Inventory and Working Capital Management: An Empirical Analysis

The working capital management refers to the management of working capital, or precisely to the management of current assets. A firm’s working capital consists of its investments in current assets, which includes short-term assets—cash and bank balance, inventories, receivable and marketable securities. Therefore, the working capital management refers to the management of the levels of all these individual current assets. On the other hand, inventory, which is one of the important elements of current assets, reflects the investment of a firm’s fund. Hence, it is necessary to efficiently manage inventories in order to avoid unnecessary investments. A firm, which neglects the management of inventories, will have to face serious problems relating to long-term profitability and may fail to survive. With the help of better inventory management, a firm can reduce the levels of inventories to a considerable degree e.g., 10 to 20% without any adverse effect on production and sales. Thus, inventory is a vital factor in business operations. This paper tries to evaluate the effect of the size of inventory and the impact on working capital through inventory ratios, working capital ratios, trends, computation of inventory and working capital, and liquidity ranking. Finally, it was found that the size of inventory directly affects working capital and it's management. Size of the inventory and working capital of Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) is properly managed and controlled compared to National Fertilizer Ltd. (NFL).