ÇA VA SAVON is a sustainable body soap brand that offers fully biodegradable soap pods along with a reusable bottle. The innovative concept tries to respond to the fact that today only a small minority of the recyclable plastic waste in the world is effectively recycled. The product is super convenient in use. The soap pod must be mixed with tap water in the reusable bottle and the result is a full-fledged body soap that takes care of your skin and the planet. During the first phase of the project, the objective was to determine and confirm the ideal customer for ÇVSVN. This was accomplished after a round of interviews with existing customers (i.e. people who pre-ordered ÇVSVN prior to the in-company project) and several interview rounds on a wider population (i.e. people with the same characteristics, but who had not heard about ÇVSVN before). The typical ÇVSVN client is characterized as a middle-class woman, aged between 20 and 29 years old, active in entrepreneurship, healthcare, or creative sectors. They care about their ecological footprints, albeit for different reasons. The second phase of the report covers the business model viability, in which the overall feasibility of the concept is being tested in terms of costs and revenues, with regards to the market conditions, the industry, and competitors. The market environment and industry show some interesting evolutions, such as increasing living standards, increasing spending on personal care, a shift towards sustainable and organic alternatives by consumers, and the rise in awareness regarding the health benefits of a hygienic lifestyle due to the pandemic. ÇVSVN is able to become profitable within five years, supported and proven by the performed financial forecasts and estimations. Thirdly, the optimal supply chain has been developed. For the soap pods (i.e. the concentrate that is encapsulated with a film), there is a network of three Dutch partners that supply the required chemical ingredients for the soap concentrate. The encapsulation films are provided by MonoSol, a U.S.-based supplier. These films are the ideal way to package a pre-measured dose of soap in a compact and convenient way, which is done by Harke, a co-packer located in Germany. Simultaneously, the reusable soap bottles will be produced by Takemoto, a Japanese partner. When the previous steps are finished, the Dutch company ZeroPackaging will take care of the packaging. On the one hand, there is a starter pack that consists of one bottle and one soap pod. On the other, these is a refill pack that includes three soap pods, without a bottle. Then, these finished products will enter the market through small specialty shops and pharmacists. This allows ÇVSVN to learn about retail mechanics and to gain experience on a smaller scale. In a startup phase, it is also very valuable that pharmacists and salespeople take time to offer a word of explanation about the product towards potential customers. In a later stage, when there is brand recognition, the product will also be offered in supermarkets. Lastly, there are three main findings with regards to the profitability and growth of ÇVSVN, based on the growth- and break-even model. First, the business is expected to be profitable within five years. The increasing amount of orders, and thus the obtained economies of scale, significantly lowers the relative costs of goods sold (COGS). In addition, some startup costs are no longer required at a certain point, lowering the overhead expenses. Hence, the profit margin of the business increases. Secondly, the business is expected to break even in year 5 at 63,000 unique customers, which is only 5% of the serviceable obtainable market (SOM). By year 6, the aim is to reach at least 10% of the SOM. This depicts the large scaling potential of ÇVSVN and sheds an optimistic light on ÇVSVN’s future. And finally, a capital injection of 1.3 million euros is needed to cover the marketing expenditures and working capital requirements in the next five years. As ÇVSVN is a new soap brand, marketing is an essential part of creating brand awareness among customers and therefore requires a significant budget. In addition, the next steps that will allow for the optimization of ÇVSVN’s business case have also been identified.

