iThe Wegmans grocery store chain operates 90 stores across six states in the Northeast U. S. and continues to grow. Like many grocery stores, it is trying to respond to changes in the external environment and now offers Instacart, a service allowing customers to shop online and receive delivery within an hour depending on their location. Wegmans believes the added convenience and time-saving aspects of grocery delivery will lead to greater customer satisfaction, increased revenues, and profitability. Wegmans is responding to the factor of the external environment.

Onsider the following subscription behavior information from genie, a web site that provides tools for constructing a family tree (ancestor search). subscriptions cost $9.99 per month, but you are charged for the entire year at the time of purchase. there is a one-year minimum term when you sign up for the service. once purchased, subscriptions are set to renew automatically unless the subscriber cancels them. when a membership renews, it renews for a one-year term and again you are charged for the entire year. there are no variable costs associated with providing this service to an individual customer, but genie does engage in customer relationship activities that they believe will increase customer retention. these customer relationship activities cost genie about $10 per year per customer. based on a sample of 1000 customers that joined genie five years ago, near the time when the company was founded, they were able to determine how many of those customers remained subscribers in the second year, third year etc. based on this information, genie calculated the average annual retention rate to be 20%. genie uses an annual discount rate of 8%. a. last year, genie spent $10,000 placing advertisements on google. genie management believes that these advertisements were responsible for about 300 new subscribers. would you recommend to genie management that they purchase more google ads? b. suppose a newly-introduced loyalty program increases the number of customers that remained to 30%. does this new data change your answer to 9.a? c. do you have any hesitations or concerns about making recommendations to management based on your above estimate of customer lifetime value?

The following pertains to smoke, inc.’s investment in debt securities: on december 31, year 3, smoke reclassified a security acquired during the year for $70,000. it had a $50,000 fair value when it was reclassified from trading to available-for-sale. an available-for-sale security costing $75,000, written down to $30,000 in year 2 because of an other-than-temporary impairment of fair value, had a $60,000 fair value on december 31, year 3. what is the net effect of the above items on smoke’s net income for the year ended december 31, year 3?

Alarge university wanted to study the relationship between completing an internship during college and students' future earning potential. prom the same graduating class, they selected a random sample of 80 students who completed an internship and 100 students who did not complete an internship and examined their salaries five years after graduation. they found that there was a statistically higher mean salary for the internship group than for the noninternship group. which of the following interpretations is the most appropriate? a. there could be a confounding variable, such as student major, that explains the difference in mean salary between the internship and no internship groups.b. we cannot infer anything from these data since the distribution of salaries is likely right skewed.c. you cannot draw any valid conclusions because the sample sizes are different.d. more students should complete internships because having an internship produces a higher salary.