会计毕业论文外文翻译-- -跨行业的营运资金管理问题研究(节选)

2000单词，1.1万英文字符，中文3700字

出处：Filbeck G, Krueger T M. An Analysis of Working Capital Management Results Across Industries[J]. American Journal of Business, 2005, 20(2):11-18.

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外文原文

An Analysis of Working Capital Management Results across Industries

Greg Filbeck and Thomas M. Krueger

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 magazine’s annual Working Capital Management Survey. We di scover 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

The importance of efficient working capital management is indisputable. Working capital is the difference between resources in cash or readily convertible into cash (Current Assets) and organizational commitments for which cash will soon be required (Current Liabilities). The objective of working capital management is to maintain the optimum balance of each of the working capital components. Business viability relies on the ability to effectively manage receivables, inventory, and payables. 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. Much managerial effort is expended in bringing non-optimal levels of current assets and liabilities back toward optimal levels. An optimal level would be one in which a balance is achieved between risk and efficiency.

A recent example of business attempting to maximize working capital management is the recurrent attention being given to the application of Six Sigma? methodology. Six Sigma? methodologies help companies measure and ensure quality in all areas of the enterprise. When used to identify and rectify discrepancies, inefficiencies and erroneous transactions in the financial supply chain. Six Sigma? reduces Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)，accelerates the payment cycle, improves customer satisfaction and reduces the necessary amount and cost of working capital needs. There appear to be many success stories, including Jennifer Towne’s (2002) report of a 15 percent decrease in days that sales are outstanding, resulting in an increased cash flow of approximately $2 million at Thibodaux Regional Medical Center. Furthermore, bad debts declined from $3.4 million to $600.000. However, Waxer’s (2003) study of multiple firms employing Six Sigma? finds t hat it is really a “get rich slow” technique with a rate of return hovering in the 1.2 – 4.5 percent range.

Even in a business using Six Sigma? methodology, an “optimal” level of working capital

management needs to be identified. Industry factors may impact firm credit policy, inventory management and bill-paying activities. Some firms may be better suited to minimize receivables and inventory, while others maximize payables. Another aspect of “optimal” is the extent to which poor financial results can be tied to sub-optimal performance. Fortunately, these issues are testable with data published by CFO magazine, which claims to be the source of “tools and information for the financial executive.” and are the subject of this research.

In addition to providing mean and variance values for the working capital measures and the overall metric, two issues will be addressed in this research. One research question is “are firms within a particular industry clustered together at consistent levels of working capital m easures?” For instance, are firms in one industry able to quickly transfer sales into cash, while firms from another industry tend to have high sales levels for the particular level of inventory. The other research question is “Does working capital managem ent performance for firms within a given industry change from year-to-year?”

The following section presents a brief literature review. Next, the research method is described, including some information about the annual Working Capital Management Survey published by CFO magazine. Findings are then presented and conclusions are drawn. 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 500’s financial management practices, Gilbert and Reichert (1995) find that accounts receivable management models are used in 59 percent of these firms to improve working capital projects, while inventory management models were used in 60 percent of the companies. More recently, Farragher, Kleiman and Sahu (1999) find that 55 percent of firms in the S&P Industrial index complete some form of a cash flow assessment, but did not present insights regarding accounts receivable and inventory management, or the variations of any current asset accounts or liability accounts across industries. Thus, mixed evidence exists concerning the use of working capital management techniques.

Theoretical determination of optimal trade credit limits are the subject of many articles over the years (e.g. Schwartz 1974; Scherr 1996) with scant attention paid to actual accounts receivable management. Across a limited sample, Weinraub and Visscher (1998) observe a tendency of firms with low levels of current ratios to also have low levels of current liabilities. Simultaneously investigating accounts receivable and payable issues. Hill·Sartoris and Ferguson (1984) find differences in the way payment dates are defined. Payees define the date of payment as the date payment is received, while payors view payment as the postmark date. Additional WCM insight across firms, industries and time can add to this body of research.

