An external benchmark study suggested targets for each of the functions in the company, for IT this was 1.5% of revenue.

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The premise is that consistently successful companies start with an external market orientation and vigilantly study customer trends in order to design their strategy.

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James Westhead, director of external relations at education charity TeachFirst, said the study was very significant international evidence that disadvantage need not equal destiny.

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And a forthcoming ACCA study of IFRS adoption in China finds that companies with the greatest demand for external capital experienced the most increase in the value relevance of their reported earnings.

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Most of the collapses that have taken place over the last 10 years in a study done recently by engineers, about 85 percent of them were from some external cause like a flood that undercuts the pilings or a barge or a ship hitting them.

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