaminen osaksi asiakkuusstrategiaa tukevia toimintoja, aidon synergian löytäminen asiakas – toimittaja –suhteeseen sekä asiakkuusstrategiaa kehittävän organisaation sisäinen resursointi ja henkilöstön sitouttaminen.

ISO standars on test methods for water radioactivity monitoring

Water is vital to humans and each of us needs at least 1.5 L of safe water a day to drink. Beginning as long ago as 1958 the World Health Organization (WHO) has published guidelines to help ensure water is safe to drink. Focused from the start on monitoring radionuclides in water, and continually cooperating with WHO, the International Standardization Organization (ISO) has been publishing standards on radioactivity test methods since 1978. As reliable, comparable and"fit for purpose" results are an essential requirement for any public health decision based on radioactivity measurements, international standards of tested and validated radionuclide test methods are an important tool for production of such measurements. This paper presents the ISO standards already published that could be used as normative references by testing laboratories in charge of radioactivity monitoring of drinking water as well as those currently under drafting and the prospect of standardized fast test methods in response to a nuclear accident.

The rare cancer network: ongoing studies and future strategy.

The Rare Cancer Network (RCN) was formed in the early 1990's to create a global network that could pool knowledge and resources in the studies of rare malignancies whose infrequency prevented both their study with prospective clinical trials. To date, the RCN has initiated 74 studies resulting in 46 peer reviewed publications. The First International Symposium of the Rare Cancer Network took place in Nice in March of 2014. Status updates and proposals for new studies were heard for fifteen topics. Ongoing studies continue for cardiac sarcomas, thyroid cancers, glomus tumors, and adult medulloblastomas. New proposals were presented at the symposium for primary hepatic lymphoma, solitary fibrous tumors, Rosai-Dorfman disease, tumors of the ampulla of Vater, salivary gland tumors, anorectal melanoma, midline nuclear protein in testes carcinoma, pulmonary lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma, adenoid cystic carcinoma of the trachea, osteosarcomas of the mandible, and extra-cranial hemangiopericytoma. This manuscript presents the abstracts of those proposals and updates on ongoing studies, as well a brief summary of the vision and future of the RCN.

Implementation of bayesian therapeutic drug monitoring in modern patient care

The variability observed in drug exposure has a direct impact on the overall response to drug. The largest part of variability between dose and drug response resides in the pharmacokinetic phase, i.e. in the dose-concentration relationship. Among possibilities offered to clinicians, Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM; Monitoring of drug concentration measurements) is one of the useful tool to guide pharmacotherapy. TDM aims at optimizing treatments by individualizing dosage regimens based on blood drug concentration measurement. Bayesian calculations, relying on population pharmacokinetic approach, currently represent the gold standard TDM strategy. However, it requires expertise and computational assistance, thus limiting its large implementation in routine patient care. The overall objective of this thesis was to implement robust tools to provide Bayesian TDM to clinician in modern routine patient care. To that endeavour, aims were (i) to elaborate an efficient and ergonomic computer tool for Bayesian TDM: EzeCHieL (ii) to provide algorithms for drug concentration Bayesian forecasting and software validation, relying on population pharmacokinetics (iii) to address some relevant issues encountered in clinical practice with a focus on neonates and drug adherence. First, the current stage of the existing software was reviewed and allows establishing specifications for the development of EzeCHieL. Then, in close collaboration with software engineers a fully integrated software, EzeCHieL, has been elaborated. EzeCHieL provides population-based predictions and Bayesian forecasting and an easy-to-use interface. It enables to assess the expectedness of an observed concentration in a patient compared to the whole population (via percentiles), to assess the suitability of the predicted concentration relative to the targeted concentration and to provide dosing adjustment. It allows thus a priori and a posteriori Bayesian drug dosing individualization. Implementation of Bayesian methods requires drug disposition characterisation and variability quantification trough population approach. Population pharmacokinetic analyses have been performed and Bayesian estimators have been provided for candidate drugs in population of interest: anti-infectious drugs administered to neonates (gentamicin and imipenem). Developed models were implemented in EzeCHieL and also served as validation tool in comparing EzeCHieL concentration predictions against predictions from the reference software (NONMEM®). Models used need to be adequate and reliable. For instance, extrapolation is not possible from adults or children to neonates. Therefore, this work proposes models for neonates based on the developmental pharmacokinetics concept. Patients' adherence is also an important concern for drug models development and for a successful outcome of the pharmacotherapy. A last study attempts to assess impact of routine patient adherence measurement on models definition and TDM interpretation. In conclusion, our results offer solutions to assist clinicians in interpreting blood drug concentrations and to improve the appropriateness of drug dosing in routine clinical practice.

