Strategic Finance articles from November 2003

Strategic Finance archives from November 2003

Managing employee performance issues.(Careers)
November 1, 2003... Employee performance issues are a challenge all managers face at one time or another. Whether it's an individual's interpersonal conflict with a coworker or repeated errors in financial reports, these situations can potentially affect others in...

The Money Museum.(End Note)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... People used to joke about going to the bank in order to visit their money. Today we carry plastic in our wallets, write checks at home, and swipe cards in grocery stores, telephone booths, and even subway stations. Have we ever been farther...

Reaching for financial success: companies must synchronize budgeting and planning with fast-changing business operations to stay financially viable.(Financial Planning)
November 1, 2003... What happens when a company experiences a dramatic, rapid change in its business environment? As market conditions change dramatically within a single planning period, budgeting and planning forecasts--and the financial plans they produce--can...

The leader's gift.(Best Practices)(books on management and leadership)
November 1, 2003... A HINDU PARABLE TELLS US THAT, MANY YEARS ago, the gods were worried about the possibility of man finding divine wisdom. What if he then challenged the supremacy of the gods? So they decided to hide divine wisdom. But what hiding place would be...

Goodbye "pro forma" earnings: the SEC tightens non-GAAP financial reporting.(Financial Reporting)(Securities and Exchange Commission's rules on non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles)
November 1, 2003... REMEMBER the euphemisms for incomparable, non-GAAP reporting of earnings before one-time charges? Operating income. Pro forma earnings. Income before one-time charges. Street earnings. Or, as Lynn E. Turner, former chief accountant of the...

Member interest groups and e-mail exchanges.(Perspectives: message from the chair)(Institute of Management Accountants)
November 1, 2003... Are you aware of all the things IMA has to offer? Let me share some valuable tools and benefits that you may not be aware of--our Member Interest Groups (MIGs) and e-mail exchanges. Currently, we have three Member Interest Groups in which...

Developing strategic boards of directors: here are 10 common mistakes to avoid when choosing board members.(Cover Story)
November 1, 2003... Isn't it ironic that the one group with the power to decide the fate of an organization--the board--is the one group in an organization that is often randomly selected, casually engaged, rarely evaluated, and almost never held accountable? What...

Guidelines for strategic financial analysis.(Strategic Management)
November 1, 2003... "Much of the financial analysis performed today is flawed." "One metric does not fit all situations, even within the same organization." "Cash is still king , but how cash is defined is varying more and more." These are just a...

Finance transformation: making progress.(News)(Chief financial officers's efforts to transform financial services)
November 1, 2003... IN THE MIDST OF CORPORATE ACCOUNTING SCANDALS, REGULATORY MEASURES such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, market fluctuations and shareholder demands, and a still-weak economy, CFOs are forging ahead with efforts to transform the finance department...

Earnings statement practices.(streetwise)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Only seven of the Fortune 100 meet transparency and clarity in earnings statement practices, according to the results of a recent survey conducted by Hyperion as part of its "Quarterly Report on Quarterly Earnings." Verizon, Target, Microsoft,...

A new accounting system.(Readers' Input)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... Alfred King's article about fair value accounting (September 2003) was spot-on, but the topic is symptomatic of a much larger problem. Financial statements no longer reflect the economic substance of the modern business enterprise. This is...

More evidence of better financial performance.(Ethics)
November 1, 2003... THE GROWING AWARENESS THAT PUBLIC COMPANIES HAVE RESPONSIBILITIES to more stakeholders than just shareowners has led to a number of efforts to identify companies that truly take their ethical, social, and environmental responsibilities...

Congress reviews Sarbanes-Oxley.(Government)
November 1, 2003... WHEN HE OPENED HEARINGS ON how the corporate world has adapted to the "Sarbanes-Oxley" (S-O) world, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R.-Ala.) didn't sound as if he had much sympathy for corporate financial executives who have...

Books on M&A and real options.(Merges and Acquisitions)(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... * THE TOPIC OF MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS (M&A) certainly isn't a new one. But while countless books have been written about M&A, most are theoretical; any references to specific transactions usually relate to large publicly reported deals that...

Depreciation after the 2003 tax act--part 2.(Taxes)
November 1, 2003... LAST MONTH WE COVERED THE BASIC CHANGES made by the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA) to the rules that affect capitalization and depreciation of business assets. In particular, we focused on the general Code...

Easy note-taking.(tools of the trade)
November 1, 2003... The WizCom Technologies' Infoscan looks like a marking pen, and you sweep it across printed text in the same way you would to leave a yellow highlight. But nothing appears on the page. Instead, the highlighted text appears on a screen on the...

Spam wars--the litigation begins.(Tech Forum)
November 1, 2003... * FIRST IT WAS A PING-PONG MATCH limited to just the players. You got spam, you put a spam filter in place. The spammers adjusted their subject lines and hid their addresses to get over that net, so you downloaded a heavy-duty spam blocker....

WorldCom reforms trump Sarbanes-Oxley.(Trends In Financial Management)
November 1, 2003... * RICHARD BREEDEN, THE BANKruptcy court-appointed "corporate monitor" of MCI (formerly WorldCom), filed a report with the federal bankruptcy judge handling the MCI case in late August 2003 identifying 78 reforms MCI has agreed to. But the...

How U.S. companies can profit from drawback: U.S. exporters who use imported articles to produce or manufacture their products for export can increase their competitiveness and reduce customs duties by taking advantage of drawbacks.(Accounting)
November 1, 2003... If your company is using imported merchandise in the production or manufacture of its products for export from the United States and isn't obtaining drawback, then it is incurring a cost that can be avoided. From a competitive standpoint, a...

Buy or lease? Here are five things to consider before your company makes its next equipment investment.(Cash Management)
November 1, 2003... Is your company's current overriding goal to make its balance sheet look better, polish its income statement, or improve its tax situation? These issues will influence its next equipment investment: whether to buy outright with cash, buy...

Eye-popping accelerators for Office 2003.(Application Softwares)
November 1, 2003... WHAT DO THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT, SIX Sigma, and XBRL have in common with Office 2003? They are part of a new eye-popping array of business accelerators designed to give users the tools to speed up development of real business solutions. They...