In this paper, different proposals are examined and argued through which Airtec's cost model can be optimized. Airtec is part of the Swedish company Atlas Copco and it produces screw elements that are internally resold to build a screw compressor. Airtec's activity consists almost exclusively of metalwork operations and the assembly of the element. Currently, Airtec uses a cost model that works with activity-based costing: different kinds of costs are allocated via different activity and resource drivers. The purpose of this report is to refine the model. The objective of all the discussed suggestions is to increase the accuracy of the cost calculation. More specific, eight contemporary topics will be addressed and each proposal can be individually considered: tooling at supplier, wage, replacement value, incorporating CO2 costs, intracompany rent, allocation of indirect costs, cost drivers, and cost of complexity. This list is ranked from largest to the smallest expected impact on the cost model. In order to refine the cost model of these activities, we propose changes in eight areas. In Section 3, we propose in more detail how to allocate the costs to toolings that are present at suppliers’ premises. Section 4 explains the impact of incorporating the full wage instead of only a percentage. In Section 5, we assess the impact on the cost model of using replacement value instead of acquisition value. We proudly present a model in which Airtec's entire CO2 footprint is allocated to the costs in Section 6. For the CO2 footprint we take into account the energy costs, business travel costs and transport costs. The transport cost is allocated based on the distance from the supplier of the raw material to Airtec's production facility in Wilrijk. Section 7 assesses the discrepancy between the market prices and the intracompany rent price that Airtec pays to Atlas Copco. In Section 8, Section 9, and Section 10, the allocation of indirect costs, cost drivers and the cost of complexity are discussed. Some of the suggested improvements find their origin in our comparative analysis between Atlas Copco’s Chinese production site and the one in Wilrijk. All our suggestions are accompanied by a critical analysis of the current way of working, a literature review, an argumentative and benchmarking approach of best practices from literature, an elaborate explanation of the proposed change, and a detailed numerical example of the impact on the cost calculations. All collected ideas form a solid basis for further optimization of the cost model.

Starting companies are extremely important for the economy as they create many positive external effects. Hence, financial institutions bare the important role to support the needs of these starters, so that they have a higher chance of succeeding. PMV even goes a step further and was specifically created by the government to provide affordable financing to the Flemish starters. To achieve this goal, PMV is split up in several departments. At the highest level, it is divided into three branches. Namely, investments in infrastructure and real estate, equity-, and debt-financing. This research project covers PMV/z, which is focused on providing starting companies with debt-financing. More specifically, the project was carried out, under guidance of Emmanuel Damman, the head of “PMV/z-leningen”, which is the department that provides starters with subordinated loans. The scope of the project is to provide recommendations on the current products that “PMV/z-leningen” offers and to evaluate how these can be improved based on the market insights. First, the target group, namely the starters, was analyzed for specific trends. By analyzing data of the client base of “PMV/z-leningen”, we were able to map the locations of where these companies were founded and in which industry, they are active. Since many different industries exist, we based the conclusions on three categories, namely, old economy, knowledge intensive, and technology companies. It was observed that, although technology has such an important role in our daily lives, old economy companies still represent most of the starter landscape and sign up the highest growth. Furthermore, it was discovered that the province of Limburg is lagging behind technology companies compared to the other provinces. Second, taking a deeper look into the portfolio of PMV/z enabled us to gather more insights in how the department functions. Here, the question was asked what type of starters PMV/z is currently missing. Comparing the founder characteristics of its portfolio with the market distribution taught us that on average the entrepreneurs requesting PMV/z loans are younger than the average starters. They are also less likely to be a female, as PMV/z’s portfolio underrepresents female founders. Additionally, in terms of industry there is a serious overrepresentation of “Hospitality sector”, “Wholesale and retail trade”, and “Financial and insurance activities” causing an underrepresentation of other industries, such as “Construction and real estate” and “Human health and social work activities”. Moreover, although the number of loan requests from technology companies increases over the researched period, their percentage share relative to the total loan requests decreases over the same period. Third, although raw data gives clear views on certain trends, it is important not to miss the voice of starters as PMV/z’s products must have the right fit with starter’ needs. Performing twenty-eight interviews with both starters and organizations (financial and support) gave us a better view on how PMV/z could improve its products. Additionally, a survey was distributed to starters resulting in 523 responses. Both the survey and the interviews gave good insights into the needs of starters. More precisely, starters need clarity in the support and financing landscape and require financing in the early stages of their company. Further, starters want easier access to the solutions “PMV/z-leningen” offers. Lastly, to start and expand their business, starters value tailored advice, primarily through mentors. Finally, to make recommendations, all three sections are linked. In total, four recommendations were made. First, we have learned that it would be beneficial for “PMV/z-leningen” to facilitate more support during the application process as a big hurdle currently is that starters have difficulties successfully finishing the application. Possible solutions are changing the utilized language and providing assistance before and during the completion of the application. Second, by easing some requirements it would also significantly increase the number of starters reached. We believe that if these two recommendations are implemented, it would have a positive effect on the starter landscape. Third, it is crucial to improve the brand awareness of PMV/z, since currently only a minor percentage of starters are aware of it. Finally, to solve the fragmentation in the support market an overarching platform where starter can go to for all their financing and support needs should be established.

