Strategic Finance articles from September 2008

Strategic Finance archives from September 2008

Planning ahead: message from the chair.(Perspectives)
September 1, 2008... We accountants are by nature pretty cautious, thoughtful people. Making snap, ill-informed decisions just doesn't jibe with who we are--and that holds true for most areas of life. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] One area where we can sell...

A corporate virus?(Best Practices)
September 1, 2008... The gophers have attacked my husband's tomatoes. This is no laughing matter. As a matter of fact, it points to an all-too-common business dilemma. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A few years ago, Gary built a 6' x 10' box on the ground outside...

Shareholder value reviews.(Strategic Management)
September 1, 2008... In theory, the primary fiduciary responsibility of a firm's board of directors is to ensure that shareholder value is maximized over the long term. This wealth-creation process requires that management promote a long-term culture of ethical...

Larry White will head new RCA Institute.(NEWS)
September 1, 2008... Former IMA Chair Larry R. White, CMA, CFM, CPA, CGFM, has been named executive director of the newly created RCA Institute. Over the past several years, Strategic Finance has published a number of articles on Resource Consumption Accounting...

Sec announces idea.(Securities & Exchange Commission)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) recently unveiled the successor to its EDGAR database that "will give investors far faster and easier access to key financial information about public companies and mutual funds." Called IDEA (short...

Giving.(Letters to the Editor)(Brief article)(Column)
September 1, 2008... Congratulations on a great essay in the Perspectives column of the August 2008 issue. I agree that we should do charitable work, make significant contributions, or both. Our country's Judeo-Christian ethic calls for the tithe to charity, and...

Pozen recs to SEC on financial reporting fall short.(GOVERNMENT)(Securities & Exchange Commission)
September 1, 2008... The final recommendations of the Securities & Exchange Commission's Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (Pozen Committee) were a mixed bag for corporate financial executives, hitting at least one positive note while...

Measuring the "immeasurable".(BOOKS)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... In How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business, Douglas W. Hubbard convincingly argues that what is commonly believed to be immeasurable in business can actually be measured, including quality, the value of...

Seven habits of strategic CFOs.(chief financial officers)(Cover story)
September 1, 2008... Check the hat rack in the CFO's office. Chances are there isn't a lot of room left because today's CFOs are wearing more hats than they used to. Chief financial officers were once specialists in accounting and maybe taxes and treasury as...

Can regulations curb excessive executive pay?(Financial Management)
September 1, 2008... On the heels of the Securities & Exchange Commission's (SEC) executive compensation disclosure requirement that became effective in 2007, regulators are once again considering measures to curb escalating executive pay. Spawned by shareholder...

Academic advising at Bay State.(2009 Student Case Competition)
September 1, 2008... The Student Case Competition is sponsored annually by IMA to provide an opportunity for students to interpret, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and communicate a solution to a management accounting problem. BAY STATE UNIVERSITY is part of a...

Looking up data from worksheets using INDIRECT.(Excel)
September 1, 2008... Suppose you maintain a monthly workbook that uses one worksheet per day to track key metrics such as sales, expenses, and so forth. At the end of the month, you'd like to build a summary worksheet that accrues the totals from each daily...

Tools of the trade.
September 1, 2008... Casio America, Inc. has introduced four new digital projectors in its Pro-Series Super Slim line. All of the models have wide-angle 2X power zoom that extend projection distances from 2.8 feet to a farthest 30 feet. They have the thinnest body...

The Kroll Global Fraud Report--part 1.(Tech Forum)(Survey)
September 1, 2008... * RECENT REPORTS ABOUT THE ARREST OF 11 HACKERS responsible for the theft and sale of 41 million credit card numbers detail a Guinness-record breach. Although the tried-and-true methods the hackers used weren't particularly ingenious, they were...

The other side of the bridge: XBRL GL and transactions.(XBRL)(global ledger framework)(Column)
September 1, 2008... As any leprechaun will tell you, most pots of gold are found at the other end of a rainbow. But I know of one pot of gold--information integration--that can be found on the other end of a bridge instead. The bridge in this case is the XBRL...

Myths and facts about convergence.(Financial Reporting)(Column)
September 1, 2008... I have spent much of the past two years teaching financial managers in the United States and around the world about a phenomenon that is profoundly affecting corporate financial reporting. As readers of my previous columns in Strategic Finance...

Encyclopedie v.3.(End Note)(Denis Diderot)
September 1, 2008... Denis Diderot's grand intellectual experiment of the Enlightenment, to create a compendium of all the world's knowledge in one place, was an attempt to democratize knowledge and make it available to all. Today his life's work, or at least 27...