Open Access

The e-commerce market has been growing for years and this trend seems to be continuing. Online stores for clothing are very successful. It seems that hardly any company can afford not to have a digital presence. This goes hand in hand with the fact that the range of products on offer to customers is getting bigger and bigger. But it's not just the range that's getting bigger, it's also the effort customers have to make to find the right product. For this reason, many successful online stores are already relying on AI. In doing so, companies are creating opportunities for customers that an employee could hardly manage. Implemented on the website, AI can check inventory, update it in real time, predict trends and evaluate customer or user data and make suitable recommendations. This is important for the customer because with the huge choice available, for one thing, personalization is increasingly important and being presented with a relevant selection. A central question is whether the recommendations are trustworthy and whether they can be equated with a real salesperson advising the customer. After all, trust is relevant in longterm customer relationships in that it leads to loyalty and satisfaction, which in turn increases the intention to repurchase. The recommendation tools mentioned are also of particular interest for another reason. On the one hand, they help customers to get a relevant selection of the offer and thus to get faster to the desired one. On the other hand, they are relevant for companies not only because of customer satisfaction, but also because of the chance to reduce returns. The large online stores for clothing offer their customers very generous opportunities to return the goods free of charge. In doing so, the companies have responded to customer wishes, because hardly anything is more important to them when it comes to online shopping: free returns. In this way, customers have minimized the risk of having to keep goods that do not fit or please them. This thesis examines whether recommendation tools can help customers to better assess the sizes and properties of clothing, so that they receive more suitable clothing and do not even feel the need to order several sizes of the same item of clothing. It can therefore be assumed that trust in the recommendations of the AI tools reduces uncertainty, which in turn should reduce the intention to return goods. Another assumption to be tested is that of the perceived usefulness of the recommendation tools. As a prerequisite to get an assessment of these assumptions is the usage of the tools. Therefore, a survey was initiated in the DACH region to assess the extent to which usage influences the factors mentioned. It was found by means of a regression analysis that the frequency of online purchases, mediated by perceived usefulness, explains the influence on trust.

Projects, in which software products, services, systems and solutions are developed, all rely on the right requirements to be established. Software requirements are the expression of user wants or needs that have to be addressed, business objectives that have to be met, as well as capabilities and functionality that has to be developed. Meanwhile, practice shows that very often incorrect, unclear or incomplete requirements are established, which causes major problems for such projects. It could lead to budget overruns, missed deadlines and overall failure in worst-case scenarios. The field of requirements engineering emerged as an answer to these shortcomings, aiming to systematize and streamline the process that establishes requirements. Requirements elicitation is a key component of this process, and one of its starting points. The current thesis attempts to outline best practices in requirements elicitation, as well as what issues, obstacles and challenges are currently faced, and then present this through the lens of national culture. In this way its effects on the practice, if any, could be highlighted and studied further. The way this was achieved was by interviewing practitioners from two nations, which are shown to be culturally different, and then comparing and contrasting the findings. Meanwhile, the validity of those findings was enhanced by comparisons with existing literature. Even though the findings were not compelling enough to form generalizations or concrete conclusions about the effects of national culture on requirements elicitation, these findings revealed patterns that could be worth exploring further. When it comes to requirements elicitation itself, it was observed to benefit from a structured and systematic approach, and be most effective with one-on-one, instead of group interactions. The main pain points of the process stem from the complexity of communication, but are not always obvious. Practitioners are also advised to carefully plan the gathering of requirements, as the source may not have them readily available, and could even be unclear about what exactly is needed. Overall, this thesis research could be considered successful in its goal to shed a modicum of light on the issue at hand from a different, underexplored angle. By following a systematic and methodical approach, this research has also been made easier to expand or replicate.

Durch die zunehmende Homogenität von Produkten ist der technologische Fortschritt des reinen Produktes kein Alleinstellungsmerkmal mehr. Die Entwicklung datenbasierter Services bietet die Option trotzdem langfristige Wettbewerbsvorteile zu erzielen. Ein Großteil der KMU ist sich dabei in der Methodik unsicher. Es wird erörtert, wie KMU Geschäftsmodelle mit datenbasierten Services weiterentwickeln können. Mit einer qualitativen Untersuchung werden Praxiserfahrungen aufgezeigt und theoretische Thesen validiert. Die Weiterentwicklung zu einem datenbasierten Geschäftsmodell ist ein umfangreicher Prozess, der mit Chancen und Herausforderungen einhergeht. Als Herausforderung hat sich die Wahl relevanter Methoden und die Anpassung an die jeweiligen Rahmenbedingungen herausgestellt. Referenzprozesse strukturieren das Vorgehen und sollen gleichzeitig Flexibilität gewährleisten. Während des Prozesses ist die Kundenorientierung und Akzeptanz sicherzustellen. Aufgabe der Geschäftsführung ist es, die Weiterentwicklung zu fördern, Mitarbeitende einzubinden und Ressourcen bereitzustellen. Insgesamt konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Weiterentwicklung zur Veränderung der gesamten Unternehmenslogik sowie einem Paradigmenwechsel vom reinen Produktverkauf zum umfassenden Serviceangebot führt.