Maness and Zietlow (2002. 51. 496) presents two models of value creation that incorporate

effective short-term financial management activities. However, these models are generic models and do not consider unique firm or industry influences. Maness and Zietlow discuss industry influences in a short paragraph that includes the observation that “An industry a c ompany is located in may have more influence on that company’s fortunes than overall GNP” (2002. 507). In fact, a careful review of this 627-page textbook finds only sporadic information on actual firm levels of WCM dimensions, virtually nothing on industry factors except for some boxed items with titles such as “Should a Retailer Offer an In-House Credit Card” (128) and nothing on WCM stability over time. This research will attempt to fill this void by investigating patterns related to working capital measures within industries and illustrate differences between industries across time.

An extensive survey of library and Internet resources provided very few recent reports about working capital management. The most relevant set of articles was Weisel and Bra dley’s (2003) article on cash flow management and one of inventory control as a result of effective supply chain management by Hadley (2004).

Research Method

The first annual CFO Working Capital Survey, a joint project with REL Consultancy Group, was published in the June 1997 issue of CFO (Mintz and Lezere 1997). REL is a London, England-based management consulting firm specializing in working capital issues for its global list of clients. The original survey reports several working capital benchmarks for public companies using data for 1996. Each company is ranked against its peers and also against the entire field of 1000 companies. REL continues to update the original information on an annual basis.

REL uses the “cash flow from operations” value locate d on firm cash flow statements to estimate cash conversion efficiency (CCE). This value indicates how well a company transforms revenues into cash flow. A “days of working capital” (DWC) value is based on the dollar amount in each of the aggregate, equally-weighted receivables, inventory and payables accounts. The “days of working capital” (DWC) represents the time period between purchases of inventory on account from vendor until the sale to the customer, the collection of the receivables and payment recei pt. Thus, it reflects the company’s ability to finance its core operations with vendor credit.

A detailed investigation of WCM is possible because CFO also provides firm and industry values for days sales outstanding (A/R), inventory turnover and days payables outstanding (A/P). Research Findings

Average and Annual Working Capital Management Performance

Working capital management component definitions and average values for the entire 1996 – 2000 period. Across the nearly 1.000 firms in the survey, cash flow from operations, defined as cash flow from operations divided by sales and referred to as “cash conversion efficiency” (CCE). Averages 9.0 percent. Incorporating a 95 percent confidence interval, CCE ranges from 5.6 percent to 12.4 percent. The day’s w orking capital (DWC), defined as the sum of receivables

and inventories less payables divided by daily sales, averages 51.8 days and is very similar to the days that sales are outstanding (50.6). Because the inventory turnover rate (once every 32.0 days) is similar to the number of days that payables are outstanding (32.4 days). In all instances, the standard deviation is relatively small, suggesting that these working capital management variables are consistent across CFO reports.

Industry Rankings on Overall Working Capital Management Performance CFO magazine provides an overall working capital ranking for firms in its survey, using the following equation: Industry-based differences in overall working capital management are presented for the twenty-six industries that had at least eight companies included in the rankings each year. In the typical year, CFO magazine ranks 970 companies during this period. Industries are listed in order of the mean overall CFO ranking of working capital performance. Since the best average ranking possible for an eight-company industry is 4.5 (this assumes that the eight companies are ranked one through eight for the entire survey). It is quite obvious that all firms in the petroleum industry must have been receiving very high overall working capital management rankings. In fact, the petroleum industry is ranked first in CCE and third in DWC (as illustrated in Table 5 and discussed later in this paper). Furthermore, the petroleum industry had the lowest standard deviation of working capital rankings and range of working capital rankings. The only other industry with a mean overall ranking less than 100 was the Electric & Gas Utility industry, which ranked second in CCE and fourth in DWC. The two industries with the worst working capital rankings were Textiles and Apparel. Textiles rank twenty-second in CCE and twenty-sixth in DWC. The apparel industry ranks twenty-third and twenty-fourth in the two working capital measures.