In 2018, Airpower NV, the Wilrijk-based site of Atlas Copco, a Swedish manufacturer that is the leading provider of sustainable productivity solutions such as compressors, vacuum solutions, etc., started offering salary-sacrifice cars to all white- and blue-collar workers in addition to the company cars already offered to the management of the company. Consequently, the multinational’s fleet grew to approximately 1100 leased vehicles in 2022. However, the car fleet processes (car application and pool management), remained relatively unaltered despite this large increase. In order to cover all the extra activities the salary-sacrifice cars entail, the process became more complex and inefficient over time. On top of that, the volatility of the market and the electrification of the fleet is putting even more pressure on the already strained processes. For many years, Atlas Copco has been working together with one leasing company, Athlon, which offers full-service leases including not only the financing, but also the performance of some operational tasks, such as maintenance, repairs, fuel cards, insurances, etc. Atlas Copco gives its employees the opportunity to choose a car from a list of fixed configurated models, which is drawn up in consultation with Athlon. In order to get an understanding of how the processes are currently organized, a detailed visualization, including the different stakeholders involved, was necessary. Next to that, a clear indication of which inefficiencies are embedded in the process had to be provided together with some recommendations on how to improve the process incrementally. Radical suggestions to perhaps re-build the model from scratch also had to be considered. The foundation of this research is the visualization of the following two as-is processes. The first process is the car application process in which employees who are eligible for a car, apply for one. The second process is the pool management process covering the procedure when an employee terminates his leasing contract early be due to several reasons such as a lay-off, voluntary leave, etc. Both processes were visualized using the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). The processes were built from scratch by interviewing the stakeholders who are involved in the process and by examining the documentation that has already been made available. The main issues discovered during the visualization of both models were the high complexity of the processes and a range of misunderstandings between stakeholders regarding tasks, responsibilities and procedures. Following the visualization of the process, the inefficiencies in the process were identified using two different techniques. First, we used process mining to identify the discrepancies between the theoretical model and the actual flow of data, which revealed that in reality the cases often follow a In-Company Project – Atlas Copco – 2022. Mapping and optimizing the process of an ever-growing company car fleet 3 different flow through the process than is assumed by the stakeholders. The as-is models were adapted according to the actual flow of activities. Second, a waste-analysis and a root-cause analysis were conducted to identify the inefficiencies, the non-value adding tasks and their root causes in the processes. These analyses exposed that many inefficiencies are embedded in both processes in terms of reviewing, errors requiring rework and unnecessary email correspondence between the different stakeholders. Afterwards, a benchmarking exercise was performed by interviewing the fleet managers of other companies. These interviews provided us with some interesting insights into best practices of fleet management. The main takeaways of these interviews were that most companies work with more than one leasing company, outsource their insurance and fuel cards, offer a more limited choice of cars per employee level, with some opting to entirely outsource their fleet management. Based on the inefficiencies identified and the best practices we discovered, we came up with both incremental changes that can be implemented easily and quickly, and more radical changes that put into question the entire process and thus require rebuilding the process from scratch. To conclude, we trust that this research will contribute to a more efficient, cost-effective and less complex process in two ways. Firstly, by mapping the car fleet processes to make all stakeholders aware of their assigned responsibilities and the end-to-end flow of the as-is process. Secondly, by proposing changes to simplify the processes without compromising quality and the experience of the stakeholders.