Net communication strategy planning and management

Tutkielman tavoitteena on selvittää kuinka suunnitella ja hallita tehokasta verkkoviestintää, joka vastaa kohdeyleisön ja palvelun ylläpitäjien kasvaviin vaatimuksiin. Tutkielma on normatiivinen tapaustutkimus, jonka tuloksena syntyy konstruktiivinen askelmalli kokonaisvaltaisen verkkoviestintäprojektin toteuttamiseen. Tutkimus esittää myös teoreettisesti merkittävän näkökulman verkkopalvelujen sisällön hallintaongelmien ratkaisemiseen. Tosielämän verkkoviestintäprojektin toteutusta seurataan TietoEnator Forestissa, jossa tutkielman kirjoittaja työskentelee. Tutkimusmateriaalina käytetään 11 TietoEnator Forestissa toteutettua haastattelua, TietoEnator konsernin dokumentaatiota ja osallistuvaa havainnointia. Haastattelulomake sisältää 13 avointa kysymystä, jotka käsittelevät verkkoviestintästrategian perusasioita. Tunnistetut verkkoviestinnän avainmenestystekijät ovat vahva sisäinen sitoutuminen hajautettuihin ylläpitorooleihin ja perinpohjainen asiakastarpeiden tunnistaminen. Teknisesti on tärkeää, että eritason verkkoympäristöt, Internet, Intranet ja Extranet, hallitaan samoilla sisällönhallinta työkaluilla. Näin pystytään rationalisoimaan ylläpitotoiminnot.

Ketjumainen toimintamalli henkilöstöravintolayrityksessä

Tutkimuksen tavoitteet Tutkimuksen tavoitteina oli selvittää millaisella toimintamallilla voidaan varmistaa asiakaslähtöinen ja kustannustehokas toimintatapa, joka tuottaa tasalaatuiset palvelut sekä varmistaa yhteisesti sovittujen toimenpiteiden toteutumisen case-yrityksen ylläpitämissä henkilöstöravintoloissa nopeasti ja tehokkaasti. Tutkimusongelmaa lähestyttiin strategisesta näkökulmasta. Kilpailustrategian avulla yritys asemoidaan ympäristöönsä sekä valitaan käytettävät kilpailukeinot. Kilpailuetua haetaan toimintamalleja ja niiden osia kehittämällä. Tällaisia ovat esimerkiksi oppiminen, organisaatiorakenne ja asiakkuuden hallinta. Kustannustehokkuus aikaansaadaan ketjuohjauksella ja asiakaslähtöisyys hyväksikäyttämällä massaräätälöintiä. Asiakasryhmien määrittämiseen käytettiin segmentoinnin teoriaa. Lähdeaineisto Teoriaosuudessa lähdeaineistona käytettiin kotimaista ja ulkomaista kirjallisuutta, jotka käsittelevät strategista ajattelua, kilpailustrategiaa, kilpailuetua, ketjutoimintaa, massaräätälöintiä, segmentointia ja asiakkuuden hallintaa. Empiriaosuuden lähdeaineistona toimivat case-yrityksen strategiaprosessia varten keräämät materiaalit sekä tutkijan omat kokemukset projektin vetäjänä. Tulokset Lopputuloksena case-yritykselle ehdotetaan tutkimuksessa rakentuneita valikoimien- ja toiminnanohjausmalleja. Valikoimien ohjausmallin muodostamiseen käytettiin massaräätälöinnin teoriaa. Toiminnanohjausmalli rakennettiin puolestaan ketjutoiminnan teoriaan perustuen.

