Customer lifetime value (CLV)-It's useful to know how profitable a customer has been, but in some but t cases the future potential profit levels, especially in business-to-consumer (B2C) relationships, is more rele- cost vant because customers go through life cycles. rati Planning, budgeting, and rolling financial forecasts-Based on forecasts of future demand vol ume and mix for types of services or products, com- bined with assumptions of other proposed changes, how imp much will it cost to match demand with our supplied resources (for example, workforce staffing levels, pur ing chased materials)? We Capital expense justification-Is the return on investment (ROI) of a proposed asset purchase, such as str equipment or an information system, justified? Make vs. buy and general outsourcing decisions Should we continue to do it ourselves or contract with a third party? Process and productivity improvement-What (w can be changed? How can we identify opportunities? How should we compare and differentiate high-impact opportunities from nominal ones? The term "cost estimating" is a general one and applies b in all the previous decision-making categories. You might ca conclude that the first category, rationalization, focuses