One of the major entrepreneurial challenges faced by scaling firms involves changing their internal organization. Our study focuses on a particular aspect of internal organizing—namely, how founder roles evolve in preparation for scaling. By means of an in-depth case study and a combination of data collection methods, we study the evolution of formal and informal founder roles. For both types of roles, we identify a founder-driven and an interaction-driven phase, during which founder and/or joiner role-crafting take place. Through both types of role-crafting, founder roles are (re)shaped. Particularly unique to our study is that we identify three scaling-specific paths through which the role-crafting of joiners shapes founders' roles. Specifically, founders experience a role efficiency increase as they take over some of the joiner-introduced role behaviors, or a role set decrease as joiners take over some of their (formal or informal) roles. We further point to the importance of psychological safety and value fit for successful joiner role-crafting to occur and for founder roles to change following founder-joiner interactions. Our study adds to the literatures on scaling and entrepreneurship as well as to role theory and role-crafting literature.

As more CFOs try to capitalize on the promise of data and analytics, many find their offices aren’t seeing the expected gains. What separates digital finance leaders from the laggards? How can CFOs that struggle with the use of advanced analytics catch up with — and even surpass — their more successful colleagues? In this article, I offer a framework to help CFOs assess their office’s current data sophistication, and I illustrate how finance teams can improve their analytics capability by focusing on seven areas: strategic use of advanced analytics, model explainability, cross-functional data collaboration, analytics skills, exploration and experimentation, data-driven culture, and digital inclusivity.

With the aging of the global workforce, it is crucial to deepen our understanding of how to keep older workers healthy, motivated, and productive. In this research, we integrate job design with socioemotional selectivity theory to propose that social job characteristics relate to employee performance differently for older and younger workers. Specifically, in a three-wave survey (N=454), we tested employee age as a moderator of the relationships between receiving social support and feedback at work, and performance, as well as giving social support and feedback at work, and performance. The results showed that, in general, both receiving and giving social support and feedback are associated more strongly with the performance of older than younger workers. The findings provide important theoretical implications for the study of aging and work; they also offer practical applications for creating workplaces in which older workers can reap the benefits of social relationships to remain productive.

This textbook discusses the sources of funding and capital structure of corporations (excluding financial institutions). After an introduction on the objectives and functions of corporate finance, the following topics are covered: investment analysis and minimum investment return requirement, capital structure and dividend policy, long- and medium-term financing, working capital valuation, international financial policy, and other specific financial topics. - The authors link theoretical insight to practical cases. - Written for financial professionals and (post)university students.

In numerous binary classification tasks, the two groups of instances are not equally represented, which often implies that the training data lack sufficient information to model the minority class correctly. Furthermore, many traditional classification models make arbitrarily overconfident predictions outside the range of the training data. These issues severely impact the deployment and usefulness of these models in real life. In this paper, we propose the boundary regularizing out-of-distribution (BROOD) sampler, which adds artificial data points on the edge of the training data. By exploiting these artificial samples, we are able to regularize the decision surface of discriminative machine learning models and make more prudent predictions. Next, it is crucial to correctly classify many positive instances in a limited pool of instances that can be investigated with the available resources. By smartly assigning predetermined nonuniform class probabilities outside the training data, we can emphasize certain data regions and improve classifier performance on various material classification metrics. The good performance of the proposed methodology is illustrated in a case study that consists of both benchmark balanced and imbalanced classification data sets.

