BMW A Company Analysis

Background: The automotive industry is distinguished by a highly competitive market. Thus, the actors on the market struggle with increasing cost of production, development and mature markets. With the aim to increase profit margins and reduce costs, Volkswagen, GM and Ford are some companies, which use the same components in different car models and car brands. These companies have in other words succeeded in synergising research and development effects within the company despite car model and business area. By a contrast, BMW, an individual actor, has yearly shown strong financial results and has retained its market shares. This becomes of interest to study more profoundly, in order to find the factors behind a successful company and a strong brand. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the development of BMW during the past five years. Not only are the financial statements taken into consideration. In addition, a comparison to competitors and the market situation is also made. Delimitation and assumptions: This thesis is delimited to an analysis of BMW between the years 2001-2005. The thesis is based on the assumption that BMW is the most successful automotive manufacturer in the premium segment. Methodology: In the study of BMW both primary and secondary data are used. The primary data consists of an interview and secondary data is collected from annual reports. Results and Conclusion: BMW is a well known and highly valued brand and has high diversity in the product portfolio. BMW possesses high internal competence and the company develop a large part of the car by themselves. The emerging markets in South East Asia, Russia, Eastern Europe and South America have shown evident growth developments. Eminent production, transportation and raw material costs have both dampened margins and affected the buying power of consumers likewise as high oil prices. Suggestions for further studies: What would be of interest are the services that the automobile manufacturers offer beside the cars, the after sales services, like financial services for example. In addition, future research could also include studies of customer loyalty in association to the after sales services

Establishing intermodal terminals

This study examines the development process of intermodal road-rail freight terminals. Of particular interest are factors affecting the development process and the time needed to establish intermodal road-rail terminals. The results are intended not only to be interesting to researchers, but also of practical use to actors developing intermodal terminals. Based on rational choice theory and two Swedish case studies, Falk\uf6ping/Skaraborg and N\ue4ssj\uf6/J\uf6nk\uf6ping, factors identified and analysed are: profitability, financiers, political entrepreneur, location, large local shippers, and the traffic authorities. Profitability combined with an enthusiastic and committed political entrepreneur are the most vital factors for the success and pace of the development process

Etablering av kombiterminaler

Denna rapport \ue4r framtagen f\uf6r Falk\uf6pings Kommun inom ramen f\uf6r projektet SustAccess och behandlar processen att etablera kombiterminaler d\ue4r lastb\ue4rare s\ue5som ISO-containrar, semi-trailrar och v\ue4xelflak lastas om mellan j\ue4rnv\ue4g och landsv\ue4g. Den \ue4r en forts\ue4ttning och f\uf6rdjupning av tidigare arbete inom SustAccess. Arbetet har finansierats av Europeiska Kommissionen genom programmet Interreg IIIB och av V\ue4stra G\uf6talandsregionen och Falk\uf6pings Kommun samt av Banverket och V\ue4gverket via FUD-centret Sir-C.Syftet med studien \ue4r att studera hur intermodala terminaler kan etableras. S\ue4rskilt belyses faktorer som p\ue5verkar huruvida etableringsprocessen \ue4r framg\ue5ngsrik och den tid processen tar i anspr\ue5k. Den prim\ue4ra forskningsfr\ue5gan \ue4r s\ue5ledes vilka faktorer som avg\uf6r hur l\ue5ng tid ett etableringsprojekt tar. Tanken \ue4r att rapporten skall vara till hj\ue4lp f\uf6r de akt\uf6rer som vill utveckla kombiterminaler. Utifr\ue5n teori om rationella val och tre fallstudier - Falk\uf6ping, J\uf6nk\uf6ping och N\ue4ssj\uf6 – analyseras vilka faktorer som avg\uf6r hur l\ue5ng tid en etableringsprocess tar i anspr\ue5k. De faktorer som identifierats \ue4r L\uf6nsamhet, Finansi\ue4rer, Politisk entrepren\uf6r, Lokalisering Stor lokal transportk\uf6pare samt Banverket. Den f\uf6rsta faktorn f\ue5r nog bed\uf6mas som starkare \ue4n de andra. Det \ue4r f\uf6rst\ue5s generellt s\ue5 att investeringar som f\uf6rv\ue4ntas vara mycket l\uf6nsamma \ue4r enklare att driva igenom en beslutsprocess. Utifr\ue5n denna studie framg\ue5r det att en engagerad politisk entrepren\uf6r \ue4r vital f\uf6r att etableringsprocessen skall framskrida, men de \uf6vriga faktorerna \ue4r sv\ue5rare att rangordna

Goal conflicts in political decision making: a survey of municipality politicians\u27 view of road pricing.

Investigates the existence of goal conflicts in political decision-making in the case of municipality politicians in Sweden on the issue of road pricing scheme. Goals of municipality politicians other than reducing car use; Possibility of failure in achieving environmental goals because of goal conflicts

Goal conflicts in political decisionmaking: a survey of municipality politicians' views of road pricing

An ongoing discussion concerns road-pricing schemes as measures to abate traffic congestion and air pollution in metropolitan areas. If such measures are to be effective, road-pricing fees must be set sufficiently high. However, municipalities are likely to have other goals besides reducing car use, such as upholding fairness among citizens and financial goals such as creating revenues. If conflicts prove to exist between different goals, road-pricing schemes are not likely to achieve the environmental goal. To investigate the degree to which these goal conflicts exist, members of the local governments in the three major metropolitan areas of Sweden responded to a survey questionnaire. In the questionnaire they rated a number of principles guiding the setting of road-pricing fees hypothesized to correspond to the three goals. The results showed that, for the political majority, the hypothesized goal conflicts existed in that no single goal was optimized. It is concluded that in particular fairness may prevent road pricing achieving the environmental goal.