Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Article information:
To cite this document: Greg Filbeck, Thomas M. Krueger, (2005),"An Analysis of Working Capital Management Results Across
Industries", American Journal of Business, Vol. 20 Iss: 2 pp. 11 - 20
Permanent link to this document:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/19355181200500007
Downloaded on: 01-10-2012
Citations: This document has been cited by 2 other documents
To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
This document has been downloaded 275 times since 2011. *
Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY
For Authors:
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service.
Information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit
www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
With over forty years' experience, Emerald Group Publishing is a leading independent publisher of global research with impact in
business, society, public policy and education. In total, Emerald publishes over 275 journals and more than 130 book series, as
well as an extensive range of online products and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is
a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive
preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download.
Abstract
Firms are able to reduce financing costs and/or increase
the funds available for expansion by minimizing the
amount of funds tied up in current assets. We provide
insights into the performance of surveyed firms across key
components of working capital management by using the
CFO magazines annual Working Capital Management
Survey. We discover that significant differences exist
between industries in working capital measures across time.
In addition, we discover that these measures for working
capital change significantly within industries across time.
Introduction
11
Table 1
Industries Represented in CFOs Working
Capital Management Surveys
Aerospace
Apparel
Beverages
Building Materials
Chemicals
Conglomerates
Electric & Gas Utility
Electrical Equipment
Food
Food & Drug Stores
Food Services
Forest & Paper Products
Furniture
General Merchandisers
Health Care
Health-Care Equipment
Household Products
Metal Products
Metals
Motor Vehicles & Parts
Office Equipment
Petroleum
Pharmaceuticals
Publishing & Printing
Recreational
Scientific Equipment
Semiconductors
Specialty Retailers
Telecommunications
Textiles
Transportation
Wholesale Trade
Related Literature
The importance of working capital management is
not new to the finance literature. Over twenty years ago,
Largay and Stickney (1980) reported that the then-recent
bankruptcy of W.T. Grant, a nationwide chain of department
stores, should have been anticipated because the corporation
had been running a deficit cash flow from operations for
eight of the last ten years of its corporate life. As part
of a study of the Fortune 500s financial management
Table 2
Working Capital Management Component Definitions and Averages
Component
Equation
Overall Ranking
(Highest overall CCE Company CCE) / (Highest overall CCE Lowest overall CCE) x
(Lowest overall DWC Company DWC) / Lowest overall DWC Highest overall DWC)
Average Value
(Standard Deviation)
9.0 percent
(1.7 percent)
51.8 days
(4.7 days)
Inventory Turns
Inventory / (Sales/365)
12
50.6 days
(1.3 days)
11.0X/year or 32.4 days
(2.5 days)
32.0 days
(2.8 days)
Research Method
Research Findings
Table 3
Average Working Capital Scoreboard Variables
Available Data Over Five Years
CFO Working
Capital Measures
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
Cash Conversion
Efficiency
10%
9%
10%
10%
6%
Days Working
Capital
59 days
46 days
52 days
52 days
50 days
Days sales
outstanding
49 days
50 days
52 days
52 days
50 days
Days payables
outstanding
27 days
34 days
33 days
33 days
33 days
13
14
Table 5
Average Industry Ranks of Working Capital Management Measures
Across Components and Overall Ratings
1996 1999
Firm
Cash Conversion
Efficiency
Days of Working
Capital
Days Sales
Outstanding
Inventory
Turnover
Days Payables
Outstanding
Aerospace
20
23
19
19
19
Apparel
23
24
11
25
21
Beverage
12
10
Building Materials
14
12
10
Chemicals
14
20
13
Computer
13
16
13
Electric/Gas Utilities
22
10
Electronics
21
22
15
Food
11
10
20
16
Food Services
10
26
Food Stores
26
25
Forest Products
11
11
12
Furniture
18
22
17
16
20
General Merchandise
24
16
24
14
Health Care
17
17
23
23
Metals
19
18
14
Metal Products
15
19
15
17
Motor Vehicles
16
13
Petroleum
25
Pharmaceuticals
20
21
26
11
Publishing
14
24
Scientific Equipment
13
25
26
23
18
Specialty Retailers
21
18
17
Telecommunications
24
Textiles
22
26
28
21
22
Wholesale Trade
25
15
12
12
15
15
Table 7
Analysis of Working Capital Management Overall and Across Components
Working Capital Management Aspects Identified by CFO magazine
1996-1999
Industry Significance Measure using ANOVA F-value
Industry
Significance
Cash
Conversion
Consistency
Days of Working
Capital
Days Sales
Outstanding
Inventory
Turnover
Days Payables
Outstanding
CFOs Overall
Ranking
20.60**
21.54**
35.47**
22.12**
13.62**
14.72**
86.85**
87.35**
91.91**
87.64**
85.15**
83.24**
The significance of Kendalls coefficient of concordance statistic (W) is measured using chi-square values, calculated as follows:
x2 = Number of years (Number of industries - 1) W
The critical value using Kendalls Coefficient of Concordance (alpha = 0.01) is 44.31.
Significance: * = 0.05; ** = 0.01
a
Conclusions
17
Note
1. This ranking was not published in CFO magazine in 2002
or available at its Web site.
References
Corman, L. 1998. The 1998 working capital survey: Cash masters.
CFO 14 (7):30-48.
Farragher, E., R. Kleiman, and A. Sahu. 1999. Current capital
investment practices. Engineering Economist 44 (2): 137-150.
Fink, R. 2001. The 2001 working capital survey: Forget the float?
CFO 17 (9):54-64.
Gilbert, E. and A. Reichert. 1995. The practice of financial
management among large United States corporations.
Financial Practice and Education 5 (1): 16-23.
Hadley, S. 2004. Making the business case: Supply chain
management. Strategic Management (April):28-34.
Hill, N., W. Sartoris, and D. Ferguson. 1984. Corporate credit and
payables policies: Two surveys. Journal of Cash Management
559-576.
Largay, J. and C. Stickney. 1980. Cash flows, ratio analysis and the
W.T. Grant Company bankruptcy. Financial Analyst Journal
36 (4):51-54.
Maness, T. and J. Zietlow. 2004. Short-term Financial
Management. Australia: Southwestern Press.
Mintz, S. 1999. The 1999 working capital survey: Dollars in the
details. CFO 15 (7):55-68.
Mintz, S. and C. Lazere. 1997. The 1997 working capital survey:
Inside the corporate cash machine. CFO 13 (6):54-68.
Myers, R. 2000. The 2000 working capital survey: Cash crop. CFO
16 (7):59-82.
Scherr, F. 1996. Optimal trade credit limits. Financial Management
25 (1):71-85.
Schwartz, R. 1974. An economic model of trade credit. Journal of
Financial and Quantitative Analysis 9:643-657.
Towne, J. 2002. Black inkSix Sigma archives, case study #5
Thibodaux Regional Medial Center. www.hfma.org/resource.
Waxer, C. 2003. Six Sigma costs and savings. www.isixsigma.com/
library.
Weinraub, H. and S. Visscher. 1998. Industry practice related
to aggressive/conservative working capital policies. Journal of
Financial and Strategic Decisions 11 (2):39-46.
Weisel, J., N. Harm, and C. Bradley. 2003. The cash factor.
Strategic Management (Sept.):29-33.
18