CMA Management articles from March 2005

CMA Management archives from March 2005

Expansion and innovation.(Canadian research organizations developing collaborative relationships to attract new business)(Editorial)
March 1, 2005... In the December 2004 issue of Fast Company, writer Alan Deutschman noted an interesting trend in the high tech industry. According to his report, Silicon Valley insiders are eyeing China and India in a new way. No longer are these countries...

Blue Ocean Strategy.(Changing people and growth strategies)(How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Competition is fierce in most industries right now. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant, a new book from Harvard Business School Press, suggests that, instead of competing for a share...

Face It.(Changing people and growth strategies)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Behavioural profiling is a useful aid for describing kinds of people--as shown in popular books like Roberta Cava's Dealing With Difficult People. Art Horn defines behavioural profiles of six types of business people who have hidden fears in...

Winning With People.(Changing people and growth strategies)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The single quality that leaders universally identify as critical to their success is their ability to work with people. In his newest book, Winning With People: Discover the people principles that work for you every time, John C. Maxwell...

CMA Canada awarded Level 1 certification in organizational excellence by The National Quality Institute.(New and noteworthy information you can use)
March 1, 2005... The CMA Canada national partner has been awarded Level 1 certification under the Professional Excellence Program (PEP) administered by The National Quality Institute (NQI). The award was formally presented by Don Corbett, president and CEO of...

Canadian cheques get a makeover.(New and noteworthy information you can use)
March 1, 2005... The Canadian Payments Association (CPA) recently published new specifications for Canadian cheques as a key element of its modernization of the country's cheque clearing system. Under the new specifications, all cheques used by customers of...

VoIP to hit the desktop by 2006.(New and noteworthy information you can use)
March 1, 2005... In a recently released report, Getting off the Ground: Why the move to VoIP is a decision for all CXOs, Deloitte revealed that by 2006 more than two-thirds of the largest "Global 2000" companies will have started deployment of Voice over...

Canadian IPO market strong.(New and noteworthy information you can use)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... A significant increase in Canadian initial public offering (IPO) activity and value in 2004 powered the market to its best showing since the record year 2000, according to the annual survey of IPOs by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). A total of 87...

New software.(New and noteworthy information you can use)
March 1, 2005... Visit www.managementmag.com for more information on the following software and applications packages: * Acrobat's new 7.0 Software * Microsoft Business Solutions Small Business Financials North America Edition

Authorization on the run.(HIGH TECH)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Businesses generally require two authorization signatures on every cheque before a payment can be issued. This means if one signing officer is out of the office or out of the country, business payments can't be issued. TelPay has come up with a...

Aerospace industry forecasts growth.(New and noteworthy information you can use)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... After two years of falling profits in the Canadian aerospace industry, and despite highly-publicized concerns in the industry, profit levels are expected to increase from less than $1 billion in 2004 to $1.3 billion in 2005, according to The...

Leading on the links: the golf course is a great place to do business. Despite this, some women are intimidated by the prospect of picking up a set of clubs. A new organization in Montreal is trying to change that.(human resources)
March 1, 2005... Golf is more than just a sport to a lot of business people; it is also an important business tool. Although this is understood generally by many, few really take the time to consider how best to leverage that tool to their advantage. Tanya...

The perils of the plan: developing a highly reliable organization (HRO) requires flexibility and an ability to react effectively to the unexpected, but most business models don't allow for this. A look at effective HROs could offer valuable insight into how to change this.(management trends)
March 1, 2005... Contemporary literature presents managers with a fairly standard model of decision making and organizational structure. Most organizational analyses, it seems, begin and end with decisions grounded in known quantities. Unfortunately, this...

The talking cure: communicate your way through a difficult time.(business strategies)
March 1, 2005... Marriage counselors often tell a warring couple that a key to saving their marriage is to communicate. The partners need to keep each other informed of their feelings and perspectives, because in understanding lies an appreciation of the...

Collaboration for innovation: Canada has a substantial number of innovative universities and private companies working to make an impact on the global stage. In the fight for limited funding and a shrinking pool of talent, these organizations are working together more often to improve the strength of their business community in general. Such associations are only going to become more important in the future.
March 1, 2005... In the December 2004 issue of Fast Company, writer Alan Deutschman noted an important trend in the high tech industry. According to his report, Silicon Valley insiders are eyeing China and India in a new way. No longer are these countries...

The paper chase: professional firms are doing whatever is in their power to cut back on paper clutter. Document management systems have helped substantially, and as systems mature and become more intuitive, more firms are seeing the value they add. CMA Management recently visited two such firms to see how it has changed their operations.
March 1, 2005... At a recent meeting in the offices of Mintz & Partners in Toronto, COO Lyle Strachan, CMA, was facing a new challenge--using a Tablet PC to keep notes. As the champion of his company's "paperless office" initiative, Strachan tries to do...

Think bigger: great leaders don't train to be great managers. Although they may manage an organization well, they become stars of an organization by looking far beyond that, using their specific and general skills to create dynamic change.
March 1, 2005... What sets the stars of industry apart from mediocre businesses that simply struggle to survive is a question that continues to challenge business experts. Many believe that success can be attributed to effective leadership and a clear vision....

Exporting 101: a trade finance primer; Canada's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can only grow so much while they remain dependent on domestic sales. However, venturing overseas can be a precarious undertaking. By understanding what financing vehicles are available, and how to secure them, SMEs can move ahead with more confidence.
March 1, 2005... In July 2002, Con-Space Communications Ltd. of Richmond, B.C., burst on to the world scene. Nine miners working in the Quecreek Mine in Pennsylvania accidentally broke through an abandoned mine shaft, sending hundreds of millions of litres of...

Business transformation: Steve Palmer, CMA, FCMA, uses his entrepreneurial spirit to help build a niche winner.(PROFILE)(Certified Management Accountants, The Fellow of The Society of Management Accountants of Canada)(Biography)
March 1, 2005... Entrepreneurial spirit is an important element in any growing company but applying that spirit to cutting edge ideas requires solid management expertise as well. Just as entrepreneurs have to understand a business before they go it alone, a...

Upping the ante: the moneyed masses can pay for more, but they want more value for their money. Mass Affluence explains how to target them.(Mass Affluence: 7 New Rules of Marketing to Today's Consumer)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... A review of Mass Affluence: 7 New Rules of Marketing to Today's Consumer, by Paul Nunes and Brian Johnson. Published by Harvard Business School Press, 2004. If the 1990s were known for a growing interest in the segmentation of market...

Saving time and money with VPNs: affordable virtual private networks (VPNs) are helping organizations exchange information more effectively. However, the benefits vary depending on how they are used. It is important to understand the context as well as the technology.(information technology)
March 1, 2005... Of all the buzzwords that IT throws at us, the trickiest are those that seem to have multiple meanings. Virtual private network (VPN) is one of these chameleon-like terms. The confusing part is that there are two principal application areas...

Celling the nation: Canada's hydrogen technology industry is generating a strong showing.(government issues)
March 1, 2005... Canada's hydrogen and fuel cell industry is stronger than ever and positioned for great growth in the future, according to a joint sector profile developed by the federal government, Fuel Cells Canada and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The...

Improving international comparability: the IAASB's new standard for an auditor's report aims to ease cross-border reporting concerns; meanwhile, AcSB re-examines its priorities.(International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board)
March 1, 2005... Improving international comparability of reporting practices is a concern for accounting bodies around the world. As reports from Europe and Canada late in 2004 suggest, convergence continues, but how it should be managed continues to be...