Organisaation kehittämisen merkitys yrityksen tulokselle. Tapaustutkimus Elimäen Osuuspankista

Tutkimuksen tarkastelukohteena oli organisaation kehittämisen merkitys yrityksen tulokselle. Tutkielma jakaantui teoreettiseen ja empiiriseen osaan. Teoriaosassa muodostettiin viitekehys organisaation kehittämisen menetelmien ymmärtämiseksi ja siihen vaikuttavien osatekijöiden jaottelemiseksi. Työn empiirisessä osassa tätä viitekehystä hyödynnettiin kysely- ja haastattelututkimuksen sekä asiakas- ja henkilökyselyn pohjana. Organisaation kehittäminen on organisaation ja yksilön oppimista, kykyä oppia ja soveltaa oppimaansa käytäntöön siten, että se saa aikaan taloudellista tulosta. Yrityksen tulos voidaan jakaa taloudelliseen ja laadulliseen tulokseen. Taloudellinen tulos mitataan numeerisesti tilinpäätöksessä. Laadullinen tulos liittyy asiakkuuteen, oppimiskykyyn, sosiaalisen ja inhimillisen arvon mittaamiseen tai tietopääoman kehitykseen, jota voidaan mitata esimerkiksi asiakas- ja henkilöstötutkimuksin. Jotta organisaation kehittämisellä olisi merkitystä yrityksen tulokselle, tulee kehittämistyön olla pitkäjänteistä, systemaattista ja suunnitemallista pohjautuen yrityksen visioon.

Tasapainotettu tuloskortti energiayhtiön strategisena työvälineenä

Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli suunnitella ja toteuttaa tasapainotetun mittariston rakentamisprojekti Kotkan Energia Oy:ssä. Mittaristosta oli tarkoitus luoda ylimmän johdon käyttöön työväline, jota voidaan hyödyntää suorituskyvyn seuraamisen lisäksi myös organisaation strategisessa ohjauksessa. Rakennetun mittariston perustana käytettiin Kaplanin ja Nortonin kehittämää Balanced Scorecardia, jossa strategista suorituskykyä tarkastellaan talouden, asiakkaiden, sisäisten prosessien sekä innovatiivisuuden ja oppimisen näkökulmista. Tutkimusmetodologiana käytettiin konstruktiivista lähestymistapaa. Mittaristoprojektin tuloksena Kotkan Energia Oy:lle luotiin tasapainotettu tuloskortti, joka pohjautuu yhtiön missioon, visioon ja strategiaan. Tuloskortin näkökulmiin määritettiin kriittisten menestystekijöiden perusteella mittarit, jotka jaoteltiin varsinaisiin mittareihin, seurantamittareihin ja valmisteilla oleviin mittareihin. Varsinaisille mittareille asetettiin sekä lyhyen että pitkän tähtäimen tavoitteet. Mittaristoa ja mittareita analysoitiin useista näkökulmista projektin eri vaiheissa. Mittareihin liittyvät tiedot dokumentoitiin mittarikuvauksiin. Mittareille määritettiin raportointitaajuudet ja –ajankohdat. Lisäksi tutkittiin mittaritietojen vertailtavuutta muihin organisaatioihin. Projektin osana yhtiön intranet-sivuille luotiin käyttöliittymä, jonka avulla yhtiön koko henkilöstö pystyy hyödyntämään mittariston tietoja. Mittariston viimeistelyyn ja kehittämiseen liittyvät ideat muotoiltiin jatkosuunnitelmiksi.