Yanmar is currently redefining its strategy within the market of construction equipment. Yanmar CE EMEA aspires to focus on delivering the best customer experience. Owing to this, the concept of trainings - sales and technical trainings - as well customer experiences, such as product demonstrations must be defined for the future. The crux of the matter can be formulated as a single question. What is the most efficient, attractive, and convenient way to offer product training, technical training and a customer experience to the dealers and end-customers in a financially sustainable way? To answer this research question, data is gathered from a wide range of sources. The data was gathered by internal- and external interviews, customer surveys, and desk research. Its aim is to understand the competitive landscape, Yanmar’s positioning within this landscape and opportunities for Yanmar’s future training- and customer’s experience. Hence, the 3C framework is adopted as a comprehensive foundation. Four main trends could be identified among competitors. First, there is a clear trend or preference for customer centers to provide trainings and organize customer experiences of different types. The centers are situated at accessible locations. Simultaneously, they are often close to plants. The practice is most often supported by a strong online training platform that offers sales training and technical training, among other features. The customer survey revealed that communication is the main reason why dealers are currently not joining. When their view on the important parameters for training was questioned, three parameters stood out. The physical access to machines, the opportunity to share expertise and, for product trainings, the opportunity to benchmark with competitors. For customer experience, the overall experience grew immensely in importance, yet the access to machines and demo remained the most important parameter by far. The company interviews highlighted different hurdles and opportunities. An urgent demand for systematic product trainings came to light which could provide additional homogeneity. The technical training consists of elements which require physical training, yet digital solutions are currently developed and can be expanded in the future. The importance of customer experience was highlighted by the connection of it through the whole customer journey. From sales to after-sales, there is always a customer behind. Delivering the best customer experience constitutes an influential goal with implications for all activities. The key recommendations are presented as five scenarios in which product training, technical training and the customer experience are envisioned with an extensive business plan. There are three categories, i.e., one online scenario is introduced, two local scenarios and two center scenarios. The online scenario focus on the development of online capabilities by launching a digital platform. The platform aims to establish three features, namely connectivity, e-learning and on-demand learning. The on-demand learning serve as physical back-up that support the digital content. The first center scenario proposes to build a center near a production site. This leaves two options, either close to Saint-Dizier or close to Crailsheim. The financial analysis confirms the feasibility. The quality of trainings, the low HR implications and low operational complexity are the main benefits of this scenario. Minor changes are required compared with the current way of working. Nonetheless, synergies would be created by concentrating efforts on a single center instead of two independent locations. The new customer center could include promising customer experience options if incorporated in the building’s design. The second center scenario considers a new accessible location. This aims to boost the overall experience with a more attractive location or more neutral location in between the existing premises. Different locations come with different advantages. Some focus on the customer experience aspect, while other prioritize the potential strain on Yanmar’s workforce due to relocation. In general, the same considerations of the former scenario are applicable here as well. The first local scenario aspires to optimize the currently held local trainings by clustering dealers based on, among others, distance and size. This clustering ensures close relations within the cluster and with a market specific training team. Scheduled trainings would be offered, but the improved proximity could empower two-way communication on demand. Next to trainings, demo fleets and the customer experience can be localized too. The scenario would require a highly mobile training team that is willing to work remotely. Lastly, the second local scenario is based on the cluster scenario. The concept of the Yanmar Tour as organized in 2021 is added mainly to the core markets to boost the customer experience and local product training with an additional brand injection. This could truly realize the vision of customer intimacy and delivering the best customer experience. However, this introduces a considerable added operational cost which has to be overcome to make this scenario feasible. The scenarios are evaluated using 16 KPIs that cover the interests of Yanmar, the dealer networks and compare the solution with the competition. Weights are assigned to the KPIs using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Using a decision matrix, a quantitative evaluation of all scenarios is made. The resulting decision matrix prefers the center scenario near a production site, i.e., to build a center at Rothenburg/Crailsheim or at Saint-Dizier. There is a small favour for Rothenburg/Crailsheim. Next, the online scenario ranks third due to the estimated low upfront investments and operational costs. Building center in a new accessible location would imply a relatively higher operational cost, more HR implications and more overall risk; this causes this scenario to be valued fourth. Finally, the local scenarios come in last. While they score great on dealer and competitor related KPIs, the financial strain for Yanmar significantly lowers the score of the scenarios. In short, a center scenario near a production site or a focus on online capabilities is recommended considering the evaluation of the decision matrix.

