George, a chef and owner of L'Auberge, a popular restaurant, is always visiting his competitors to observe how they are doing things in their restaurants. He told one of his managers, "I eat dinner at a lot of restaurants because I want to know what is going on. I am always concerned that one of our competitors will surprise us with a new service or menu item, like ours but better." In which activity is George engaging?

Ardmore farm and seed has an inventory dilemma. they have been selling a brand of very popular insect spray for the past year. they have never really analyzed the costs incurred from ordering and holding the inventory and currently fave a large stock of the insecticide in the warehouse. they estimate that it costs $25 to place an order, and it costs $0.25 per gallon to hold the spray. the annual requirements total 80,000 gallons for a 365 day year. a. assuming that 10,000 gallons are ordered each time an order is placed, estimate the annual inventory costs. b. calculate the eoq. c. given the eoq calculated in part b., how many orders should be placed and what is the average inventory balance? d. if it takes seven days to receive an order from suppliers, at what inventory level should ardmore place another order?

Stella company sells only two products, product a and product b. product a product b total selling price $50 $30 variable cost per unit $20 $10 total fixed costs $2,110,000 stella sells two units of product a for each unit it sells of product b. stella faces a tax rate of 40%. stella desires a net afterminustax income of $54,000. the breakeven point in units would be

R& m chatelaine is one of the largest tax-preparation firms in the united states. it wants to acquire the tax experts, a smaller rival. after the merger, chatelaine will be one of the two largest income-tax preparers in the u. s. market. what should chatelaine include in its acquisition plans? it should refocus its attention from the national to the international market. in addition to acquiring the tax experts, it should also determine the best way to drive independent "mom and pop" tax preparers out of business. chatelaine will need to explain to the federal trade commission how the acquisition will not result in an increase in prices for consumers. chatelaine should enter a price-based competition with its other major competitor to force it out of business and become a monopoly.