Giopato & Coombes initially unveiled its creative mind and designs within the lighting industry in 2014, consisting of a luxury-driven product portfolio. Due to its growth, the company began thinking about the consequences this can have on sustainability. Therefore, they partnered with Vlerick Business School to tackle this challenge together. The design industry is still not at the forefront of green businesses, but Giopato & Coombes sees an opportunity to make a difference here. From within, they are looking to see how they can help the fight against climate change and are seeking guidance on how to initiate this journey. Upon understanding Giopato & Coombes' business and aligning with their goals, the project hit the ground running beginning with a stakeholder analysis, where key stakeholders were identified to determine which rank higher in importance and consider how sustainability would impact those most relevant. Once key stakeholders were identified, the approach to analyzing the impact initiatives would have on the company would be done by surveying and collecting information via interviews. The survey was built on the premise of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a means of gauging where Giopato & Coombes can intervene and make a difference. Clients, suppliers and employees were either interviewed or given a survey to determine what sustainability means to them and which SDGs they consider to be most important. Deriving from these assessments, material topics relating to Giopato & Coombes within the lighting industry were finalized and strategizing ensued. The SDGs served as a functional foundation for this stage since topics surrounding the current climate crisis are covered and allow companies looking to engage by providing a framework on which goal, they can tackle as a company. Based on the SDGs, the next step was to develop material topics where stakeholders were asked to rank in terms of importance. Twenty material topics were selected and of the twenty, three were explored further in-depth based on importance assigned from Giopato & Coombes stakeholders, including the founders. The following report will discuss the results obtained from conducting the surveys and assessments including a breakdown of three pillars under Giopato & Coombes’ new sustainability framework. The three pillars are based on Employee Safety, Health & Wellness, Product quality & safety, and Responsible Sourcing material topics, which proved to be the ones most relevant to both stakeholders and founders. From the more material issues, three pillars were built: Employee Well-Being, Product Excellence and Sourcing. Under the three strategic priorities are several initiatives provided as solutions to the drive of incorporating sustainability into the Giopato & Coombes DNA. Within Employee Well-Being, launching a wellness program, engaging in charity partnerships and organizing team-building activities are three initiatives to be explored and serve as recommendations to accomplish the material topic: “All employees are provided the necessary tools to maintain their safety, health, and wellness standards and explicit policies are put in place to ensure these standards are met.” Secondly, regarding Product Excellence, achieving globally recognized certifications within the luxury industry and incorporating sustainability incentives to the product will assure that Giopato & Coombes is “Creating and developing all designs to follow quality and safety standards”. Finally, Sourcing aims to improve trust and enhance the relationship between Giopato & Coombes and its stakeholders while simultaneously tackling the challenge associated with responsible sourcing. This goal will be achieved through the implementation of supplier compliance agreements, the increase of local sourcing practices and the usage of Aura blockchain technology. The three pillars mentioned above are considered feasible and in line with Giopato & Coombes’ current brand image and the area where they want to implement sustainability into their future journey. There is a desperate call for all industries operating within the business realm to heavily consider revamping their business practices for the sake of saving future generations. The main theme concerning sustainability is the urgency to act now so we do not sacrifice the livelihood of future generations.

Mediagenix is the world leader in providing software solutions for the broadcasting industry. Today, its Whats’On software is the most advanced platform for managing and programming radio, TV, and online content channels, and orchestrating the content supply chain. The broadcaster landscape is evolving as new streaming players like Netflix have disrupted the market leading to reduced margins. With margins under pressure, broadcasters have been looking to improve their operational efficiency and have looked for economies of scale through M&A. On top of that, customer needs are evolving ever so more rapidly, which requires software providers to be able to deliver software updates faster. Mediagenix wants to seize this opportunity and prepare the company for the challenges of the future by transitioning its traditional One-time license (OTL) business model to Software-as-a-service (SaaS). Transformation to SaaS is more than switching to subscription pricing. It is a complete overhaul of the company which will involve changing the culture and mindset of the employees, obtaining new capabilities in customer success and product development as well as aligning key business processes and KPIs to the SaaS model. The business model transition implies a complete transformation of the company. Overview of the research objectives. The Mediagenix management has hired the Vlerick team to advise the company on three key projects which are part of its SaaS transformation. The first project is to analyze the potential of switching the current long-time customers who have bought the OTL years ago and currently pay a service and maintenance (S&M) fee to a subscription program. The company has asked us to build a revenue model in which different scenarios could be analyzed. The expectation is that the Vlerick team advises Mediagenix on which incentives and possible coercive measures it could use to switch clients to subscriptions. We are further expected to formulate an opinion on the subscription pricing level. The second project is to develop a new product packaging model for Mediagenix. Currently, the company has a product offering of around 110 different software modules, add-ons, and business APIs. Today, these