Proximus is a mobile telecommunications firm in Belgium. The company is a part of the parent organization Proximus Group, which was previously referred to as the Belgacom Group. With over two million customers, Proximus is the largest telecom operator in the country with its headquarters based in Brussels. Proximus faces fierce competition from other telecom firms, such as Orange Belgium, Telenet, Voo and many others. Proximus was established in 1994, which was part of the subsidiary called Belgacom Mobile. Many momentums followed in the next years, such as the firm being the first mobile telephony operator to offer 3G services to general public in Belgium in 2005. In the following years, Belgacom, now Proximus Group, acquired many organizations, such as Scarlet NV in 2008, and consequently expanded its parent organization. In 2021, new innovations were launched including the teleconsultation app Doktr, the sustainable banking app Banx and the launch of two joint ventures to accelerate the fiber roll-out. The current board of directors includes Guillaume Boutin, as CEO of the Proximus Group alongside many others (Proximus Group, n.d.). Our mission at Proximus for our In-Company Project is to boost the adoption of the digital support tools, namely the FAQ pages on the website, the MyProximus app and the Proximus Virtual Assistant, for current residential customers. This problem statement is further defined into five research questions, covering the awareness of the digital tools, gains and pains customers at Proximus might experience using the support tools, the reason why clients still use the call centre the most out of all the support channels, the future behaviour of clients in terms of the usage of digital support tools and what the behaviour is of customers at competitors or in other industries. To provide an answer to the research questions, insights from a wide variety of sources were analysed, more specifically from academic literature, internal and external research, an Ad Hoc VoC (Voice of The Customer) survey and a Benchmarking survey. Firstly, some academic papers and business papers were investigated in which gains and pains were uncovered about the application and chatbot. Moreover, some general insights about the rise of the digital support tools and customer decision making behaviour and perceptions of digital channels are defined and discussed. On the one hand, for applications, the convenience, ease of use and personalization are three examples of gains found in the literature. Convenience, human interaction, miscommunication, and high effort reflect, on the other hand, the perceptions of customers about chatbots. Secondly, market trends reports are discussed in which an omnichannel strategy is stated to be key when trying to provide the best experience to customers across all touchpoints in their journey. Another trend discovered is personalization and the uprise of proactive communication to offer an effortless customer service to clients. The importance of human interaction, through voice bot, for instance, is also highlighted. Thirdly, the Voice of the Customer dashboards, which is an internal source of information at Proximus, offers findings in the use of digital support tools. Around 58% of Proximus customers do not use any digital channel before calling the call centre. When focusing on the website, only 40% of clients are satisfied when looking for Sensitivity: Confidential - Not for you? Notify the sender and delete. See more on https://www.proximus.com/respect-confidentiality support, while the app is rarely considered by them when seeking help. Even though the chatbot is mostly used for getting help, a low satisfaction is observed when only a robot is involved. Fourthly, the management dashboard in Adobe looks into the behaviour of customers on the Proximus website and mobile application. It is found that 28% of clients land on the website after an organic search. Also, customer intents regarding the website and the chat are identified, which shows a high number of visits for the billing section, but no other support section ranks high in the most visited sections. Fifthly, two internal research conducted in 2019 and 2022 are included in the report. The research from 2019 analysing the drivers and barriers for online sales and servicing at Proximus, uncover the easiness to use, the efficiency and the trust as three main criteria for the adoption of digital channels. The results of the Digital Maturity Index from 2022 will be included in the overview of all Verbatims at the end of this section. Sixthly, a benchmark of telco operators in Belgium and other countries as well as firms in other industries provides insightful information. For the competitive landscape in Belgium, a main outcome are the strategies about pushing the digital tools more than the physical ones at, for instance, Telenet. Moreover, differences across FAQ webpages between all firms active in the telecom industry are present. A good practice to take out, is the clear explanation of advantages and practicalities per digital channel offered by Telenet. When comparing Proximus to global telco players, the content format, as well as the wide variety of new features in their apps differentiates these latter from their competitors. Once again, emphasizing the benefits of the channels but also loyalty programs are used in other industries to attract customers into using their digital support tools more. Seventhly, the findings of the Ad hoc VoC survey reveal that the willingness to use the website in the future is lower for Millennials compared to any other generation. When looking at the MyProximus application, this tool is the most known among Millennials, which goes hand in hand with the higher awareness for the channel by these latter and by Generation X. Moreover, for these two generations, the willingness to use the tool in the future is the highest. However, it must be noted that a low number of people mentioned to use the app for support purposes. Lastly, younger generations have a higher tendency to look for support via the chatbot, while a significantly lower willingness to use is found for Baby Boomers. Eighthly, some conclusions can be drawn from the Benchmarking survey. For