Working Capital Case Study

Working capital is the key to a successful business. It is like their blood flow and the manager’s job is to help keep it flowing. Under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles working capital is simply the difference between a company’s Current Assets, which are cash, inventory, accounts receivable and prepaid items, and Current Liabilities, accounts payable and accrued expenses.

What I find to be the biggest indicator of concern is that PepsiCo’s profitability is currently declining, despite its ever-increasing sales figures. It has lost 2% on both its profit margin, and return on assets. The return on common stockholder’s equity, has dipped by 4%, and they lost $.02 over every dollar invested in assets in 2005. This goes back to my assessment of their sales and net income figures. Here again, I see indications that their spending has increased dramatically, which is having a negative impact on profitability. Since the soft drink industry is a high-volume, low-overhead industry, controlling and minimizing expenses is of paramount importance. I find this trend to be very troubling, considering PepsiCo’s sales haven’t stopped climbing, yet they are starting to lose their profitability. Should their sales dip, they will be very hard put to maintain themselves.

Rapid cash collections are indicative of high turnover; however, loss of customers to rival firms and tight credit levels arise from extremely high accounts receivable turnover level, (Horngren, 2013, p. 805).The accounts receivable turnover for Harry Jones in 2014 was 7.93 times. This figure decreased to 5.63 times in 2015. Both figures are less than the industry average of 9 times. Low inventory turnover levels might be attributed to reduced accounts receivable turnover levels throughout both 2014 and 2015. Inventory levels can be increased in the future to achieve higher accounts receivable turnover, (Horngren, 2013, p. 805).

There were increases in days’ sales in inventory for the three years that are shown. The data shows 0 days for 2005 and 2006; 4 days in 2007; and, a slight decrease from 7 days in 2008 to 6 days in 2009. This ratio estimates the number of days that it will take to sell the current inventory. Therefore, this low number, despite near constant sales, indicates good inventory control. Although this number could be understated because AT&T uses the natural business year for its accounting period, and the average daily cost of goods sold will be at a low point at this time of year.

In an effort to remedy such disproportion between inventory and demand, in 1995 SDI began to negligently issue credit lines. As exemplified by Table 2, due to such leniency net sales continued to increase between 1995 and 1997 (Appendix A). However, as illustrated by Table 1 the relaxed credit standards caused a 39% spike in accounts receivable from 1994 to 1995 (Appendix A). Consequently, the increase in inventory and accounts receivable negatively impacted the current ratio of the firm. As a result, the firm’s liquidity dropped significantly below industry average in 1995 to 1.90 from 2.96, well above the 2.25 average, in 1994 (Appendix C). Therefore, the cash flow of the firm was negatively affected by the issuance of credit as accounts receivable continued to rise.

Nutracuticals is an online direct-to-consumer supplier of dietary supplements for women. The company based in Miami, FL offers vitamin supplements from over 50 brand names/suppliers. This firm is currently breaking even, and the decisions made over the next three phases of the business, each three years spanning from 2013-2021, will dictate the firm’s profitability. The decisions will be based on financing options and resources (cash) available to the firm in each phase. Decision-making will be based on the impact to the business metrics involved including: sales, EBIT, net income (profit), free cash flow (FCF), and the total firm value. For the purpose managing inventories, growth, and adding value to the firm, as CEO I have chose to exercise theses three phase options, to follow.

With this company the inventory management ratios further indicate that there may be an issue with inventory and inventory controls. The inventory turnover ratio is lower than the industry average and the days’ sales in inventory are high. A company wants to turn inventory quickly to reduce storage costs, and

Coca-Cola is a leading beverage industry in the United States and many other countries in the world. PepsiCo is also a leading worldwide beverage company, but they are also the parent company of the Frito-Lay and Quaker Oats Companies. This makes PepsiCo a leader in the beverage, snack and cereal industries. As consumers, we have indulged in their products for many years. My personal preference has always been Pepsi over Coke, which is why I was very interested in conducting this analysis. Regardless of the results, I will always seek out a Diet Pepsi over a Diet Coke and so will many of my physician friends at Children’s Hospital who start their mornings with a Diet Pepsi. These personal preferences are what contributes to a company’s profits through net sales. However, the key performance measurement tools used are not based on sales alone. Calculating liquidity, solvency, and profitability ratios on a regular basis give us a better insight on the performance and overall health of a company.

SNC wants to build off the momentum gained in phase 2 by further expanding their brand to reach the international markets. Mega –Mart has helped SNC become a national household name, so we would like to become an international competitor. Applying a global strategy will increase our revenue and our EBIT and allow us to keep our costs flat by contracting with international suppliers. At this stage in our business cycle, we are interested in maintaining steady growth, retaining as much of our earnings as possible and paying down our credit lines to lower our interest expense.

As mention before, Coca-cola has 47.3 percent market share in the country’s cola market versus Pepsi which hold 44.5 percent. Coca-cola is also the brand known around the worlds, which are the largest producer and distributor of ark colas in the world. Even in the current monetary crisis, the company continues to expand and the financial position shows that Coca-cola has a strong cash position in compare to PepsiCo which the long term debt of PepsiCo is so high.

A company must pay attention to the number of days of its sales it holds in inventory to determine the amount of time it will take to convert the inventory on hand into sales (Gibson, 2011). As shown in Exhibit 3, 3M increased from 81.74 days of sales in inventory in 2007 to 82.20 days in 2008. At face value, an increase suggests a slight negative trend for 3M as it is holding onto more inventory, taking longer to sell

Coca-Cola Company has realized significant growth since its establishment to become a global leader in the marketing, manufacturing, and distribution of syrup and soft drinks. Out of the four generic strategies, the company has followed the differentiation strategy to make its products unique in the market. Its interest is to maximize the market share through the development of the most innovative products and the establishment of effective strategies to influence the customer’s decisions. In such a way, the company has integrated various strategies to ensure that desirable results are attained in the market. Its strategic choices align with the differentiation strategy in an attempt to make its products unique and meet diverse market requirements. To reduce its weaknesses, the company should consider exploiting key opportunities in the market including venturing in the packaging of water, promotion of new brands, and launching of healthy products. In particular, the vision and mission statement of Coca-Cola seems to have reconfirmed and changed in this process of company’s strategic analysis.

We decided to tighten accounts receivable and drop poorly selling products because they yielded a percentage decrease in working capital requirement larger than their percentage drop in sales. Also these 2 options fit

Coca-Cola is the number one non-alcoholic beverage in the world and is also the golden standard in the beverage industry. Over the pass decade carbonated beverage sales has decrease which has lead Coca-Cola to seek for new opportunity and investor. Contribution of US soda sales in Coca-Cola’s revenue could decline to less than 15% by 2020. By the end of 2017 Coca-Cola is looking to refranchise two-thirds of its bottling territories in North America. The outcome of Coca-Cola refranchise two-third of its bottling territories will reduce the revenue to Coca-Cola sales of its products, however the operating margin will increase. Also, this could reduce the percentage contribution by the U.S to Coca-Cola overall revenue.

In this paper I’ll analyze the fundamental differences between the working capital structures and components for Google and Oracle, and speculate upon the main reasons why such differences exist; how each company could improve its working capital positions. As a Wall Street Analyst who has to recommend one of the companies as an investment to a company’s clients; based solely on that company’s working capital; as an Investment Banker who has to recommend loaning a substantial amount of capital to one company based solely on that company’s working capital.