Palmer inc. recently changed its promotional strategies for marketing the products. the marketing team at palmer has been asked to evaluate the target market and the marketing mix elements to find ways to improve the effectiveness of the marketing strategies. since the firm already knows the purpose of its research, the next step in the marketing research process is to:

9. tax types: taxes are classified based on whether they are applied directly to income, called direct taxes, or to some other measurable performance characteristic of the firm, called indirect taxes. identify each of the following as a “direct tax,” an “indirect tax,” or something else: a. corporate income tax paid by a japanese subsidiary on its operating income b. royalties paid to saudi arabia for oil extracted and shipped to world markets c. interest received by a u.s. parent on bank deposits held in london d. interest received by a u.s. parent on a loan to a subsidiary in mexico e. principal repayment received by u.s. parent from belgium on a loan to a wholly owned subsidiary in belgium f. excise tax paid on cigarettes manufactured and sold within the united states g. property taxes paid on the corporate headquarters building in seattle h. a direct contribution to the international committee of the red cross for refugee relief i. deferred income tax, shown as a deduction on the u.s. parent’s consolidated income tax j. withholding taxes withheld by germany on dividends paid to a united kingdom parent corporation

Costco wholesale corporation operates membership warehouses selling food, appliances, consumer electronics, apparel and other household goods at 471 locations across the u.s. as well as in canada, mexico and puerto rico. as of its fiscal year-end 2005, costco had approximately 21.2 million members. selected fiscal-year information from the company's balance sheets follows. ($ millions). selected balance sheet data 2005 2004 merchandise inventories $4,015 $3,644 deferred membership income (liability) 501 454 (a) during fiscal 2005, costco collected $1,120 cash for membership fees. use the financial statement effectstemplate to record the cash collected for membership fees. (b) in 2005, costco recorded $46,347 million in merchandise costs (that is, cost of goods sold). record thistransaction in the financial statement effects template. (c) determine the value of merchandise that costco purchased during fiscal-year 2005. use the financial statementeffects template to record these merchandise purchases. assume all of costco's purchases are on credit.

Imagine us is a startup that offers high definition 3d prenatal ultrasounds for high-end customers. the service process includes four activities that are conducted in the sequence described below. (the time required for each activity is shown in parentheses): activity 1: welcome a patient and explain the procedure. (20 minutes)activity 2: prep the patient (e.g., show them to the room, apply ultrasound gel). (17 minutes) (*your id number represents the amount of time needed to complete this task)activity 3: take images. (5 minutes)activity 4: discuss diagnostic with patient. (20 minutes)at each location there are employees (servers) s1, s2, and s3. the assignment of tasks to servers is the following: s1 does activities 1 and 2.s2 does activity 3.s3 does activity 4.a. what is the capacity of this process (in customers per hour)? b. suppose 3 patients arrive every hour on average. ignoring any “start of day” or “end of day” effects, what are the utilizations of all three servers (%)? c. suppose each activity can be done by any server and any server can do any set of activities. however, each activity is done by only one server. for example, a possible assignment includes: s1 does activity 1, s2 does activity 2, and s3 does activities 3 and 4. of course, the original assignment of servers to activities is also feasible. what is the maximum capacity of the process (in customers per hour)? d. now consider the capacity measures in (c) and (a), what is the percentage change? why can you improve capacity without using additional resources? (there is no free lunch, right? )note: for all hw assignments, show your process of getting the results. only providing the final answers is not acceptable and will get 0%. if necessary, use a separate sheet of paper to show your work.