Acquiring Information The purchasing officer of Acme Finance Company was very concerned about the reliability of a piece of equipment it was about to purchase from Bumble Manufacturing Company. Before purchasing the equipment, the officer asked a number of questions about the frequency-of-repair record of the equipment, the length of time needed for repairs, whether the manufacturer did the repair work, and the average cost of repairs. In each case, the sales representative of Bumble Manufacturing responded that there were no more repair problems with this equipment than with any of the other models in their product line.

a. How would you evaluate the response by the sales representative?

b. How might Acme acquire additional information about the equipment?

c. How would Acme determine if the information provided by the sales representative was accurate?

d. How important would you consider the manufacturer’s warranty to be in this case?