Financial Management (UK) articles from October 2008

Financial Management (UK) archives from October 2008

The global financial crisis presents both challenges and opportunities for CIMA professionals.(in business)
October 1, 2008... We have recently been witnessing seismic shifts on Wall Street and the global financial markets that will affect us all to varying degrees across the 161 countries in which CIMA operates. As governments, regulators, professional bodies,...

Level the playing field.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... I read your interesting article about business ethics (Technical matters, July/August) and I agree that most global companies use CSR as a "fancy PR exercise". But I believe that the concept of business ethics, social responsibility and...

Degrees of disagreement.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... I couldn't disagree more with P A Talbot's views about accounting A-levels (Letters, July/August). Subjects such as accounting, journalism and tourism may be sound, but are best learned on the job. If students are interested in careers in...

Cold comfort.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... I am not a climate-change sceptic, but it seems to me that, amid the ever-increasing media frenzy surrounding the issue, there has been little discussion about the validity of its underpinning assumptions. The theory, as we all know by now,...

Non-UK citizens to get ID cards.(first in ... All the latest news affecting accountants in business, including regulations updates)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The British government will begin issuing compulsory identity cards to foreign nationals who apply for leave to remain in the UK from November 25. The cards mark the first stage of the national identity scheme (NIS)...

OECD countries urged to rethink immigration rules.(first in ... All the latest news affecting accountants in business, including regulations updates)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Members of the OECD should adapt their labour migration policies more closely to likely future demand for workers in all areas of their economies, according to the OECD's International Migration Outlook 2008. It...

Government bodies collaborate on carbon.(first in ... All the latest news affecting accountants in business, including regulations updates)
October 1, 2008... UK public-sector bodies have teamed up with the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) to assess their carbon footprints and adopt a common approach to providing key climate-change information from their supply chains. New partners include the...

Home win for Bolton.(management accountant joins Chartered Institute of Management Accountants)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... Michelle Forrest, management accountant for Bolton Wanderers Football Club, has become CIMA's 75,000th member. She has worked in its finance team for over 18 months and is responsible for producing its management accounts, including preparing...

CIMA has launched managerial level online courses with Elsevier.(first in ... All the latest news affecting accountants in business, including regulations updates)
October 1, 2008... CIMA has launched managerial level online courses with Elsevier. The new CIMAstudy.com courses follow the launch of online strategic level courses in February. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The courses provide students across the world with...

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) has established a task force on fair value to explore whether and how to develop further fair-value auditing guidance.(first in ... All the latest news affecting accountants in business, including regulations updates)
October 1, 2008... The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) has established a task force on fair value to explore whether and how to develop further fair-value auditing guidance. For further information visit...

The International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants has released an exposure draft with proposed changes to the IFAC code of ethics for professional accountants.(first in ... All the latest news affecting accountants in business, including regulations updates)
October 1, 2008... The International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants has released an exposure draft with proposed changes to the IFAC code of ethics for professional accountants. The proposed changes clarify the specific requirements in the code and refine...

Pension funds feel strain of Lehman collapse.(first in ... All the latest news affecting accountants in business, including regulations updates)
October 1, 2008... In addition to pension fund losses on equity markets, the fall of Lehman Brothers has presented the first real test of the documentation underlying many liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies for funds, according to experts at Mercer. ...

Tan Wee Seng FCMA: group chief financial officer, Li Ning.(ONE2ONE)(Cover story)
October 1, 2008... What first attracted you to the idea of becoming a management accountant? I grew up in Malaysia and worked long hours from an early age in my father's business. From the age of about 14 I was fascinated by accounting because of its link to...

A mark overstepped: never mind the debate on whether fair-value accounting has made the sub-prime crisis worse for financial services firms, Mike Brooks believes that a convention intended to create transparency is threatening to do quite the opposite.(opinion)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Back in the days when I was a trainee accountant, I was taught that a balance sheet was not an attempt to value an entity--the market would do that without the help of accountancy. For a long time, until the beauty...

Feeling the pinch: more and more firms are being defrauded by their staff--and the biggest offenders tend to be managers, Danielle Cohen explains what to do if you suspect that a senior-level colleague has got a hand in the till.(ethics)
October 1, 2008... The world may on the brink of recession, but not all losses sustained by companies can be attributed to the sluggish global economy, of course. A surprising proportion are coming from where employers least expect it: their own people. ...

Rating or lotto? As the credit crisis deepens, the credit rating agencies are being blamed for misleading investors. Neil Hodge examines the case for regulation.
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As Financial Management goes to press, every day seems to bring news of fresh disasters in the financial services sector. Lehman Brothers has gone bust, Merrill Lynch has been taken over and HBOS has been rescued by...