the call centre, older generations and less tech-savvy customers seem to call more. Looking at the website, younger generations, as well as people who perceive themselves as more tech-savvy use the channel more when seeking support. The MyProximus application is preferred by tech-savvy peoples, since they mentioned they would be willing to use it more in the future than people who don’t perceive themselves as tech-savvy. Likewise, more tech-savvy customers will use the chatbot more than non-tech-savvy clients. Across several surveys, Verbatims were analysed and coded to reveal the gains and pains for each tool. The gains for the call centre focus primarily on the human interaction, the convenience, and the habit. However, even if this support tool is used the most, customers are dissatisfied with the long waiting queues for this channel. When Sensitivity: Confidential - Not for you? Notify the sender and delete. See more on https://www.proximus.com/respect-confidentiality looking at the website, the convenience, autonomy, structure, and the lack of technical issues are highly appreciated in contrast to the high effort to find relevant and clear information or the inability to find any answer at all. The convenience and clarity of the information are positively perceived by clients for the MyProximus app, compared to the unsatisfaction of customers with the technical issues, the relevance of the answers found and the high effort to find information on this same tool. For the chatbot, the 24/7 availability and convenience are the gains stated by the customers. Nonetheless, the pains are the miscommunication, the lack of human interaction and the inability to find an answer for this digital tool. To solve the low awareness of the digital tools for support, while highlighting the gains and solving the pains, several recommendations are provided. To reduce the number of interactions with the call centre, we advise informing the customers of the digital tools when waiting on the phone and to use the Proximus agents in the call centre and shops as digital advocators for the digital support channels. The website should be improved through a tailor-made quiz that gives the opportunity to customers to navigate the website more easily. Interactive videos are also suggested to provide a quicker and more personalized customer service. The proposed SEO campaign tackles the inability to find relevant and clear information from the start of their browsing journey. The recommendations for the application cover the technical issues, as well as the lack of awareness of the tool for support by facilitating the download of the app through a QR code promoted on the website. The proactive pop-up notifications in the app and the personalized FAQ interface will lower the effort for customers to find relevant responses. Furthermore, the new version of the guide for new users in the app will increase the low awareness of the support section within the tool. Lastly, less miscommunication in the chatbot will be achieved through a button-based menu, while the unsatisfaction regarding the lack of human interaction will be solved by giving a name and face to the bot. By combining both a text and voice recognition option for the chatbot the probability of having no answer after an interaction with the digital channel will be significantly reduced.

The increasing popularity and interest in glamping, which has been accelerated by many factors including the Covid-19 pandemic, have led to more people wanting to try this type of accommodation, to experience for themselves what glamping is really about. Glamping has many faces and there is not one set definition of what glamping is except for one thing that everyone agrees on. That is that glamping means glamorous camping. It can vary from sleeping in a lodge in the mountains, an experience in a yurt in the desert to a romantic stay in a tent on a beach. Autentic is a Belgian designer and manufacturer of luxury cotton bell tents. As a new company on the market, Autentic wants to keep on expanding their network of individual and business clients by entering the glamping market in new countries. All this while building a strong brand and position in the countries where it is already present. In order to achieve it, a well-defined go-to-market strategy for the brand is needed. Strategy that will focus on targeting the right customer segments with the appropriate marketing messages. Set communication plans, taking into account the target markets of the company as well as the competitive environment, will allow the company to build its position globally as a premium glamping tent manufacturer. The results and content of this report are backed by a comprehensive literature review, qualitative and quantitative research, company analysis as well as competitor analysis to have a better understanding of the environment that Autentic is in. Findings from the qualitative and quantitative research as well as other analyses that have been done to provide insights and valuable information based on which we were able to provide the company with the go-to-market strategy. The GTM strategy is divided into parts to provide a more in-depth look at each of them as well as to highlight the importance of each part needing to be executed well in order for the whole strategy to work well as a whole since everything is intertwined. The key elements discussed in this report are the tangible recommendations and actions that Autentic can take in order to get to the position of a premium, global bell tent manufacturer. The solutions provided refer to action that can be taken both short term as well as long term. Some small, easy to execute steps of the plan suggested to the company have already been taken and changed have been implemented. For the rest, when it comes to something as working on the website's design and content is an easier to execute task which will take more time initially but will not be very time consuming in the long run. Other aspects, like creating, updating and analysing the databases, will require continuous attention from the company in order to give Autentic the best possible tools and data to execute important strategic decisions that will benefit its growth.

