I calculated an “inventory turnover ratio” which measures the number of times a company sells its inventory during a year. A high rate of turnover indicates easiness in selling inventory; a low rate indicates difficulty. In 2011, the inventory turnover was 6.1. By 2012 the ratio decreased to 5.2. The decrease may be due to a slow ability to turn around merchandise in sales and potentially due to paying a higher cost for goods.
• Putnam has 6000 employees who divided into two core categories: 1. Transfer Agency, who was serving the investor and the intermediaries which have a directly link with Putnam Investements. 2. Defined contribution services, who were serving the investor within 401K plans. • Turnover rate of the employees those who at work@home program significantly decreased become 8%.
Notwithstanding increasing dividends and a moderately stable share price, the home improvement retail industry remains to struggle due to the fragmentary world wide economic complications. Throughout 2009 Home Depot recorded expenses as much higher as well as the drop in sales. While Home Depot the company is very strong, the drop in sales and net earnings brought fourth some restraints until the economy shows signs of improvement. With this in mind The Home Depot, Inc. initiated strategies in the fiscal year 2008, to help minimize losses while maintaining a strong customer base. Which in turn may have the company to increase their credit programs for consumers with the intention to increase sales.
The next stage is Depression, this is where there is a lengthy period of declining Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – this is where there is little to no customer spending (there is some increase in the rise of employment). The last stage is Recovery, this is where the business starts to get better; the customers increase their spending, the business starts to feel more confident in their products and profits & unemployment is still continuing. b) Describe what influence the recession stage would have on your chosen business. If Tesco go into the recession stage of the business cycle that would influence them to cut back on hiring new employees when their revenues and profits start to go down, and also the business might chose to stop buying new equipment and stop new
The Good Night Motel’s rate is higher than the other mid range and low-end motels in the area by $15 and $25, respectively. We can conclude that Good Night Motel’s rates are in fact higher than most other motels in the area. This may be a contributing factor as to why their occupancy rates had dropped 7-15 percent across all seasons of the year during 2008-2012. The increasing competitive environment and current economic conditions are critical factors in examining the motel’s performance. Recently, Good Night’s performance has slightly improved.
Individuals are losing jobs and the government have to spend more money of benefits. They collected back less from taxes and VAT. Businesses are cutting back on productions but for some customers is good if they have money because the prices are falling as well as inflation. At the boom stage the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) are the values of
Two disadvantages to automation are that it costs more and it is not easily changed. 6. A products margin is determined by subtracting its manufacturing cots (labor and material) from its price. Logically, higher prices and lower labor and material costs result in higher margins. Keeping in mind the customer buying criteria, how would you increase margins for a low end product?
Due to the fact that Asian and other foreign textile manufacturers have been exported aggressively and consumer preferences are requiring higher-quality products with minimum defects, like other firms, Aurora tends to produce small amount of yarns produced with minimal period and provide to customized markets. Consequently, Aurora had decreased significantly its costs by reducing $3.9 million of SG&A expenses since 2000 and it was one reason of increasing operating profit and net earnings in 2002. Unfortunately, Aurora’s returned amount from retailers had been increased and the proportion of sales return of Aurora’s one plant named the Hunter reached 1.5% in 2002; thus, the firm’s income has not risen well. Figure 1 illustrates Aurora’s financial ratios by calculating given financial information through Exhibits 1, 2, and 6. The first, the company’s liquidity ratios-current ratio and quick ratio-had been increased smoothly for these four years.
The relationship Lynn Rosen was talking about was the relationship between customer-service level and inventory investment. Customer-service level gradually goes up as the inventory investment goes up. However, it is not a straight linear relationship. As can be seen from the graph underneath, the slope became less sharp as customer satisfaction goes up. After the level goes to certain degree, adding up the same amount of inventory investment would lead to less increase in customer satisfaction.
Externalities cause deadweight loss which can lead to market failure. Businesses can make more money if they can internalize the externalities. Externalities can be internalized if the transaction cost of the business is low. “Transaction costs are the costs of identifying and bringing buyers and sellers together, bargaining and drawing up a contract”2and it is relatively high for department stores like Galeria Kaufhof in comparison to stores like H&M. Similarly, the transaction cost for stores such as H&M is more than that of the jewelry shops but less than the department stores.