Firms are concentrating on the delivery of value to the customer with the objective of establishing a competitive advantage. Accountants and managers refer to a firm's value chain as the set of activities required to design, develop, produce, market, and deliver products and services to customers. As a result, a key question to be asked about any process or activity is whether it is important to the customer. The cost management system must track information relating to a wide variety of activities important to customers (e.g., product quality, environmental performance, new product development, and delivery performance). Customers now count the delivery of the product or service as part of the product. companies must compete not only in technological and manufacturing terms but also in terms of the speed of delivery and response. Firms like Federal Express have exploited this desire by identifying and developing a market the U.S. Postal service could not serve.