Cooper Collins is a bright, hard$-$working engineer who once owned a successful engineering consulting firm in Evensplitia. Cooper was discouraged by the high tax rates in Evensplitia, so he immigrated to the United States Soon after moving to the U$.$S$.,$ Cooper again tried his hand at entrepreneurship and opened Coop's Consulting. struggled at first, and almost went bankrupt midway through, its second year. However, Cooper never lost faith, survived, and eventually developed a great reputation in the community. Coop's Consulting began experiencing early in its fourth year. In fact, Cooper hired additional employees to keep up with the increasing workload. His started with only Cooper and two other full$-$time workers, now provides jobs for $43$ full$-$time employees as well workers and interns. Despite these past successes, business ownership is not without complications. The comp drop in business since its very early years. Cooper is convinced that the problem is not with his company, but ra downturn in the U$.$S$.$ economy. He heard a national broadcast last week reporting that the value of the total out and services in the U$.$S$.$ declined over the last quarter. The anchor went on to state that many economists belie downward trend is likely to continue for several more months. Cooper is concerned that he will have to lay off $s$ employees if the economy doesn't improve. He hopes that the government does something soon to put the ec track.

Besides a slowdown in the general economy, Coop's Consulting faces threats of competition from several othe provide engineering consulting services. In order to gain more business, Cooper tries to convince potential clie company offers better service than the competition. He has advertised heavily in professional magazines, ofter highly satisfied clients. The market Coop's Consulting operates in is an example of