The financial statement data of 703 listed companies in China’s Ashare manufacturing, wholesale and retail industries for the year 2006-2022 show that the average value of return on assets of listed companies is 3%, which is slightly higher than the bank riskfree rate (2%) for the same period. Using data from the balance sheets and income statements of listed companies, as well as the notes to the annual financial reports, this paper analyzes the impact of customer concentration and the bullwhip effect on a company’s return on assets from the perspective of operations management, based on theories of inventory management and resource dependence. It is found that customer concentration is positively correlated with return on assets and bullwhip effect is negatively correlated with return on assets. Moreover, the effect of customer concentration on return on assets operates through its impact on inventory turnover and the effect of bullwhip effect on return on assets also operates through inventory turnover. The managerial insights for firms’decision makers are that they should appropriately increase customer concentration or invest resources to mitigate the bullwhip effect to accelerate inventory turnover and improve return on assets. For companies’investors, by following companies’news to detect changes in customer concentration, the bullwhip effect, and inventory turnover, they can predict the trend of the companies’return on assets and improve their investment decisions.