Overproduction and overconsumption of products is a common problem in today’s society, with harmful consequences for people and the environment. The rise of fast business models contributed to this problem, allowing consumers to purchase affordable products with lower quality and higher production risks. However, the increasing awareness of consumers on the environmental damages these business models bring have contributed to a shift in multiple industries. Businesses are consciously looking for more sustainable alternatives to provide to their customers and this trend is also noticeable in the furniture industry. Live Light is an example of such a business. By opting for furniture as a service, the company hopes to fight the battle against fast furniture. They do this by using the circular economy principle. In practice, the start-up rents out existing furniture, environmentally-friendly produced with high-quality durable materials. Once it is rented out, Live Light offers the customer the possibilities to return, swap or buy-out the products. Live Light successfully launched in 2020 and has been growing its customer portfolio ever since. Because of the rapid growth, the spin-off typically struggles with keeping an overview of their customer profiles. Therefore, Live Light would benefit from mapping out their current and potential customer portfolio. This way, they can reach their customers more efficiently and continue the steady growth by providing the right message to the right audience. Hence, this In-Company Project focuses on optimizing the Live Light communication and marketing strategies by developing personas for the B2B and B2C audiences. Within the scope of our In-Company Project, we developed personas and a communication strategy based on available literature, quantitative survey and qualitative interview research. The literature and desk research describes the changing environment that contributed to Live Light's creation and the competitive landscape of Live Light. By means of survey research, we were able to identify the existing and potential B2C customers of Live Light. In total we gathered 594 survey responses, of which 524 were extremely useful. The exploration of the B2B market was examined by means of interviews. A short survey was also attached at the end to find out the decisive value drivers for those decision makers. In total, we conducted 12 interviews including four existing customers and eight potential customers. To gain even further insight into the existing B2B customers, we also leveraged the existing data that Live light has managed to collect to date. From our analyses, five clear segments could be identified within the B2C market. Whereby one of the segments, the Live Light Lover, is seen as the most important target group on which Live Light should focus. This persona is already very present in the current subscribers and there is an attractive market potential of 14% in the market of non-subscribers. This segment is very interested in interior design, quality and sustainability. Live Light Lovers use magazines and social media platforms to get inspiration for their new interior. Instagram and Pinterest in particular are a source of inspiration for these people. They are drawn towards design stores, as these sell the brands they aspire to possess. For the Live Light Lover, it is crucial for design pieces to be sustainably sourced and from an environmentally-friendly company. While this plays a significant role, the quality products have to fit in their well-thought-out interior. Even though price is not the most important decision criterium, it still plays a certain role for these people. Knowing all this, it is evident that the communication message for this segment should highlight the premium quality, design and sustainability aspect. In this research we give detailed examples and tactics on how Live Light could approach this segment. Interviews with existing and potential customers also yielded many new insights. When we began to make a comparison or distinction between the companies, one thing became clear to us. For all interviewed companies, flexibility appeared to be a key driver for furniture rental. Although this driver contains different meanings for each respondent, this one came out as the most pronounced. Flexibility refers on one hand to the possibility of testing the furniture without buying them outright and on the other hand to the possibility to swap. In addition, we noticed that the driver price is also very closely aligned with flexibility. When analyzing this further, it turned out that this was mainly about minimizing financial risks by giving companies the possibility, and thus the flexibility, to make monthly payments. Instead of price, this driver could be formulated as affordability. Because flexibility was so prominent in our analysis, we would advise Live Light to use this in their overall message towards different industries and companies. This way they are slightly assured that they will already reach a large segment. However, further analyses from our B2B survey also revealed that, within the organization, different decision makers could also attach importance to other value drivers. From these results, we managed to identify two more prominent distinctions and build two explorative