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This study is related to direct procurement in the technological startup segment. The aim of this study is to find out what direct procurement methods and practices startup companies are using, and how they manage their supplier relationships. A further aim is to come up with some recommendations on procurement principles for technological startup companies and Salusfin. The research is limited to direct procurement activities in technological startup companies, and may thus not be generalizable to other procurement activities or bigger companies. The research material was gathered with 5 semi structured interviews. The main theories used were the Kraljic purchasing portfolio analysis and the Dutch Windmill analysis. Due to company confidentiality and the extremely competitive nature of the startup area, the research material obtained remained on a more generic level. The findings of the research indicate that most technological startup companies do not have a defined procurement strategy in place, but may however have procurement principles and practices in place which could be developed into strategies. With regards to vendor management, the technological startups could benefit from using Porter’s five forces, the Kraljic portfolio analysis and particularly the Dutch Windmill analysis in order to better understand their purchasing positions. A technological startup company can manage its vendors efficiently through analyzing the buyer supplier relationship and striving for mutual benefits and cooperation with other startup companies in order to reach for example minimum order quantities Some of the procurement principles and practices described in this thesis will be analyzed and implemented at Salusfin during the autumn 2016.
Travel intermediaries like (online) travel agents and tour operators are facing an uncertain, but exciting future with technological innovations and changing customer needs. Millennials are the new generation of travellers that travel intermediaries will be faced with and are already dealing with. Travellers born between 1986 and 2000 are said to have different needs, motivations, attitudes and behaviours towards travelling than previous generations. Despite the popularity of millennials as a discussion topic, millennial travellers and their future use of travel intermediaries have been left relatively untouched by academics. The aim of this study is to identify the millennials’ attitudes and behaviour regarding the use of travel intermediaries to understand and predict changes in the travel intermediary industry. The theoretical framework focusses on consumer behaviour and attitudes. It uses the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) by Icek Ajzen (1985) to understand behavioural intentions that could impact the future behaviour of Dutch millennials towards travel intermediaries. Different from most studies that implement the TPB, this study has a qualitative approach. The empirical data concerns 13 semi-structured interviews with Dutch millennials. Theory-driven content analysis with both deductive and inductive coding was applied. This research’s findings indicate that millennials are not a homogenous group and it is not possible to apply a ‘‘one-fits-all’’ strategy to travel intermediaries. By following the TPB, future intention cannot be simply divided as using / not using intermediaries. Rather, the beliefs, feelings and previous experience an individual holds about each type of travel intermediary leads to the decision to use a specific type of intermediary in each separate vacation. This indicates the importance of situational context in travel booking. The role of travel middlemen is not under threat by millennial attitudes, however, there is a changing need and taste for them amongst the millennial generation. Furthermore, this study found connections between pre-trip planning (fun), trends, personality and consumer behaviour of Dutch millennial travellers. Based on the research’s findings, future scenarios of intermediaries for millennials are drawn that can be utilized by the travel industry. Recommendations for future research include other nationalities, generations or millennial families.