Capability matrix – Identifying and evaluating the key capabilities of purchasing and supply management

Organizations gain resources, skills and technologies to find out the ultimate mix of capabilities to be a winner in the competitive market. These are all important factors that need to be taken into account in organizations operating in today's business environment. So far, there are no significant studies on the organizational capabilities in the field of PSM. The literature review shows that the PSM capabilities need to be studied more comprehensively. This study attempts to reveal and fill this gap by providing the PSM capability matrix that identifies the key PSM capabilities approached from two angles: there are three primary PSM capabilities and nine subcapabilities and, moreover, the individual and organizational PSM capabilities are identified and evaluated. The former refers to the PSM capability matrix of this study which is based on the strategic and operative PSM capabilities that complement the economic ones, while the latter relates to the evaluation of the PSM capabilities, such as the buyer profiles of individual PSM capabilities and the PSMcapability map of the organizational ones. This is a constructive case study. The aim is to define what the purchasing and supply management capabilities are and how they can be evaluated. This study presents a PSM capability matrix to identify and evaluate the capabilities to define capability gaps by comparing the ideal level of PSM capabilities to the realized ones. The research questions are investigated with two case organizations. This study argues that PSM capabilities can be classified into three primary categories with nine sub-categories and, thus, a PSM capability matrix with four evaluation categories can be formed. The buyer profiles are moreover identified to reveal the PSM capability gap. The resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities view (DCV) are used to define the individual and organizational capabilities. The PSM literature is also used to define the capabilities. The key findings of this study are i) the PSM capability matrix to identify the PSM capabilities, ii) the evaluation of the capabilities to define PSM capability gaps and iii) the presentation of the buyer profiles to identify the individual PSM capabilities and to define the organizational PSM capabilities. Dynamic capabilities are also related to the PSM capability gap. If a gap is identified, the organization can renew their PSM capabilities and, thus, create mutual learning and increase their organizational capabilities. And only then, there is potential for dynamic capabilities. Based on this, the purchasing strategy, purchasing policy and procedures should be identified and implemented dynamically.

Implementing Agile Software Development Methods in a Small Organization

Currently there is a vogue for Agile Software Development methods and many software development organizations have already implemented or they are planning to implement agile methods. Objective of this thesis is to define how agile software development methods are implemented in a small organization. Agile methods covered in this thesis are Scrum and XP. From both methods the key practices are analysed and compared to waterfall method. This thesis also defines implementation strategy and actions how agile methods are implemented in a small organization. In practice organization must prepare well and all needed meters are defined before the implementation starts. In this work three different sample projects are introduced where agile methods were implemented. Experiences from these projects were encouraging although sample set of projects were too small to get trustworthy results.

Best practice report on policy learning infrastructures in innovative labour market policies

This report synthesizes the findings of 11 country reports on policy learning in labour market and social policies that were conducted as part of WP5 of the INSPIRES project, which is funded by the 7th Framework Program of the EU-Commission. Notably, this report puts forward objectives of policy learning, discusses tools, processes and institutions of policy learning and presents the impacts of various tools and structures of the policy learning infrastructure for the actual policy learning process. The report defines three objectives of policy learning: evaluation and assessment of policy effectiveness, vision building and planning, and consensus building. In the 11 countries under consideration, the tools and processes of the policy learning, infrastructure can be classified into three broad groups: public bodies, expert councils, and parties, interest groups and the private sector. Finally, we develop four recommendations for policy learning: Firstly, learning processes should keep the balance between centralisation and plurality. Secondly, learning processes should be kept stable beyond the usual political business cycles. Thirdly, policy learning tools and infrastructures should be sufficiently independent from political influence or bias. Fourth, Policy learning tools and infrastructures should balance out mere effectiveness, evaluation and vision building.

Debating as a classroom tool for adapting learning outcomes to the European higher education area

The creation of the European Higher Education Area has meant a number of significant changes to the educational structures of the university community. In particular, the new system of European credits has generated the need for innovation in the design of curricula and teaching methods. In this paper, we propose debating as a classroom tool that can help fulfill these objectives by promoting an active student role in learning. To demonstrate the potential of this tool, a classroom experiment was conducted in a bachelor’s degree course in Industrial Economics -Regulation and Competition-, involving a case study in competition policy and incorporating the techniques of a conventional debate -presentation of standpoints, turns, right to reply and summing up-. The experiment yielded gains in student attainment and positive assessments of the subject. In conclusion, the incorporation of debating activities helps students to acquire the skills, be they general or specific, required to graduate successfully in Economics.