are sold on an “a la carte basis” which leads to exceedingly long sales cycles due to the difficulty for the customer to understand the full product offering and link it to their needs. On top of that, price negotiations are made more difficult by an untransparent and complex pricing process. Mediagenix has asked the Vlerick team to build a product packaging for them based on customer needs and industry best practices. Lastly, linked with the previous question the new product packaging is developed Mediagenix asked us to advise them on setting the pricing levels for the new product packaging. The company has asked us to build a revenue forecast based on the new packages and pricing levels. We summarise our assignment into three research questions we wish to answer: - How should Mediagenix switch its existing customer base to a subscription model? - How should Mediagenix package its product modules to optimally serve its different customer segments? - How should Mediagenix price the new packages? Summary of the methods. OTL to SaaS To analyze the impact on the revenue of switching from an OTL software on-premise to a SaaS Subscription license fee, we will need to build a financial model to measure the impact of migrating current customers from the former to the latter. In order to build different scenarios, we will need to develop assumptions on subscription pricing, costs, benefits offered, discounts, OTL buybacks, customer churn, and the switch rate. We will rely on the results of surveys from the Business Developers Community as well as from the Steering Committee. This will help gauge their idea on pricing, potential value adds, and customer willingness to switch or potential churn rates. Based on this information, we will build a revenue model and analyze a couple of different scenarios. We will then develop recommendations, based on best practices and interviews, on how to switch to SaaS. Product Packaging in SaaS. After having analyzed the transformation to SaaS from a traditional OTL model, we will delve into the product packaging of SaaS products. We will first analyze the best practices in the industry through methodical literature research. Then, with the data gathered, interviews, and analysis of the product portfolio, we will have a better understanding of the customers’ needs which will enable us to build different sketches. Afterward, we will create a thorough questionnaire to be sent to the Business Developer Community. This will help us in our Leader, Filler, and Killer approach so to better match the needs of the current market segment. We will then create a final prototype of the product packaging that will be sent to the Steering Committee in the form of surveys. This will be done based on the Delphi Methodology, whereby two rounds of the questionnaire will be created and analyzed so to create the optimal packaging solution. Pricing. Both the questionnaire sent to the Business Developers and the two survey rounds sent to the Steering Committee will be used for the pricing. Through our literature research, we have gathered an important amount of information about the different value metrics associated with the SaaS industry. These will be analyzed before deciding which metrics to use. We will also go through the different pricing methods we believe to be appropriate in this industry. We will proceed with a Cost-Plus Analysis to establish a lower bound of our pricing. We will also establish the pricing of the packages based on the 2022 existing price list. Based on the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity method, which will be conducted through the different sets of questionnaires, we will also determine an appropriate price range for the new packaging. And finally, we will be complementing this study by using the standard price based on this industry. We will then offer a comparison between these approaches before offering our recommendations on the pricing strategy. Conclusions & Recommendations. OTL to SaaS Switch. We concluded that Mediagenix should pursue the OTL to SaaS switch with their current client base. Even with OTL buybacks and price reductions, the company could significantly increase its total recurring revenue by € 5.4 million within the next 5 years. We advise Mediagenix to focus on switching clients with OTL’s dating back more than 5 years. We present them with a plan that would offer a one-year soft switch period with price reductions and a hard switch after three years where clients with OTL older than 5 years are forced into the subscription model. We advise Mediagenix to hold off on the switch to subscription for clients with OTL younger than 5 years for one year to reduce the cost of the OTL buyback. We advise them to work on a similar trajectory with a soft switch period with incentives and a hard switch period. Lastly, we advise Mediagenix to consider the wider implications of the transformation in terms company of culture, product development, sales enablement, and customer success capabilities. Product Packaging. We advise Mediagenix to adopt and further refine the hybrid product packaging model we have developed for them. We believe combining the Platform Plus Bundles model with Good Better Best tiers in the base platform will allow the company to create more structure in its product offering while maintaining flexibility for specific customer needs. We advise the company to build an internal team to further refine the packaging and test the prototype with trusted clients for feedback and review. We further advise Mediagenix to push their existing customers to sign up for the new packages in order not to have two pricing systems. Lastly, we advise the company to investigate feature gating some functions in their software to help upsell clients and create more clear distinctions between the packages. Pricing. Based on our research and revenue modeling we advise Mediagenix to adopt the pricing we obtained from the Van Westendorp surveys for all packages apart from the good package where we advise the cost-plus margin pricing. This combination offers a combination of revenue growth at higher margins. Based on our cost assumptions and pricing exercise we call into question the feasibility of launching the good package to the small media market as the cost vastly exceeds the target customer’s willingness to pay. We recommend the management to review the strategic decision of entering that specific market segment. We further advise Mediagenix to test pricing levels with short-term contracts of 1 to 2 years for new clients to test pricing levels.