Conclusions

The research presented here is based on the annual ratings of working capital management published in CFO magazine. Our findings indicate a consistency in how industries “stack up” against each other over time with respect to the working capital measures. However, the working capital measures themselves are not static (i.e. averages of working capital measures across all firms change annually); our results indicate significant movements across our entire sample over time. Our findings are important because they provide insight to working capital performance across time and on working capital management across industries. These changes may be in explained in part by macroeconomic factors. Changes in interest rates, rate of innovation and competition are likely to impact working capital management. As interest rates rise, there would be less desire to make payments early, which would stretch accounts payable, accounts receivable and cash accounts.

The ramifications of this study include the finding of distinct levels of WCM measures for different industries, which tend to be stable over time. Many factors help to explain this discovery. The improving economy during the period of the study may have resulted in improved turnover in some industries, while slowing turnover may have been a signal of troubles

ahead. Our results should be interpreted cautiously. Our study takes places over a short time frame during a generally improving market. In addition, the survey suffers from survivorship bias – only the top firms within each industry are ranked each year and the composition of those firms within the industry can change annually.

Further research may take one of two lines. First, there could be a study of whether stock prices respond to CFO magazine’s publication of working capital management ratings. Second, there could be a study of which, if any, of the working capital management components relate to share price performance. Given our results, these studies need to take industry membership into consideration when estimating stock price reaction to working capital management performance.

外文翻译译文

跨行业的营运资金管理问题研究

格雷格.福利贝克和托马斯.克鲁格

摘要

企业可以通过降低融资成本或者减少资金在流动资产上的占用等方式来扩大自身现有的资金。我们在调查过程中，通过运用《首席财务官》杂志的年度营运资金调查报告提供了此报告中的关键组成部分。我们发现，行业间的跨时资金措施存在着明显的差异。此外，这些措施在企业营运资金管理中实施后有了显著改变。

引言

高效率的营运资金管理的重要性是不容置疑的。营运资金是现金或者是随时可以兑换为现金（流动资产）的资产和即将成为现金需要的负债（流动负债）之间的差额。营运资金管理的目标是维持流动资产与流动负债周转的最佳平衡。商业可行性依赖于应收账款、存货、应付账款的有效管理。企业可以通过降低融资成本，减少资金占用，以此来增加自有对外资金。在日常工作中，管理人员将太多的管理精力都放在把当前的资产和负债的周转由非最佳水平成长为最佳水平上。即实现效率和风险之间的平衡。

最近的一个实例是企业运用六西格玛方法试图最大限度地加强营运资金管理。六西格玛方法涉及企业所有经营范围，能帮助企业衡量和确保自身在各个领域中的质量。当前这个方法的运用是用来识别和纠正错误的交易效率差异及低效的财务供应链。六西格玛方法的运用原理是通过降低销售回款周期、加速支付周期来降低成本、减少流动资金需求、提高顾客满意度。似乎有许多成功的案例，包括珍妮弗（2002）的关于销售天数减少了百分之十五的优秀的销售报告。从而使蒂博多万区域医疗中心产生的现金流量增加了大约200万美元。同时，坏帐从340万美元下降到60万美元。但六西格玛方法并不是十分完美的，外克瑟(2003)调查多个公司运用六西格玛方法的有效性，研究显示：六西格玛方法确实是一个“缓慢致富”的技术，其回报率一直徘徊在1.2%-4.5%的范围内。

即使在使用六西格玛方法的业务中，也需要对营运资金管理的“最佳”水平进行识别和确认。行业因素可能会影响企业的信贷政策、库存管理和账单支付活动。一些公司可能会更适合通过减少应收账款和存货，来使得应付账款最大化。“最优”的另一个方面是槽糕的财务业绩却使用了最优性能。幸运的是，这些问题是可测试的而且被《首席财务官》杂志所发表。这声称是“金融高管工具和信息的来源”即是本研究的主题。

