The success or failure of an organization depends on the effective management of working capital as it directly affects the liquidity and profitability of any organizations. Working capital is required to meet the daily expenditures to run the business operations smoothly. The main purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of working capital components on sugar firms profitability listed in Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) for a period of 7 years. In order to examine the relationship gross operating profit is taken as dependent variable and receivable conversion period, inventory holding period and account payable conversion period consider as independent variable. The secondary data for the period of 2008 to 2014 was taken from the annual financial statements of sugar firms. The regression and correlation analysis were used and it is based on a panel sample of 20 sugar firms. The results show that elements of working capital i.e. number of days account receivable turnover, number of days inventory turnover and number of days account payable turnover has negative impact on profitability of sugar firms. Therefore the finance management team can increase the value of share holder by managing perfectly each component of working capital.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been known as vital technologies that are associated with production mechanisms for technological progress. The study examined the impact of ICT on project planning activities in Nigerian food and beverage industry. Data from primary sources were obtained through the use of questionnaire and interview scheduled on one hundred and seventy five (175) purposively selected users of ICT across three Departments of food and beverage firms in Nigeria. This was with a view to elicit information on the level of outputs and significance of the application of ICT to the performance of the industry. Data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results of the analysis of variance shows that there were significant difference in the mean rank of respondents’ opinion on ICT to improve quality (F=110.07, P = 0.05), reduce cost (F=110.07, p<0.05), improves process (F=140.93, p<0.05), and reduce processing time (F=184.36, p<0.05). Evidence shows that Internet usage, Virtual Private Network (VPN), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) had strong impact on product quality, process improvement, cost and time reduction. It was concluded that the absence of ICT in the firm will slow down the effective coordination of raw materials.
Strategic Marketing is a tool for achieving competitive advantage in the hospitality Industry. Strategic marketing can lead to product and service innovation. The study examined the level of adoption of strategic marketing as a tool for achieving competitive advantage, and the relationship between strategic marketing and organizational performance. Two hypotheses were formulated and tested to guide the work. The respondents used in this study were drawn from employees and customers of seven (7) selected hotels. The questionnaire was used to collect data. Percentage and descriptive statistics were applied in data analysis. It was found that the level to which hotels have adopted strategic marketing as a tool towards achieving competitive advantage is very encouraging. Majority of the hotels conduct environmental analysis. This finding suggests that hotels in this study respond and adapt to changes in their environment. Positive and significant relationship was found between strategic marketing and organizational performance. It was concluded that there is a significant relationship between strategic marketing and organizational profitability. Based on the above and other findings, it was recommended that for hotels to achieve competitive advantage there is need for adoption of strategic marketing. Understanding the operating environment and strategies to adopt in order to satisfy customers will place hotels above their competitors, as the expectations of the customers will be met adequately.
The study examined funding allocation for education and how it enhances teaching and learning effectiveness in sub-Saharan African countries. Descriptive research design was adopted for the study. Existing document was used for data collection. The target population was all the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The sample selected was based on the countries that have available online information on education funding. Nineteen countries were selected in sub-Saharan African countries. The results revealed that the unsatisfactory funding for education programmes stands as one of the major factors militating against effective implementation of the programmes. It was recommended among others that there must be adequate funding to solve the myriad of problems in the educational sector in Africa.
Dealing with inventories of deteriorating items is a major issue for all successful decision makers across industries. In this paper, we consider an inventory model for deteriorating items in declining market with SFI (shortage followed by inventory) policy. We extend an existing crisp inventory model with complete/partial backlogging option under fuzzy environment. We consider all the cost components in the fuzzy sense and use centroid method to defuzzify the annual total cost of the system derived in fuzzy sense. We derive some analytical results related to structural properties of the model. We take a numerical example to illustrate the optimal results and investigate the sensitivity of the key parameters involved in the model.