Hanging on the telephone: a sure-fire way to alienate customers is to keep them on hold and make them listen to piped music when they call your company. Charles Orton-Jones explains how smarter operators are changing the record.(Customer relationship management)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Hold music is one of the most stressful features of modern life", says Peter Freedman, editor of Stressbusting, a journal devoted to improving people's emotional health. "It's meant to placate you, but it drives you...

Going for green: reducing emissions shouldn't be a burden for firms. Ruth Prickett explains how a green gameplan can create savings and opportunities.(THE GREEN GAMEPLAN in association with the Carbon Trust)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Money is tight, credit is well and truly crunched and, while your finance team may be delighted to consider cheap and cheerful ideas for cutting your firm's energy usage, cash is scarce for new investment in green...

Trumped-up charges: there are many sharp operators out there who want to trick your firm into paying them for goods and services it never ordered. James Fairchild investigates the world of bogus billing.(Viewpoint essay)
October 1, 2008... In recent months I have been contacted by a number of clients and acquaintances asking me what to do about the same problem: they have all received invoices that they weren't expecting. Having investigated this trend, I have come to the...

Vocation, vocation, vocation: the traditional linear career path in finance is history, writes Nick Eaves, who urges accountants to take complete control of their own destinies.(career development)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A survey of accounting and finance professionals early this year found that more than half would change jobs tomorrow if another employer gave them a more obvious career path. Our research should startle more than...

Professional standards: Steve Hughes describes CIMA's work to ensure that employers and the public can always rely upon the ethical conduct and competence of its members and students.(technical matters)
October 1, 2008... BAE Systems is to implement all 23 recommendations of the Woolf committee's report on its ethical standards in a three-year programme that will be monitored by an external auditor. The programme will cover areas including leadership in business...

Target cost management: Lisa Jack tells Louise Ross about her research exploring the potential for those in the food supply chain--from farmers to retailers--to adopt TCM.(technical matters)(Interview)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Food prices have risen significantly over the past year and consumers across the globe are feeling the effects. Some countries have responded by limiting exports or imposing price controls, while others have...

Business intelligence: Peter Simons explains why management accountants should work more closely with their colleagues in IT to help develop a BI strategy.(technical matters)(Company overview)
October 1, 2008... Business intelligence (BI) is all about improving decision-making--as is the role of the management accountant. Yet most people who attend BI conferences are IT specialists. So far, there have been few converts from finance. Even if a chief...

Improving forecasting: Bijan Tabatabai explains a method he developed with IBM to eliminate bias and reduce random variation in business forecasts.(technical matters)
October 1, 2008... Many surveys have shown that companies are often dissatisfied with the quality of their business forecasts. One reason for this is the firms' inability to measure performance effectively in order to provide actionable information on the sources...

Intangible assets: Stuart Whitwell explains why it's particularly important to understand the value of your intangibles as accurately as possible in a downturn.
October 1, 2008... Well-managed brands and customer relationships are the principal drivers of corporate value. But a company can realise this value only if these elements are properly understood. If they are not, it risks losing out in the following ways: *...

Student one 2 one: Jocelyn Perkins finance and administration director, B&D print services.(Interview)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] What does your role involve? I am responsible for finance and administration, which includes everything from estimating the value of our work to HR and health and safety. I have an accounts manager, HR manager,...

Management accounting--business strategy: Porter's value chain has a modified version that's more applicable when analysing service organisations. The examiner for paper P6 explains.(study notes: PAPER P6)
October 1, 2008... The value chain was designed by Michael Porter in 1985 as a systematic way to examine how competitive advantage develops and to identify where value is added in an organisation. You should be familiar with the original model (see figure 1) and...

TOPCIMA: Adrian Sims offers his interpretation of November's pre-seen material and provides some pointers on what you might be asked to do on exam day.(Electricity Generating Corporation)
October 1, 2008... The pre-seen material on the Electricity Generating Corporation (EGC) presents two quite different sets of issues, which I will use as our starting point: * How to increase efficiency by improving EGC's management accounting systems and...

TOPCIMA: Adrian Sims finds himself in the unusual position of being asked to help a lovesick CIMA part-qualified to keep failing at the final hurdle.(Chartered Institute of Management Accountants)(Viewpoint essay)
October 1, 2008... I may not be everyone's idea of an agony aunt, but I'm often asked for advice on TOPCIMA. Usually, though, the candidates want to pass the exam. Imagine my surprise, then, when CIMA forwarded the following letter to me from a student who was...

Exam notice.
October 1, 2008... visit www.cimaglobal.com regularly for updates November 2008 exams The November exams will be held on Tuesday 18, Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20. The deadline for entries was September 22, but in extreme circumstances CIMA will consider...