Within the household appliance sector, Miele has always been a brand name linked to quality and reliability. The last years, new competitors have entered the market and Miele has seen its position as preferred brand dwindle among younger consumer groups. The history of the brand is also noticed in their sales structure, where there is still a big focus on offline sales, often with long lasting partnerships with independent retailers. In the last decade, the importance of these offline sales channels have been wavering, and new online channels have taken the lead. Competing with new entrants in these channels is not always easy, as they can focus their attention on these new channels without the responsibility of providing a future for historic partnerships, of which Miele has plenty. With the changing competitive landscape and a possible change in customer behaviors and preferences, Miele Belgium, commissioner of this study, decided to study the upcoming generation of appliance customers in more detail. By gaining information on this new generation and their consumer preferences, Miele hopes to evoke the same feelings of loyalty and favoritism the brand has been known to evoke among its older customers. To contribute to this goal, the objective of this ICP is to discover how Miele can reach the mind and the heart of the 25-35 y/o customer. In order to formulate a structured and thorough answer to this question, three themes have been identified. In the first theme the target group is further analyzed. The average customer journey and the customer needs and expectations were researched by reading the generational researches already available on these topics. In a second phase, focus groups with local household appliance consumers belonging to the target group were organized. In the second theme, the AS-IS situation of Miele Belgium was analyzed. To gain insights in Miele’s current way of doing business, semi-structured interviews with employees from all departments were conducted. In a second phase, many internal documents describing Miele’s current values , sales & marketing strategy and upcoming business projects were investigated, using the information present on the companies shared drive. In a last phase, Miele’s brand positioning and the positions of their main local competitors were analyzed. This was done using the PESO-framework, which consisted of a number of anonymous store visits combined with a content analysis, which focused on the brands’ websites, social media channels and press messages. In the last theme the insights gathered in theme one and theme two were combined to create several recommendations. For each of these recommendations, the insights from the first two themes that led to the recommendation are reported as well as a detailed description of how the change could be implemented operationally. During the research many trends and characteristics were described as being specific to this generation. The urbanization trend, the experience economy and the disappearance of gender roles were all world trends linked to this upcoming generation. The target group also has some globally identified expectations. They are known to like brands that help them define their own identity, engage with them and to assist them in living their lives. Next to that, the target group has the tendency to be information addicts and to influence the consumer choices of their peers by reverberating. When delving deeper into the local consumer expectations when buying household appliances, six main purchase drivers were discovered. Within the target group, reliability was seen as the most important aspects of the machine. Price and convenience came in on a close second place. The other three purchase drives: design, sustainability and connectivity were considered but of a lesser importance compared to the three previously mentioned purchase drivers. Concerning the customer journey, it was discovered that almost everyone within the target group started their journey with an online research phase. Within this generation of research addicts, sites which allowed them to compare were heavily preferred. Consequently, the importance of being clearly visible on the online dealer web shops, such as Coolblue, was mentioned by many of participants within the target group. The need for independent information is also high within this generation. Many tend to search for reviews by independent consumer organizations or previous purchasers to help them make their decision. After this phase, around half of the target group still liked to touch the product physically in a store before the final decision was made. When finally ready to make the purchase, a majority of the target group saw no difference in buying it online or offline. Rather, they focused on aspects such as price and quality of the after-sales service. Regarding the AS-IS situation, a first insight gathered is the importance Miele attributes to their values, recently redefined in the ‘Creators of Quality’ framework. The values immer besser for customers, employees, planet and performance were mentioned in many of the conversations. References to these values can also be found when parsing their current sales and marketing strategy. Throughout their product portfolio, Miele very clearly state that they focus on offering premium looking appliances of indisputable quality. These same values are communicated to their customers. Miele always uses their channels to publish articles with a luxurious and traditional look and feel. The information they share on social media is often related to a high-end lifestyle, such as cooking multiple course dinners. When comparing this to the competition, the difference in focus on a premium look and feel is even more noticeable. Many competitors communicate about other relevant topics, such as the convenient lifestyle their machines can generate, the sustainability aspect inherent to the appliances or the