B2B personas. Our first and most important B2B persona would be interior savvy Isabelle. This persona wants to deliver the best possible design and quality to her clients and thus this is what drives her in her search for furniture. Even though price is not the most important decision-criterium, it still plays a certain role for Isabelle. Sustainability is also always a nice touch, but it is not what prevails in her search. This persona can be reached through social media, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, of which the latter two should be focused on more extensively. She sees Instagram as the optimal platform for promoting her own business but also for finding inspiration. She also finds LinkedIn interesting to get in touch with other companies and thus potential clients. However, this platform is not necessary for advertisement placement. Pinterest is a source of inspiration for her projects. A second persona for B2B is Sustainable Steve. Although this seems like an interesting segment for Live Light, it needs to be invested further in future research to draw definite conclusions. We therefore opt for Interior savvy Isabelle to be the first one in line to target. In addition, by means of desk research we were able to analyze the competitive landscape and current position of Live Light. Here we could conclude that since Live Light just entered the market, they already have a sufficient positioning. However, they should be aware of the increasing shift towards furniture rental and circularity models, and the rising interest of both competitors and customers. As these trends have conquered the US-market already extensively, we are sure this wave will come across the Benelux as well. We therefore advise Live Light to be aware of the already existing and close competitors and optimize their positioning, based on already more established strategies as we see in the US. In conclusion, with this research we provide Live Light with an overview of who and how they should reach their customers to accelerate their future growth. We are certain that Live Light still has a very large growth potential just by adapting some minor things in their communication approach.

This report summarizes an external consultancy project conducted by the Vlerick group at the CSI department at the DHL headquarters in Bonn, Germany. DHL Group provides an international service portfolio in the areas of express delivery, freight transport, supply chain management, e-commerce solutions, and letter and parcel dispatch. CSI is DHL's commercial and innovation unit that works across departments to develop new products and services for the DHL group. The unit is responsible for managing about 100 of DHL's largest and most important customers on behalf of all of DHL's business units. The main goal of this project is built on last year's project and is mainly to increase the effectiveness of the whole process, with the primary goal of increasing the efficiency and accuracy of the nominated customer's selection for the CSI portfolio. This goal is translated into the following objectives: Update the annual financial figures of the CSI customer portfolio. Research the new set of customers that have been added since last year. Improve and enhance the analytical framework that is used by DHL to evaluate the potential fit of any DHL customer to be nominated and included in the CSI top customers Portfolio. Redesign the visualization tools in the dashboard to increase usability and make it readable for non-data experts. The Vlerick team successfully completed the project's objectives by firstly: researching and collecting the financial figures of the CSI portfolio customers, using the customer's annual reports, financial statements, and analyst reports. By accomplishing this, the team managed to build the foundational data needed to achieve the remaining objectives. Secondly, the team re-evaluated the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and their weights executed through both primary and secondary data. Literature research on academic studies and industry data sets, as well as interviews with industry experts and constant collaboration with the CSI unit management and analysts. Therefore, the team recommends the following: 1. Discarding three different KPIs from the model. After a comprehensive analysis of these 3 KPIs and consultation with account strategists, the team came to a conclusion that there is no added value to the model but instead spread of the weights, which results in lowered accuracy. Re-consider the weighting of the KPIs, which is based on subjective conclusions. Instead, the team recommends the usage of the level-based weight assessment (LBWA). The weights of the KPIs in the current model were not empirically verified, which negatively impacted the accuracy of the model. Consequently, the team resolved the issue by applying a data-based framework to determine the weight coefficients of each KPI. Usage of the visualization tools developed by the team to increase usability and make the dashboard user-friendly. By applying these recommendations, the goal of this project is accomplished, which was to increase the effectiveness of the whole process by increasing the efficiency and accuracy of the potential CSI Customer Attractiveness Model.