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Short food supply chains (SFSCs) seem to be growing fast, including in Wallonia. These local food systems bring social and environmental proximity back into fashion, while they had been heavily affected by intensive agriculture and the growth of mass retailing. However, most people are still using mass distribution. In this context, we might question what the future could bring for SFSCs and how they could attract more customers.
This report aims at answering these questions by studying a Namur-based food cooperative, Paysans-Artisans, which sells products from local farmers and artisans supporting sustainable agriculture. Throughout a complete business analysis based on its actual business model, its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities could be assessed. Amongst them we can highlight the global lack of SFSCs awareness, although it is a fast growing market. Paysans-Artisans’ distribution channels seem too restricted and prevent more customers from accessing it. Hence a unique and very limited customer segment is targeted. Two Business Model Canvas were then designed to answer these findings. The first one is focused on developing a B2B wholesaler service. The second one is aimed at building a “short food supply chains hub” in Namur, including a local grocery shop. These business models could help respond to customers’ needs while promoting SFSCs fundamental values and ideology.

circuit court --- stratégie --- Wallonie --- développement --- alimentaire --- modèle économique --- Short food supply chains --- SFSC --- Wallonia --- local food system --- business model --- business model canvas --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Stratégie & innovation

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Nowadays, the world must face to new human development challenges. Indeed, the urbanization in the world reached a rate of approximately 50% (Eurostat, 2014). It means that more than the half of the world population is living in urban areas. But it is not all, this percentage is expected to grow to 66% by 2020 (Eurostat, 2014). This increasing concentration of people leads to new urban and social problems. The concept of “smart city” is based on this problematic.
The “smart city” concept is undeniably buzzing. This theory attracts the attention of politicians, citizens, businessmen and academic people. Every city wants to be “smart” and focuses more and more on this tendency.
The “smart city” is clearly a major concern to which the city of tomorrow will face. The problem about that is that the theory connected with this concept is vague and unclear. Since then, how is it possible to know if a city is “smart” or not? How can the city measure its performance? Is there any tool to do that? Cities need to have answers to these questions if they want to become a “smart city” or to improve their “smartness”. This is where this Master thesis takes part.
The goal of this dissertation was to establish a mean to know if a city could be called “smart” or not and to provide tools to measure its performance on this field. In this case, tools imply key performance indicators (KPI).
In order to do that, the concept of “smart city” has been redefined in accordance with the existing theory. It was necessary to begin the study on a stable basis. To be perfectly clear, concepts of performance and KPI have also been introduced. Then the actual theory about performance and indicators about “smart city” has been collected. Afterwards a qualitative research has been undertaken. An expert panel from every sector has been interviewed to collect information and to compare it to the literature review.
At the end of the thesis, a solution to know if a city is smart or not and performing or not has been proposed. This proposition is a set of key performance indicators. The solution is not perfect. It is rather an improvement clue for the future.

Sciences économiques & de gestion > Multidisciplinaire, généralités & autres

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For the majority of travelers seeking inspiration for their destination choice, internet is the first source of information. The advent of Web 2.0 enabled tourists to share their advice and feelings about the places they visit, enriching the image of those places but at the same time making it more difficult to control for city's promotion managers. 
This thesis aims to compare the image of a fictitious city as perceived by people who had access to the official web site of the destination or to a travel forum about the destination. 

The results of this thesis suggest that when user generated contents on the forum were able form a richer image of the city, the website conveyed an image that was more structured.

City Branding --- Place Branding --- User Generated Content --- Brand Concept Mapping --- Marketing --- Etude exploratoire --- Image de la destination --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Marketing

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Smart City has been a growing trend for the past few years. Cities and companies are trying to join forces in order to build the city of tomorrow by integrating technologies, citizen participation, smart transportation, smart energy or decrease of energy consumption into their innovative projects. Examples can be various and often arise from multiple stakeholders.
However, the economic aspect of the Smart City can’t be ignored. Before you can hope for a satisfying return on investment and see the infrastructure being built under your eyes, you have to consider the price of such an innovation and the way you manage to finance the whole process. It can sometimes even be the ways. 
This thesis tackles the different ways of financing a Smart City project in Wallonia. Considering different aspects of the country, such as the contrast with Flanders, economic issues and the growing trend of Smart Cities, we will try to discover how different communities of Wallonia manage to finance their projects and how bright their future is. 
The analysis will begin with a theoretical part that will be useful to introduce the concept of Smart City and how it became such a phenomenon on the European scene. Then the comparison with Belgium and especially Wallonia will be made. We will then define the main ways of financing a project or a company, making an important distinction between traditional ways (venture capitalists, subsidies, bank loans, etc.) and alternative ways (crowdfunding, public-private partnerships, etc.). The second part will deal with a qualitative analysis of nine communities of the Walloon territory. Focusing on how they manage to raise funds to launch Smart City projects, we will try to spot the links with the theoretical approach and build conclusions.

Smart City --- Financement alternatif --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Finance