low prices and high quality they offer. In the end, there were two main reasons identified that prevented Miele to obtain a higher percentage of consideration within the target group. A first reason is their strong focus on communicating about the premium quality of the their products. This communication was very well remembered and internalized with the target group. The target group described the brand as being very desirable, but due to their sole focus on evoking a premium feeling, the perceived affordability of these products was quite low. A second reason the brand is not being considered is its price. Although this might seem very similar to the first reason, the difference lies in the nature of both barriers. Where the first reason is a psychological barrier, describing the product as unobtainable for the consumer, the second is a real financial barrier. To lower both barriers five recommendation have been put forward. The first recommendation concerns an extension and change in branding of the existing Miele Outlet. By leveraging the trust consumers have in Miele’s quality, Miele can start offering heavily used, refurbished products to lower significantly the financial barrier for entry. The second recommendation describes a change in the offline sales strategy. By introducing a more varied and customer centric array of reasons to buy Miele, the ‘not meant for me’ feeling can be lowered. Sales employees could talk about the low lifetime cost of the appliance, the convenience the machine is built to introduce into the lives of the target group or the longevity promised by Miele. The Miele Experience Centers could also change their offer to include more activities that are tailor made to the interest of the target group. The third recommendation concerns the possible entry of Miele on the rental/lease market. Within this research a low enthusiasm in the target group was discovered. The segments within the target group that were interested had a combination of high service expectations and a low willingness to pay. The possibility of a failed entry should be considered, thus local quantitative studies are strongly recommended before investing too many resources in this project. The fourth recommendation covers the Miele reputation of being a traditional brand. During the research, a big threat of the new entrants, such as Samsung, was discovered. Already many customers within the target group felt the connectivity features Samsung was adding to their appliance were attracting them to move away from traditional brands, such as Miele. The unproven reputation of these new entrants is the only reason why the traditional brands have not lost too much market share yet. In order to prevent this from happening Miele should focus R&D on creating technology, such as embedding IOT in their appliances. Accompanied with this, is the recommendation to already communicate about the current technology inside their appliances. Changing both the content and way of communicating this message should help Miele to shed their reputation of being traditional and help them to gain consideration among this digital-native generation. The last recommendation describes complementary communication angles Miele could introduce to lower the feeling of unreachability within the target group. The communication on quality could be complemented with topics of equal importance within the target group such as convenience, their future and sustainability. Lastly, it’s important to notice that the insights within the documents are mainly qualitative in nature. The insights in the customer group as well as the recommendation given can thus be described as been explorative. It is strongly advised that Miele validates all the findings and strategic recommendations they wish to implement in a large, representative post study.

The EdTech scene has experienced a growth spurt due to COVID-19. As a result, education has shifted more towards an online environment. This increased demand for digital products from the education sector has allowed many companies to grow and profit, The Rent Company being one of them. Currently, The Rent Company provides laptop devices to over 200,000 students in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. This education hardware is offered as part of the Easy4u proposition where a student is guaranteed continued access to a laptop for the duration of the subscription with repairs and loaner devices included. Nevertheless, The Rent Company has found a gap in their current market offering. Due to the rigid fixed subscription model, The Rent Company is unable to offer a laptop that “grows” with the students, resulting in many of them dropping out once their subscription ends even if they still have more than four years of studies to complete. For this thesis, The Rent Company asked the research team whether it is possible to offer an all-encompassing subscription plan to the schools, caretakers, and students. The main goal is to create a model that incorporates the different demands and needs of all different types of customers whilst ensuring the model is flexible enough to meet the changing demands. This thesis has created such a model based on existing literature, internal interviews, expert interviews, and a survey. The result is a model that is both flexible, ensures recurring revenues, and promotes a sustainable life for each laptop. The researchers have also incorporated specific aspects to take into consideration when and how to implement this model from a change strategy point of view. Current literature agrees that a laptop has a lifespan of seven years. Nevertheless, due to planned obsolescence and changing customer needs, a laptop is preferably kept for a maximum of five years by users. Of these laptops, around 70% to 90% can be revamped, ensuring a second life, and reducing the carbon footprint by up to 45%. Although there is a literature gap regarding educational laptops, a