Strategic Finance articles from July 2004

Strategic Finance archives from July 2004

Outsourcing? At your own risk: before outsourcing any process or function, it's essential to assess the risks enterprise-wide.
July 1, 2004... OUTSOURCING some of your business processes and information technology (IT) functions to entities overseas may appear to cut costs and maximize profitability. But it can also cause other, significant risks if it isn't managed effectively. In...

The politics of hiring.(Careers)
July 1, 2004... Determining which job applicant to hire can be a complex decision. It can be difficult to ascertain in two or three interviews whether or not someone possesses the right qualifications or work style for the team. As a result, managers...

Project looking glass.(End Note)(3-D desktop interface)
July 1, 2004... Edward de Bono, the man who coined the phrase lateral thinking, once said, "You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper." So if you want a new solution, first you have to get out and look around. When Hideya...

Integrity is a strategy for performance.(Ethics)(PricewaterhouseCoopers L.L.P.)
July 1, 2004... THE ETHICAL FAILURES OF THE RECENT PAST triggered regulatory reforms that were based on improved integrity and ethical values. These reforms led to enhanced stakeholder expectations for improved governance. They also gave corporations the...

Feedback.(Best Practices)(Own Performance)
July 1, 2004... EVER HAD AN EMPLOYEE COME TO YOU AND say, "You know, boss, I really achieved only 73% of my productive capacity today, but I'll do better tomorrow"? Ever tried to assess your own performance--even just the amount of effort you put in, much less...

A modern view of inventory: how do you decide what level of stock is right for you?(Accounting)
July 1, 2004... People who believe you can't have too much of a good thing obviously haven't worked with inventory! Operations managers know inventory dispels this adage and face the constant challenge of keeping inventory levels as low as possible without...

Stock Options expensing and corporate governance: when will the debate end?(Stock Options)
July 1, 2004... General Electric, AT&T, Citigroup, Amazon.com, and Ford do it. IBM, Sears, Nike, Gillette, and Merck don't. The expensing of executive stock options (ESOs), the "invisible" compensation of executives, has become much more visible and extremely...

Heartland Furniture Company: adapting to change: the student case competition is sponsored annually by IMA to promote sound financial/ accounting analysis and presentation skills.(Student Case Competition)(Company Profile)
July 1, 2004... Heartland Furniture Company (1) has been headquartered in Heartland, Ind., for the past 100 years. The company was founded in 1900 by Joseph Muller, and since then it has expanded from a wood shop that produced household furniture for the local...

Go figure: there are distortions lurking in the FASB's proposed rule for fair value measurement.(Opinion)(Financial Accounting Standards Board)
July 1, 2004... THERE'S AN ISSUE brewing about how to determine the fair value of property, plant, and equipment (PP&E) in a business combination. The Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB) new rules for mergers and acquisitions, Statement of...

Let's move management accounting to the forefront.(Perspectives: message from the Chair)
July 1, 2004... I am incredibly honored to be IMA Chair, and I want to begin our year-long dialogue (I really hope you will respond to these columns) with my view of management accounting because I consider management accounting to be my profession. For...

Strategic Finance Self-Study Quiz.
July 1, 2004... EARN CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION CREDIT-1 CPE Credit ANNOUNCEMENT: The Strategic Finance Self-Study Quiz is a program in which financial professionals can earn CPE credits for passing a test based on what they have learned about...

Making innovation pay.(Strategic Management)(Innovation To Cash)
July 1, 2004... After years of focusing intensely on cost, quality, and productivity, companies seem to have rediscovered growth. In every industry, senior executives are turning to their organizations and asking for new "organic" sources of revenue. They want...

Is offshore outsourcing a threat?(News)(survey on budgeting and outsourcing)
July 1, 2004... YES, BUT MORE FOR THE U.S. ECONOMY THAN FOR THEMSELVES, 66% OF THE 2,814 U.S. workers polled recently by Hudson professional staffing, outsourcing, and human capital firm said. In fact, 84% of the respondents believe that their jobs won't be...

Revising financial procedures.(street wise)(influence of forms on business enterprises)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other accounting reforms are causing many private companies to take a closer look at their finance and accounting practices, and many are implementing changes voluntarily, according to a Robert Half Management...

A stretch.(Readers' Input)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2004... The review of the book Sarbanes-Oxley and the New Internal Auditing Rules [May 2004] lists three basic changes resulting from SOX. The second change listed states that the internal audit staff was now "...responsible for installing and...

Congress begins to tip hands on.(Government)(Financial Accounting Standards Board's rules on stock options)
July 1, 2004... IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE THE HOUSE AND SENATE MAY TAKE DIFFERENT sides on the issue of expensing options. The FASB's March 31 proposal on the subject forced House and Senate members to think more seriously about whether they wanted to...

PBGC proposes bigger penalties for notification failures.(Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Fortune 500 companies that have ignored federal requirements to notify pension plan participants when assets fall below 90% of liabilities and have swallowed small fines as a cost of doing business may have a harder time digesting the...

Congress passes pension fund liability computation reform.(Options)(rules on calculation of Stock options)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2004... Talking about pension plans whose liabilities have swollen in the laggard economy, Congress finally passed a bill that changes the way companies must compute those liabilities. Companies have complained that the old formula, based on the...

They just get slimmer and lighter.(tools of the trade)
July 1, 2004... The Vaio VGN-X505ZP from Sony is described as an ultra portable. That's because it weighs about 1.8 pounds and is only 3/4 of an inch thick. See how it compares to a more traditional writing instrument to the left. Yet it still has a 10.4-inch...

The 10 best.(Tech Forum)(Best sellers)
July 1, 2004... * MAYBE IT'S A MEASURE of how we've all been conditioned to be competitive, but, whatever the reason, Americans love top-10 lists. There are the best-seller booklists in the weekend papers; TV shows and candidates are constantly monitored by...

Why should management accountants care about XBRL?(XBRL)(Extensible Business Reporting Language,Financial software)
July 1, 2004... RECENTLY I RECEIVED AN E-MAIL FROM DANKA Starovic, the senior technical issues manager at the United Kingdom-based Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. (CIMA is the U.K. professional body for management accountants, and they have more...