a. What are likely to be the long-term critical success factors for the following types of firms?

• a high technology company, such as Microsoft

• a large low-cost retailer, such as Kmart

b. How useful is financial accounting data for evaluating how well these two companies are managing their critical success factors? What other types of information would be useful in your evaluation? What are the costs and benefits to these companies from disclosing this type of information to investors?

AppendixLO1