Title: Analysis of inventory and financial performances of Esprit based on its corporate financial reports

Authors: Ya Jun Cai; Ma Li Xie

Addresses: College of Business, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong ' College of Business, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Abstract: Esprit is a leading fashion brand and principally engaged in wholesale, retail, fashion, lifestyle products. Esprit reached its peak in 2008, then fell constantly and decreased 98% net profit in 2011. According to its 10/11 financial report, inventories continued to increase, the risk gradually accumulated. The inventory amount increased from HK$ 2.46 billion to HK$ 4.22 billion, inventory turnover in the number of days grew from 65 days to 75 days. Motivated by these industrial evidence, we explore in this paper the reason behind the decline of Esprit and the high inventory level through summary of its corporate financial reports from 2008 to 2015 (since Esprit reached its peak in 2008). From this study, we identify the key factors affecting Esprit's success through various analyses based on different frameworks. We identify the strengths and weaknesses of Esprit's operations and propose recommendations from the 'systems optimisation' perspective.

Keywords: supply chain management; SCM; inventory management; fashion industry; Esprit; strategic management; inventory performance; financial performance; corporate financial reports; financial statements; systems optimisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIR.2016.082333

International Journal of Inventory Research, 2016 Vol.3 No.4, pp.337 - 375

Received: 02 Nov 2016
Accepted: 16 Nov 2016
Published online: 19 Feb 2017 *

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