除了对营运资金的措施和整体度量提供均值和方差值外，还有两个问题将在此研究。一个研究课题是“在特殊产业内的企业采用同样的营运资金管理措施产生的营运资金管理水平就能一致吗？”例如，在同个行业的公司能够迅速减少应收占用资金，采用现金销售；而其他行业的公司往往有较高的库存水平和销售水平。另一个研究的课题是：“在行业内，企业营运资金管理能否促进对企业绩效的逐年改变？”

以下部分是一个简短的文献回顾。针对下一步研究方法进行了介绍，包含有关此

次一年一度的营运资金管理及《首席财务官》杂志公布的调查。

相关文献

营运资金管理的重要性对金融文献来说并不是新的内容。在20多年前，斯蒂克尼（1980）报告称：格兰特，一个全国连锁百货公司相继破产，原因在于公司在最后经营的10年里，出现了8年的经营赤字。作为世界500强的财务管理实践研究的一部分，吉尔伯特和赖克特（1995）发现应收账款的管理模式在使用后，有59%的公司提高营运资金项目，而库存管理模型应用于60%的公司。最近，法瑞芬.克莱曼和萨胡（1999）发现 55%的公司运用标准普尔工业指数完成了某种形式的现金流评估,但并未提出关于应收账款和存货管理的见解或任何变化的流动资产帐户和各行业现有资产负债账户的变化。因此，混合证据表明是出现了有关营运资金管理技术的使用。

优化贸易信贷限额理论的确定是多年来自许多文章的主题（例如，施瓦茨1974年，谢尔1996年）而很少注重实际的应收账款的管理。在有限的样本，温劳布和菲斯海尔(1998)观察到的趋势是目前比率低的公司流动负债水平也较低。同时调查应收账款和应付账款的问题。希尔·萨尔托里斯和弗格森（1984）发现了付款日期的不同方式的定义。收款人定义付款日期为收到货款的日期，而付款人查看付款的邮戳日期。不同企业、行业和时间额外的洞察力可以添加到这个机构的研究。

玛尼思和泽特罗（2002）提供了两种包含有效的短期财务管理的价值创造模式。但是，这些模型都是通用的模型并没有考虑到独特的企业或行业的影响。玛尼思直言不讳和泽特罗探讨行业的影响，其中有这么一段，“一个行业或公司的位置、领域可能对公司的命运和整体的国民生产总值产生巨大的影响”。事实上，仔细回顾这627页教科书就会发现只有在实际的层面的营运资金管理的公司才会有各种零星资料。几乎没有关于行业因素除了一些盒装的物品，比如“一个零售商提供的内部信用卡”并没有在一段时间内稳定营运资金管理。本文的研究将试图通过调查有关工作措施来填补行业内资金模式这一空白，并说明行业间的跨时差异。

对图书馆和网络资源进行了广泛的调查，得到的最新报告很少是关于营运资金管理的。最相关的文章是卫瑟和布拉德利(2003)《现金流量管理及库存管理控制的研究》和哈德利第(2004)《有效的供应链管理途径》。

研究方法

第一次年度CFO与REL咨询集团的营运资金管理联合调查项目，于1997年6月发表在《首席财务官》杂志上。REL是以英国伦敦为基础的管理咨询公司，面向全球客户，专门解决营运资金管理问题。在最初的流动资金调查报告中，其使用的数据基准是1996年上市公司的数据。每家公司对其同行的排名持反对态度，同时也针对整个领域的1000家公司。此外，REL将会不断更新以前年度基础上的原始资料与信息。

REL使用的业务“现金流”的价值是针对企业现金流量表来估计现金转换效率（CCE）的。该值表示公司如何转化成收入的现金流。“一天的营运资金”价值是每个应收账款、存货、应付账款账户金额之和。“日营运资金”代表一个时期从供应商购买存货到销售给客户之间收集的应收账款、付款收据。因此，它反映了企业的核心融资业务能力和供应商