Briefly discribe

While I believe many companies do analysis on all the public information their competitor's release, in the end the company still has to know what to do with that information. If a company attempts to use the data and does it poorly or wrong they could be worse off than when they started.

Do you believe that companies use other company's data when planning their own budgets? Or do you believe they only slightly "reference" the data?

Finally, do you think other companies data has a significant impact on a company?

I would believe many companies competing with each other analyze each other's financial information because it is public knowledge. From the descriptions in the text to me it sounds if the indirect method would be more of an advantage to a competing company. The reason is because the indirect method focuses on the differences between net income and net cash flow from operating activities. Knowing this data as a competitor I believe is more valuable because the source activity of cash is available. This data would allow to target these activities. Would you agree?

The balance between full (and adequate) disclosure, the needs of shareholders, and the competitive threats that accompany over-disclosure.
Do you think that the needs of the public at large (and the requirements that accompany a free-market, open system) outweigh the concerns associated with giving too much information to the competition? Comments?