provide your company's management team with solid evidence regarding the degree to which various costs at your company's production facilities are competitive with the production costs at the production facilities of rival companies.

are most useful to the managers of companies that are pursuing a strategy to be a low$-$cost provider of branded footwear.

are less useful than the Branded Operating Benchmarks on p$.7$ of the FIR in determining whether a company is managing certain aspects of its production facilities in a cost efficient manner.

are most useful to the managers of companies that are employing a strategy to produce premium quality branded footwear.

provide the managers of all companies with solid indication of whether their company's total manufacturing costs are low enough to enable their company to earn total profits that will meet or beat investor expectations.