Carol is a vice president for sales and marketing at her company. She conducts a survey asking customers their impressions of the product offering, the quality of the product and their level of customer satisfaction. Carol can use the survey results to:

a. determine the most effective hiring strategy for recruiting future employees.
b. improve employee efficiency by identifying bottlenecks in the manufacturing process that slow down production and add cost.
c. identify the building blocks of competitive advantage and develop strategies to use them to increase profitability.
d. set pricing strategy for the company's upcoming product line offering.

Advanced factors of production are more likely to be rare and are harder to imitate. Strategically, managers who have identified these advanced factors should:

a. let these resources manage themselves as they are already working and don't require interference from a manager.
b. take steps to protect these assets, either formally or as a trade secret, optimize the company's use of them and not outsource them to other firms.
c. abandon them and start over to seek out different resources to develop, manage and utilize to make the company more profitable.
d. share them with competitors to improve the overall profitability of the industry.

The four building blocks of a competitive advantage have an interdependent relationship. Which of these describes a strategy that adds value to multiple factors as it goes through several activities in the value chain?

a. A grocery store recognizes that its checkout lines are longest between 4 and 7 p.m. on weeknights. The company decides to add cashiers during these peak hours even though it results in a lower rate of sales per employee-hour.
b. A sporting goods store recognizes the increased customer demand for running shoes in the early spring and implements a 5% price increase at the beginning of the season each year.
c. A coffee shop replaces its espresso machines with a newer model that utilizes less energy but creates the same quality of coffee drink.
d. In response to requests from customers for healthier food on the menu, a restaurant tweaks its recipe for its most popular sandwich to remove processed ingredients and replace them with fresh vegetables.