CIMA visits UK financial intelligence unit.(Chartered Institute of Management Accountants )(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... Senior representatives from UK regulatory bodies, including CIMA, recently visited the UK Financial Intelligence Unit (UKFIU) to improve their understanding of the work of departments in the unit, which is part of the Serious Organised Crime...

Disciplinary committee.(institute update)
October 1, 2008... The disciplinary committee found registered student Snehal Parikh guilty of misconduct. He had contravened CIMA's exam rules by failing to turn off his mobile phone while sitting an exam, and by leaving the exam room without being escorted by...

Elections to council 2009.(institute update)
October 1, 2008... Retirements by rotation Notice is given that, as the term of office of the council member in each of the following CIMA electoral constituencies expires at the end of the annual general meeting in June 2009, elections will be held in February...

CIMA global event: IFAC meeting, South Africa.(Past event)(Calendar)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CIMA hosted a cocktail evening for delegates at IFAC's Professional Accountants in Business (PAIB) meeting in South Africa in March, Alfred Ramosedi FCMA (pictured), a member of PAIB and director of small...

Coming event.(Calendar)
October 1, 2008... China CIMA 2008 Quality Employer Partner Awards in China November 20 The annual awards will honour CIMA's key employer partners in China that have shown determination and dedication in developing the country's finance and...

Finance analyst in the energy sector: Craig Evans explains the particular challenges and opportunities offered by a job in the petrochemical industry.(so you want to be ...)
October 1, 2008... Role: finance analyst. Salary: 30,000 [pounds sterling] to 40,000 [pounds sterling], plus benefits. Join a market-leading petrochemical company with great opportunities for progression. You will be an integral member of the finance...

Brambles.(On the move)
October 1, 2008... Patrick Gibson FCMA has been appointed group financial controller at Brambles, a global provider of support services based in Sydney. He was previously vice-president, finance, for Unilever in South Africa and the UK.

Panasonic.(On the move)
October 1, 2008... Andrew McBarnett FCMA has been appointed manager of global regional finance at Panasonic, responsible for the Panasonic Avionics Corporation, based in Los Angeles. He was previously manager of regional finance, which included responsibility for...

Gulf General Investment Company.(On the move)
October 1, 2008... Bishrul Hazeem ACMA has joined the Gulf General Investment Company in the UAE as group finance manager. He was previously chief financial officer at Brandix Finishing in Sri Lanka.

Pseud's corners?(... last out)
October 1, 2008... "The zeitgeist of this damp and uneasy summer might have been split between Beijing, Tskhinvali and Southwold, but we should spare a thought for the Cretan town of Malia." The Guardian web site, September 2.

Off the hook.(... last out)
October 1, 2008... "Sincere apologies for the delay. I would like to inform you that my manager was not able to contact you as there is an error in our lines so we are not able to make calls. So I would really appreciate if you can contact us on number given...

As opposed to ...?(... last out)
October 1, 2008... "Using this guide: this guide has been designed as an easy-to-navigate reference tool." The Solace Guide to Sourcing.

They would say that wouldn't they?(... last out)
October 1, 2008... "Graydon UK urges small firms to seek working capital advice." Graydon UK.

Surprise, surprise.(... last out)
October 1, 2008... "EuroDebt has recently analysed the reasons for clients signing up to its debt management plan. Of those who signed up in the past six months, a quarter (25,16 per cent) said they needed help because they were caught in a spiral of debts."

Mission critical.(... last out)
October 1, 2008... "INVOLVE is an experiential change agency whose vision is to be the world leader in improving business through involvement."

Metal expansion.(... last out)
October 1, 2008... "The document management solution from The Content Group replaces the need for physical filing cabinets, which were taking up an ever-increasing amount of space." The Content Group.

Job title of the month.(... last out)
October 1, 2008... Philippe Reynier, technologist and evangelist, Bull Information Systems. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

What price sub-editors?(... last out)
October 1, 2008... "Top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov Tom Ridge... and Connecticut Sen Joe Lieberman, the Democratic...

Get in the queue.(... last out)
October 1, 2008... "I have been recommended to send you the details of the feel-good news about Rowland Hall: just 17,521 companies have lasted more than 75 years in the UK, so we thought that this may be of interest to you and your readers." Rowland Hall.

Positive boomerangs.(... last out)
October 1, 2008... "Now when you push a marketing message out there, something comes back. If it's a great message, if it resonates and it's real, the boomerang is going to be positive. But if it's off-message and it's not genuine, or if it's perceived as being...

What's in a name?(... last out)(homebuy direct scheme)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... "The government's new HomeBuy Direct scheme, worth 300m [pounds sterling], aims to help up to 10,000 first-time buyers. "It is just unfortunate that the scheme has the same name as the ill-fated Homebuy Direct--the company that owned...