When to Drop an Unprofitable Customer.

The article presents a fictionalized case study which examines when companies should drop customers who are unprofitable. In the case study, a door and staircase supply company employs an activity-based costing (ABC) approach and discovers that one of its long-term customers has a poor profit and loss (P&L) statement. Businessman Timothy J. Jahnke and business professor Jacquelyn S. Thomas comment on the benefits and disadvantages of dropping a customer.