After rollercoaster years of success and decline, Apple has found itself once again on top of its game. However, rivals like Microsoft and Google are pushing competitiveness. In fact, many of Apple’s rivals have the same or similar product offerings. Apple has hired you as a futurist. Help the company continue to diversify its products and maintain strategic competitiveness through new innovations and improved technologies. Through which strategy should Apple pursue its next big hit. a. Unrelated Diversification
b. Related Diversification

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?

Google started as one of many internet search engines, amazon started as an online book seller, and ebay began as a site where people could sell used personal items in auctions. these firms have grown to be so large and dominant that they are facing antitrust scrutiny from competition regulators in the us and elsewhere. did these online giants grow by fairly beating competition, or did they use unfair advantages? are there any clouds on the horizon for these firms -- could they face diseconomies of scale or diseconomies of scope as they continue to grow? if so, what factors may limit their continued growth?

Pam is a low-risk careful driver and fran is a high-risk aggressive driver. to reveal their driver types, an auto-insurance company a. refuses to insure high-risk drivers b. charges a higher premium to owners of newer cars than to owners of older cars c. offers policies that enable drivers to reveal their private information d. uses a pooling equilibrium e. requires drivers to categorize themselves as high-risk or low-risk on the application form