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While the share of all retail sales taken by the mail order sector has increased from 4.7% in 1976 to 6.4% in 1982, such companies face special problems when it comes to inventory control. In their paper Alan Waddington and Leslie Chadwick examine the difficulties and demonstrate how successful inventory control can boost sales turnover and profit growth.

Some retail companies are so preoccupied with the business of selling that they tend to forget how their own company's performance compares with those of others. In this article Leslie Chadwick looks at four specific ratios — profitability, asset utilisation, liquidity and gearing, in three retail sectors — department stores, High Street traders and Home Improvements and DIY.

In the second part of their article (part one was published in the last issue of RDM, May/June 1983) the authors continue to outline further ways in which errors occur — paying invoices twice, and duplicating goods received notes. However, they discovered that the largest area of errors could be attributed to “cut offs” — a procedure concerned with the arrangement made at the company's financial year end to ensure that there is agreement between physical stocks and the figures shown in the accounts.

De‐stocking has been a major feature of the retail scene over the past year or so. Nonetheless stockholding costs are still a major headache; the authors offer some tips as to how these may be reduced.

Vast sums of money are paid out each year in the UK so that enterprises may hold stocks of materials, fuel, work‐in‐progress and finished goods. The holding costs of UK manufacturing alone for 1979 could well be in the region of £15bn, suffice it to say, an amount of great magnitude running into billions of pounds. There is a tendency on the part of materials management to over‐stock because “Thou shalt not run out of stock” is considered by many to be avoiding a cardinal sin. This means that in addition to carrying stocks which may not be required for some time the firms concerned also have to cover certain holding costs unnecessarily. Stocks kept on one side for “a rainy day” may in actual fact cost more in holding costs than their appreciation in value. Increased stock levels will in addition to increasing holding costs also increase risk, (see Figure 1).

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

The mushrooming microcomputer industry is producing a vast array of ever cheaper, more sophisticated offerings. If correctly chosen the micro is an indispensable tool which can certainly help the small firm to prosper.

The main provisions of the Act are covered, such as those relating to company and business names, share capital, disclosure of interests in shares, company accounts and reporting exemptions for small and medium‐sized companies.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

“What benefits did you derive from your teacher training course?” enquired a distinguished Head of Department. “Teaching by objectives”, I replied. “And do you teach by objectives?” was his next question, to which I answered a definite yes. But can we really claim that we all do in fact teach by objectives?