Which of the following is NOT a typical strategy for firms to obtain benchmarking data about other companies?a. Hiring former employees from other companies and assessing their knowledgeb. Utilizing resources from the Center for Advanced Purchasing Studiesc. Collecting published trade information on benchmarking studiesd. Discussing sourcing strategies with colleagues at business association meetings

a. Hiring former employees from other companies and assessing their knowledge.

Explanation:

"Benchmarking" is a process conducted by a company when it wants to compare its performance with other competitors. In order to do this, the company needs to look into specific metrics and approaches in order to analyze their company's operation and how well it does compared to others.

Hiring former employees from other companies and assessing their knowledge is not a typical/common strategy in order to obtain benchmarking data. Not many companies would like to rehire and if they ever do, it will be hard to use the benchmarking data since the former employee's company might be totally different from yours. Remember that competitive benchmarking is only done when you want to compare with your competitors in the same field of business.

you can lose ranking 2 ways.

1) you don't have enough points due to you expending them by asking questions/your answers are deleted.

2) your brainliest's expired. this means that brainliests, once they exceed the 30 day limit, expires. this is to ensure that you continue to contribute into the community at a constant rank if you want to continue to have/exceed the rank you have right now.

if you go to profile, and click "show more information" located on the bottom left of the box with your information (on top of the questions answered, questions asked, and friends), you will be given the following information (example):

member since : 02/13/2017, 18: 11

questions answered: 9741

questions asked: 162

no. of brainliest answers: 1575

brainliest answers in last 30 days: 10

warnings: 0 view

questions/answers reported: 2637

questions/answers incorrectly reported: 64

look at the "brainliest answers in the last 30 days". this is the one that will affect your rank other than your points. again, once your brainliest expires (was earned 31+ days ago), it will not be counted.

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you have to put the parentheses like this:

in fact, you have to perform the operation inside parentheses first, and then proceed in order: