Major automobile brands such as ford, toyota, gm, and honda are interested in consumers’ interest in "smart" technology in new automobiles. Gm recently studied consumers’ interest in buying self-driving vehicles. The automobile brands must stay abreast of changing technology as well as consumer trends regarding the use of technology. The automobile company’s collection of this type of information is referred to as .

Individual consumers belong to which step of choosing a target market? possible customers competition demographics communication

Down under products, ltd., of australia has budgeted sales of its popular boomerang for the next four months as follows: unit salesapril 74,000may 85,000june 114,000july 92,000the company is now in the process of preparing a production budget for the second quarter. past experience has shown that end-of-month inventory levels must equal 10% of the following month’s unit sales. the inventory at the end of march was 7,400 units.required: prepare a production budget by month and in total, for the second quarter.

Zachary company produces commercial gardening equipment. since production is highly automated, the company allocates its overhead costs to product lines using activity-based costing. the costs and cost drivers associated with the four overhead activity cost pools follow: activities unit level batch level product level facility level cost $ 64,800 $ 27,730 $ 15,000 $ 154,000 cost driver 2,400 labor hrs. 47 setups percentage of use 11,000 units production of 780 sets of cutting shears, one of the company’s 20 products, took 240 labor hours and 7 setups and consumed 15 percent of the product-sustaining activities. required: (a) had the company used labor hours as a company wide allocation base, how much overhead would it have allocated to the cutting shears? (b) how much overhead is allocated to the cutting shears using activity-based costing? (c) compute the overhead cost per unit for cutting shears first using activity-based costing and then using direct labor hours for allocation if 780 units are produced. if direct product costs are $150 and the product is priced at 30 percent above cost for what price would the product sell under each allocation system? (d) assuming that activity-based costing provides a more accurate estimate of cost, indicate whether the cutting shears would be over- or underpriced if direct labor hours are used as an allocation base. explain how over-or undercosting can affect vaulker's profitability. (e) comment on the validity of using the allocated facility-level cost in the pricing decision. should other costs be considered in a cost- plus pricing decision? if so, which ones? what costs would you include if you were trying to decide whether to accept a special order?