This month, susan, the branch manager of intrepid car rentals, has heard several complaints from customers that intrepid employees do not return calls. today a good customer told susan that "my phone calls and e-mails are returned after maybe a week or so." hearing enough, susan mandated that "all customer phone calls and e-mails must be returned within 24 hours." this new directive by alice is an example of a(

Activity-based costing (abc) is not truly a cost collection mechanism as much as it is an inventory valuation method. the main purpose for implementing an activity-based cost system is to try to overcome some of the cost distortions that occur in traditional costing from product differences when there are variations in size and complexity. however, one of the disadvantages of utilizing abc is that the additional information gathering necessary to implement costing with that level of detail might be beyond the reach of some companies with resource or financial constraints. with this in mind, what kinds of industries or companies do you think would benefit most from using activity-based costing and why? in designing or modifying an accounting system to capture appropriate costs for abc, what considerations do you think would need to be made?