In which one of the following situations/circumstances is it most reasonable for a company to consider modifying its strategy to cater to buyers looking to purchase stylish high-quality athletic footwear by strongly differentiating its branded footwear from the offerings of rival companies on the basis of "high" S/Q ratings (8.5 stars or higher) and marketing this footwear at well above-average prices?

a. When the managers of most other companies believe selling a large volume of branded pairs is much more important to achieving the investor-expected image rating than is producing and marketing branded footwear with a well-above average S/Q rating.

b. When the company is struggling to meet or beat the five investor-expected performance targets because there are so many other rivals also targeting the relatively small buyer segment that is willing to pay top prices for branded footwear with high S/Q ratings.

c. When a company's strategy to differentiate its product offering from rival brands on the basis of a high Š/Q rating is easily defeated by rival companies pursuing a competitive advantage based on well above-average spending for brand advertising

d. When the sellers of branded footwear with high S/Q ratings are confronted with strong competitive efforts from rivals striving to dominate the Internet segment by offering free shipping to attract online buyers.

e. When most every other rival company seems to be pursuing a low-cost/low-price/high- volume strategy Copying, redistributing, or website posting is expressly prohibited and constitutes copyright violation.

Recently, verizon wireless ran a pricing trial in order to estimate the elasticity of demand for its services. the manager selected three states that were representative of its entire service area and increased prices by 5 percent to customers in those areas. one week later, the number of customers enrolled in verizon's cellular plans declined 4 percent in those states, while enrollments in states where prices were not increased remained flat. the manager used this information to estimate the own-price elasticity of demand and, based on her findings, immediately increased prices in all market areas by 5 percent in an attempt to boost the company's 2016 annual revenues. one year later, the manager was perplexed because verizon's 2016 annual revenues were 10 percent lower than those in 2015"the price increase apparently led to a reduction in the company's revenues. did the manager make an error? yes - the one-week measures show demand is inelastic, so a price increase will decrease revenues. yes - the one-week measures show demand is elastic, so a price increase will reduce revenues. yes - cell phone elasticity is likely much larger in the long-run than the short-run. no - the cell phone market must have changed between 2011 and 2012 for this price increase to lower revenues.

Which of the following statements concerning an organization's strategy is true? a. cost accountants formulate strategy in an organization since they have more inputs about costs. b. businesses usually follow one of two broad strategies: offering a quality product at a high price, or offering a unique product or service priced lower than the competition. c. a good strategy will always overcome poor implementation. d. strategy specifies how an organization matches its own capabilities with the opportunities in the marketplace to accomplish its objectives.

The cost of capital: introduction the cost of capital: introduction companies issue bonds, preferred stock, and common equity to aise capital to invest in capital budgeting projects. capital is』necessary factor of production and like any other factor, it has a cost. this cost is equal to the select the applicable security. the rates of return that investors require on bonds, preferred stocks, and common equity represent the costs of those securities to the firm. companies estimate the required returns on their securities, calculate a weighted average of the costs of their different types of capital, and use this average cost for capital budgeting purposes. required return on rate: when calculating om operations when the firm's primary financial objective is to select shareholder value. to do this, companies invest in projects that earnselect their cost of capital. so, the cost of capital is often referred to as the -select -select and accruals, which a se spontaneously we hted average cost of capital wa c our concern is with capital that must be provided by select- 쑤 interest-bearing debt preferred stock and common equity. capital budgeting projects are undertaken, are not included as part of total invested capital because they do not come directly from investors. which of the following would be included in the caculation of total invested capital? choose the response that is most correct a. notes payable b. taxes payable c retained earnings d. responses a and c would be included in the calculation of total invested capital. e. none of the above would be included in the cakulation of total invested capital.