You have been undertaking some financial statement analysis of Waddington Plc, a high street retailer of upmarket clothing. You have calculated the following ratios:

	March 2019	March 2018
Debtor days	45	50
Creditor days	49	20
Inventory days	76	56

You recently read that the company was due to launch a new collection in March, but this had been postponed due to logistical issues. The company sells its product lines through its own stores and third-party concessions but does not hold sales.

Required:

a.What conclusions can you draw from your financial analysis to date? What further information would you need to better understand the movements in these ratios?

b.Critically discuss the objectives of working capital management in a business.

c.Identify three alternative ways in which Waddington Plc could improve its operating cash cycle, stating a potential risk of each.

d.Describe how the Statement of Cash Flows is useful for analysing a companys cash management, giving examples from each of the three headings.