Research On Customer Concentration And Inventory Management Efficiency Under Different Market Conditions

Inventory is an important part of corporate assets,and its good management model can play an active role in corporate finance,performance and value.In order to cope with the unpredictable market environment,the management of inventory is constantly evolving,from the early Japanese Toyota Motor Corporation's development of just-in-time(JIT)to today's supply chain management(SCM).Nowadays,the rapid development of information technology,the increasingly complex economic environment,and the slowdown in consumer demand have intensified the degree of competition in the industry.The market has put forward higher requirements for the inventory management model of enterprises.As a downstream in the supply chain,customers play an important role in the procurement,production and sales of corporate inventory.When companies have relatively concentrated customers,in addition to deepening the sharing of information in the supply chain,long-term mutual trust also reduces the uncertainty of production and sales.On the other hand,these large customers,as a stable resource,can interact with enterprises in technology and production methods to gain competitive advantage and improve inventory management efficiency.Therefore,from the perspective of cooperation,this paper explores the relationship between customer concentration and the efficiency of enterprise inventory management in the fierce market competition environment and the degree of regional product market development.At the same time,further verify the possible adjustment effects from the differences in sales environment brought about by changes in customer demand.Based on the cooperative synergy theory,the resource-based theory,the stakeholder theory and the transaction cost theory,this paper establishes the basic model,and makes an empirical analysis on the data of the listed companies of the A-share manufacturing industry in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2011 to 2017.It is found that customer concentration can improve the efficiency of inventory management,which shows that key customers can reduce the uncertainty of production planning and transaction costs,and improve the level of inventory management.Compared with enterprises with weak competition in the product market,the positive relationship between enterprise customer concentration and inventory management efficiency in the competitive environment of the product market is more significant.It shows that the more intense the industry competition,not only can exert the effect of governance on the enterprise itself,but also the enterprise is more inclined to meet customer needs and enhance customer loyalty.When the regional product market develops better,the positive relationship between customer concentration and enterprise inventory management efficiency will be more significant,indicating that regional economic flexibility and protectionism reduction can enhance the positive effect of customer concentration on the efficiency of enterprise inventory management.In further research,it is found that in the environment with high changes in sales demand,the positive relationship between customer concentration and the efficiency of inventory management of enterprises will be more significant.It shows that in addition to competition from products and the development of regional market development,the environment with changing customer needs will also have a significant impact,and large customers will be able to play a synergistic role and improve the flow of enterprise inventory.This paper verifies the positive impact of customer concentration on enterprise inventory management efficiency.Different from the existing literature,the innovation is combined with the environment in which the current manufacturing enterprises are located.It explores the impact of customer concentration and inventory management efficiency on environmental changes from three perspectives of enterprise,regional product market and customer.It expands the literature research on related customer concentration and inventory management,and also provides new ideas for follow-up research.