Curriculum linkage Most marketing managers want to know why actual sales differ from budgeted sales. If the SQV is primarily due to uncontrollable changes in market size, the company may need to expand, downsize or shift to new product markets. In contrast, market share is more controllable, since traditional marketing activities such as pricing and promotion are more likely to affect market share than total market size. The SMV tells managers whether the mix is shifting in favour of high- or low-revenue (margin) items when variances are based on revenues (margins. And the sales revenue price variance (an FBV discussed in Chapter 15) reveals the effects of a change in selling price.