Jones over forecasts his inventory and has a low inventory turnover ratio. This drastically increases his accounts payable, as he isn’t able to pay due to low cash inflow. His account’s payable increased by nearly 9 percent in 2006. Nearly half of his current assets are in inventory. Also Jones isn’t able to take advantage of the cash discounts offered by his suppliers due to his slow cash collection process. In order to perform well, the company must improve its inventory system and its cash collection policies.
The Home Depot (Ticker: HD) is the world’s largest home-improvement retailer along with being an American Fortune 50 company. The company operates 2,259 retail building supply/home improvement “warehouse” type stores all across the United States, Canada and Mexico. The Home Depot has over 340,000 team members and is based in Atlanta, Georgia. The average store size is just over 100,000 square feet along with an additional 24,000 square feet set aside for seasonal gardening.
Q1. For this case, involving some exploratory research, Exhibit 12a and 12b show the segmentation and descriptor variables used to collect data for the segmentation analysis. Comment on the appropriateness and comprehensiveness of these attributes. What would your team change in this questionnaire and what other segmentation and descriptor questions would you recommend to ask to respondents for a better segmentation and targeting strategy?
First, we have identified if there is really an insufficiency in the amount of selling prices set by the Sales Department, in reference to Exhibit 1 of the case. We did this through identifying the maximum amount of overhead costs that the company can incur for the three products and comparing it with the total overhead costs. See Table 1 for details.
In this company, the CEO, Harold Redd, was driven to implement some change because the organization consisted of workers who only had basic skills in computer assembling and troubleshooting. Given that the company had very few
Alex comes up with the consensus that the “Goal” of his business and many others is to increase net profit while simultaneously increasing return on investment and their cash flow at the plant. This basically means to make money. These three measurements can be achieved by looking closer into his second set of measurements. Alex specifically must find a way to increase throughput while at the same time decreasing it inventory and operational expenses. All three of these measurements must be cautiously monitored since they all rely on each other to be obtained in balance. Factors that cause throughput, inventory, and operational expenses to become unbalanced are excess manpower and balance capacity of the demand of resources in the market.
In the case of Mendel Paper Company which produces four basic paper products lines at one of its plants: computer paper, napkins, place mats, and poster board. Although the plant superintendent, Marlene Herbert is pleases with increased sales he is also concerned about the costs. The superintendent is concerned with the high fixed cost of production, the increases in fixed overhead and even variable overhead. He feels that the production of place mat should be discontinued. His reason for the discontinuation is that the special printing is driving up the variable overhead to the point where the company may not find it profitable to continue with the line. After reviewing the future predictions of the
c. How might you adjust the assortments in your department to “pounce” on the misfortunes at Thomas & Blake? Be very specific.
Considering these above mentioned features, to take over the company, it is essential for Joe Jr. to take due attention to a proper approach for inventory management, calculate an appropriate inventory level for each product, making it in line with the company’s business strategy, the market demand in the upcoming period:
The high inventory levels are a concern because it increases carrying costs to their company. The higher carrying costs reduce profit, which negatively affect the company and stockholders. A couple recommendations to Barb is to set up an inventory identification system to keep track of inventory, offer discounts and promotions to move inventory, and use the ABC analysis approach to manage the inventory.
Based on the given information in the case study regarding the acquisition of Nicholson File Company by Cooper Industries, there is no question that Cooper should try to gain control of Nicholson. This decision is based on an analysis of the bargaining positions of each group of Nicholson stockholders which have disparate goals and needs that need to be met. In addition, an appropriate payment method and specific dollar value based on a competitor's offer and Cooper financial data was decided. The remainder of this paper will provide the analysis and rationale for this determination.
* any other issues you believe should be brought to the attention of the CEO and the board
The final responsibility for the integrity of an SEC registrant’s internal controls lies on the management team. U.S. companies need to refer to a comprehensive framework of internal control when assessing the quality of financial reporting to determine that financial statements are being presented under General Accepted Accounting Principles, GAAP. The widely used framework is referred as COSO, Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, sponsored by the following organizations American Accounting Association, the American Institute of CPA’s, Financial Executives International, the Institute of Internal Auditors, and the Institute of Management Accountants. COSO’s defines internal control as:
KOS is a division of SPC and is currently bidding for a large system development and integration project POPS. KOS is considering the use of Lakshmi for their outsourcing needs for the project.
Religare Enterprise Limited is one biggest financial services group company which is diversified across the India with head quartered in New Delhi. They are engaged in providing financial products and services in the market over 15 years across 1550 locations and 460 cities and town.