Recently added articles from Financial Executive:
If you can't take the heat ...(president's page)
May 01, 2009; ... The month of May brings some much-needed warmth to the Northeast and, similarly, many "hot" topics are on the minds of financial executives across the country. The global financial crisis and resulting economic downturn have created some of the most intense scrutiny and pressure on ...
Same old is new again.(editor's page)
May 01, 2009; ... In a kind of "everything-old-is-new-again" moment, I was leafing through the inaugural issues of Financial Executive, which began publishing in February 1934. Guess what? The controllers, members of the Controllers Institute of America--FEI's ancestral name--were interested in and reading ...
Financial regulatory overhaul looming on the horizon.(REGULATION)
May 01, 2009; ... If nothing else, the current economic crisis, bank failures and fraudulent activities have convinced leaders in the United States government that there may be defects within parts of the financial regulatory framework. "The U.S. government does not have the legal means today to ...
Tax audits expected to grow.(TAX)(Brief article)
May 01, 2009; ... As governments seek additional revenue, some 30 percent of more than 500 respondents polled during a recent KPMG Tax Governance Institute webcast identified the possibility of a tax audit as their No. 1 risk. "Corporate tax executives are bracing for a round of heightened ...
Organizations searching for 'creative' cost reduction.(COST CUTTING)(Survey)
May 01, 2009; ... An overall finding of a recent Archstone Consulting survey is that 57 percent of those surveyed have not identified sufficient savings opportunities to get the cost-reduction targets necessitated by the dramatic economic decline in 2009. The survey was commissioned by the management ...
Six steps to restructure GM.(MANAGEMENT)(Reprint)
May 01, 2009; ... Peter Cohan, president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, and author of eight books including You Can't Change Order (Portfolio), published last November, and again recently, his plan to save General Motors Corp. (Reprinted with permission): GM should get government help with ...
In quotes.(in brief)(Quotation)
May 01, 2009 ... "Chairman Herz acquiesced, it appears, in order to keep Congress from invading FASB turf. Yet in seeking to protect its independence, the board has surrendered ...
IFRS provides opportunity to transform functions.(FINANCIAL REPORTING)
May 01, 2009; ... Chief financial officers and other executives of United States-listed companies view the conversion from U.S. generally accepted accounting principles to International Financial Reporting Standards as an opportunity to transform their finance functions and create more value for their ...
Letters to the editor.
May 01, 2009 ... Referring to the article "He's Been Working on the Railroad," which profiled United Pacific's CFO Rob Knight, in the March 2009 issue: Your magazine gets better and better, but you broke my heart not to mention that UP is headquartered in Omaha. UP is one of five Fortune 500 ...
Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 01, 2009; ... Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else. By Geoff Colvin. Portfolio, 228 pages. $25.95. Can talent really be over-rated? Name the greatest sports figures in history, and all had remarkable talent that usually separated them from ...
The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 01, 2009; ... The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing. By Ian Bremmer and Preston Keat. Oxford University Press, 263 pages. $27.95. The title is something of a misnomer: This isn't a book about investing, but about putting capital into countries after assessing ...
The 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, How They Matter, and How They Can Help You.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 01, 2009; ... The 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, How They Matter, and How They Can Help You. By Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten. Portfolio, 344 pages. $25.95. The basic concept here is pretty simple: the authors have selected 100 books going back generations (though most ...
Legal considerations in the proposed transition to International Financial Reporting Standards.(financial reporting)
May 01, 2009; ... A transition from financial reporting under United States generally accepted accounting principles to International Financial Reporting Standards raises significant legal issues that need to be considered by U.S. issuers. These include changes in financial-disclosure requirements and ...
Starting or selling a business? Remember taxes.(private companies)
May 01, 2009; ... Unlike individuals, corporations do not benefit from a lower tax rate on their capital gains. Corporate capital gains are taxed like other ordinary income at a maximum federal rate of 35 percent. So when a corporation sells all of its assets and then distributes the sales ...
Baking ethics into company culture: learning from recent lapses of others, many organizations are making genuine efforts to create effective cultures of ethics. However, persistent missteps in this process continue to be seen.(ETHICS)
May 01, 2009; ... Business confidence has plummeted to new lows and large numbers of compliance, legal, finance and risk executives--as many as 90 percent in a recent Deloitte/Compliance Week poll--say they expect fraud activity to remain steady or increase in 2009. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
The tough game you have to play: offshoring is driving a structural change that is transforming cost structures, value chains and the skill needed to manage global firms While initially drawn to this services shift by labor cost, that's now just the "sideshow".(OUTSOURCING/OFFSHORING)
May 01, 2009; ... The global economy is in the midst of a structural change that will affect every business for decades: globalization has come to the services sector. For most of history, the great majority of services were sourced and sold locally. This has now changed. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
Cash forecasting more challenging: accurately forecasting cash to meet a firm's demands in this economic climate--while keeping both investors and analysts at bay--has become challenging for many treasurers.(WORKING CAPITAL)
May 01, 2009; ... Cash, as the adage goes, is king. But with liquidity constricted by the continuing financial crisis, cash has become as prized by corporate financial executives as water in a desert. Since the crisis, treasurers can no longer pick up the phone and arrange a quick infusion of ...
Top 10 pricing mistakes most companies make.(QUICK STUDY)
May 01, 2009; ... In tough economic times, evaluating product pricing is a necessity for keeping customers motivated. Considering this strategy? Take note of the 10 most common mistakes companies make when pricing their products suggested here by Per Sjofors, managing partner at Atenga Inc., a ...
Looking beyond the headlines: there are job opportunities for financial executives who know where to look and are able to focus their skills on how they can help new employers with their problems.(CAREERS)
May 01, 2009; ... When giving career guidance to senior-level executives, Mark Anderson, has some surprising advice: "Don't look at the headlines!" Anderson, president of ExecuNet Inc., a Norwalk, Conn.-based business and career network for senior-level executives, stresses that just because ...
Whose job is corporate governance? U.S. corporations, their shareholders and the federal government are grappling over which entity should govern certain practices and procedures of businesses--corporate management, directors, investors or government laws and regulations.(COVER STORY)
May 01, 2009; ... The once-mighty United States corporation is at a crossroads. As the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has humbled a slew of proud U.S. companies--General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC, Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., Lehman Brothers Holding Inc., American International ...