Evaluation of steroidomics by liquid chromatography hyphenated to mass spectrometry as a powerful analytical strategy for measuring human steroid perturbations.

This review presents the evolution of steroid analytical techniques, including gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS), immunoassay (IA) and targeted liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS), and it evaluates the potential of extended steroid profiles by a metabolomics-based approach, namely steroidomics. Steroids regulate essential biological functions including growth and reproduction, and perturbations of the steroid homeostasis can generate serious physiological issues; therefore, specific and sensitive methods have been developed to measure steroid concentrations. GC-MS measuring several steroids simultaneously was considered the first historical standard method for analysis. Steroids were then quantified by immunoassay, allowing a higher throughput; however, major drawbacks included the measurement of a single compound instead of a panel and cross-reactivity reactions. Targeted LC-MS methods with selected reaction monitoring (SRM) were then introduced for quantifying a small steroid subset without the problems of cross-reactivity. The next step was the integration of metabolomic approaches in the context of steroid analyses. As metabolomics tends to identify and quantify all the metabolites (i.e., the metabolome) in a specific system, appropriate strategies were proposed for discovering new biomarkers. Steroidomics, defined as the untargeted analysis of the steroid content in a sample, was implemented in several fields, including doping analysis, clinical studies, in vivo or in vitro toxicology assays, and more. This review discusses the current analytical methods for assessing steroid changes and compares them to steroidomics. Steroids, their pathways, their implications in diseases and the biological matrices in which they are analysed will first be described. Then, the different analytical strategies will be presented with a focus on their ability to obtain relevant information on the steroid pattern. The future technical requirements for improving steroid analysis will also be presented.

Longitudinal monitoring of endogenous steroids in human serum by UHPLC-MS/MS as a tool to detect testosterone abuse in sports.

The detection of testosterone abuse in sports is routinely achieved through the 'steroidal module' of the Athlete Biological Passport by GC-MS(/MS) quantification of selected endogenous anabolic androgenic steroids (EAAS) from athletes' urines. To overcome some limitations of the "urinary steroid profile" such as the presence of confounding factors (ethnicity, enzyme polymorphism, bacterial contamination, and ethanol), ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) measurements of blood concentrations of testosterone, its major metabolites, and precursors could represent an interesting and complementary strategy. In this work, two UHPLC-MS/MS methods were developed for the quantification of testosterone and related compounds in human serum, including major progestogens, corticoids, and estrogens. The validated methods were then used for the analyses of serum samples collected from 19 healthy male volunteers after oral and transdermal testosterone administration. Results from unsupervised multiway analysis allowed variations of target analytes to be assessed simultaneously over a 96-h time period. Except for alteration of concentration values due to the circadian rhythm, which concerns mainly corticosteroids, DHEA, and progesterone, significant variations linked to the oral and transdermal testosterone administration were observed for testosterone, DHT, and androstenedione. As a second step of analysis, the longitudinal monitoring of these biomarkers using intra-individual thresholds showed, in comparison to urine, significant improvements in the detection of testosterone administration, especially for volunteers with del/del genotype for phase II UGT2B17 enzyme, not sensitive to the main urinary marker, T/E ratio. A substantial extension of the detection window after transdermal testosterone administration was also observed in serum matrix. The longitudinal follow-up proposed in this study represents a first example of 'blood steroid profile' in doping control analysis, which can be proposed in the future as a complement to the 'urinary module' for improving steroid abuse detection capabilities.

An ontology to automated learning scenarios? an approach to its knowledge domain

Automation or semi-automation of learning scenariospecifications is one of the least exploredsubjects in the e-learning research area. There isa need for a catalogue of learning scenarios and atechnique to facilitate automated retrieval of stored specifications. This requires constructing anontology with this goal and is justified inthis paper. This ontology must mainlysupport a specification technique for learning scenarios. This ontology should also be useful in the creation and validation of new scenarios as well as in the personalization of learning scenarios or their monitoring. Thus, after justifying the need for this ontology, a first approach of a possible knowledge domain is presented. An example of a concrete learning scenario illustrates some relevant concepts supported by this ontology in order to define the scenario in such a way that it could be easy to automate.