second life laptop can be used for up to three years. For the Total Cost of Ownership of such a model, companies are advised to approach their value chain from an activity-based costing concept. Key to the success of a prolonged life cycle for assets is the ability of the company to recognize responsibility centers and assign costs to them. For the implementation of these changes internally, this essay combined both a processual and a descriptive model which can guide the company during the implementation of this and any future change projects. The main takeaway is the need to remain flexible, as change is uncertain in nature, though also the ability to follow several key steps along the road to implementation. By combining the literature with three expert interviews, sixteen internal interviews and a survey with 437 customer responses, this thesis discussed the internal issues in detail. First, most consumers (+60%) seem interested in the possibility to continue using the Easy4u subscription, even after their initial subscription runs out. Nevertheless, a demand for a more updated or advanced model is clearly present in the higher years of secondary education. Communication, both externally towards the customer and internally between departments, is lacking. The communication towards the customer is described as “subpar” and the internal communication distance is often referred to as “the wall”. Other internal issues are the high exposure to seasonality, missing documentation, and the internal data and process system Easy4u. With these criteria in mind, this thesis created a complete model applicable to the Netherlands and Belgium. The main findings are that using this model, a laptop has a maximum first lifetime of four years (three in Belgium) after which the device is mandatory to be swapped resulting in the students following a Device-as-a-Service model. Because of this, it is expected that the throughput time for repairs will significantly decrease, and the peaks times in repairs and preparation will be more spread out. Next, each laptop is revamped within its ADP and care pack coverage, resulting in a final margin for The Rent Company. Once the devices are revamped, they can be offered to a secondary market chosen by the company. Financially, this model trades in some financial certainty for scalability and customer personalization. Internally, the support for the first life model is unanimous whilst the second life model has been subject to many different opinions regarding how to deal with the revamped products (scrapping, selling, renting etc.). This thesis concludes with several key recommendations for the management of The Rent Company. First, a decision needs to be made regarding where and how to deploy the revamped laptops. Several possibilities are listed ranging from using it in the existing markets as a cheaper subscription option to selling it to third parties in developing economies. The second recommendation is regarding the Easy4u platform. A decision needs to be made on how to use the legacy platform in the future: as a generic central database or a platform specified to complete actions for a select few departments. The third recommendation is regarding the change strategy. By combining a theoretical and practical framework, two to four key action points have been suggested for each of the four change dimensions. Crucial are better internal communication, more documentation, and the creation of internal sponsorships by setting up project teams with different focus areas and responsibilities. Moreover, a timeline in which the different steps required to bring this project to a successful launch are explained with a full-scale deployment of the model within four years.

When entrepreneurs are asked about their ventures’ estimated chances of growth and survival, they typically tend to be much more optimistic than what statistics would suggest. Both theory and empirical evidence support this view of entrepreneurs being unduly positive about their future venture prospects. Entrepreneurs create forecasts for making a wide variety of decisions such as sales and financing decisions. Errors or positive biases in these forecasts have been shown to substantially decrease venture performance. Far less attention, however, has been spent on how such errors affect important external stakeholders. In this project we focus on one particularly relevant stakeholder for entrepreneurial ventures, being their venture capital (VC) investors. VCs are one of the earliest resource providers to entrepreneurial ventures. Moreover, entrepreneurs’ forecasts about the future venture performance are what VCs rely on to inform their decisionmaking, both prior to and after the investment has been made. Given the importance of forecasts and the accuracy therein to VCs, this project will examine (1) when entrepreneurs provide more positively biased forecasts to their VCs and (2) how VCs react to positive bias in VC-backed ventures.

Online product reviews ("reviews" hereafter) are prevalent and valuable. Because of that, a large stream of research in marketing investigated reviews under the following three main topics: 1) the role of review writers, 2) the role of review readers, and 3) the role of linguistic cues in reviews. This dissertation further builds on this stream and proposes three new angles that were under-researched. Specifically, we compose three essays that focus on 1) the intents of review writers to write a review based on linguistic cues and their impact on perceived review helpfulness, 2) the effect of humanlike linguistic cues on perceived review helpfulness, and 3) the usage of emotional intent based on linguistic cues in fake reviews and its impact on review trustworthiness. All three essays are structured under the same pattern to use linguistic cues as a tool to provide a unique solution for the related issues in reviews from both writers' and readers' perspectives.