Financial Director articles from March 2005

Financial Director archives from March 2005

Editor's letter - Battlefield lessons for the institutes.(Editorial)
March 1, 2005... Byline: Andrew Sawers, editor, editor@FinancialDirector.co.uk. Not all accountants are the same. ICAEW chief executive Eric Anstee told us recently that English & Welsh chartered accountants arrive at a decision through a process involving...

Careers - back to school. As the accounting institutes introduce new continuing professional development regimes, FDs will have to hit the books to keep up to date. But they were doing that anyway, no?(Financial Directors)(Continuing Professional Development)
March 1, 2005... Byline: Sarah Perrin. This year, on top of everything else, finance directors will start to comply with new Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements. The new CPD schemes were triggered by the International Federation of...

Insight - So what now? The conclusion of Oracle's bitter takeover battle for PeopleSoft raises more questions than it answers. What does the future hold for the enterprise application software bought by FDs, for example?
March 1, 2005... Byline: Kevin Reed. The takeover saga, which began on 6 June 2003 with a $5.1bn bid at $16 per share, was a bitter and protracted one. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison (pictured) and PeopleSoft's Craig Conway waged a verbal war that was as much...

Insight - Art and soul. Corporate identity is not defined by letterhead and logo alone. The contemporary artwork that adorns lobbies and front desks says as much about a company's image as does its business practice and ethos.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Amon Cohen. Anyone who visits Deutsche Bank's London headquarters at Winchester House can see instantly how much corporate taste in art has changed in recent years. On the wall hangs a canvas by Damien Hirst of what look like...

Insight - Winds of change. Climate change has become a major issue for FDs as they prepare for the effects of the EU's new carbon dioxide emissions trading scheme. The impact on accounting is almost as significant as the effect on the environment.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Ben King. On 1 January 2005, the EU's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions trading scheme (ETS) came into effect as part of the EU's efforts to abide by the Kyoto Protocol, which itself came into effect on 16 February 2005. Companies...

Accounting - Go on... admit it. Sarbanes-Oxley initially met with disdain and later quiet resignation, but will finance directors ever admit that it's not so bad after all?
March 1, 2005... Byline: Peter Williams, a chartered accountant and freelance journalist. The debate rages over the effectiveness of Sarbanes-Oxley and the impact it has on the corporate strategy of multinational organisations worldwide, as well as on...

Corporate governance - "It stands to reason". Attempts to merge the various accountancy bodies have often failed, despite the obvious benefits to the profession.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Robert Bruce, a leading commentator on accountancy issues. There is an assumption that accountants will always insist that their heads will rule their hearts when it comes to policy or decisions. The perennial exception to this rule...

IT strategy - Taking pleasure in pain.[SO] FINDIR; With technology suppliers competing for client budgets, now is the time for FDs to revisit their IT contracts and negotiate a better deal.(Financial Directors)
March 1, 2005... Byline: Tom Berry, deputy editor of Financial Director. [SH] With technology suppliers competing for client budgets, now is the time for FDs to revisit their IT contracts and negotiate a better deal. [BB] Tom Berry, deputy editor of...

Economics - What price inflation? Controlling inflation has been central to ensuring a stable economic environment for sustainable business growth.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Dennis Turner, chief economist at HSBC. Since the UK was humiliatingly dumped out of the ERM in 1992, governments have been pursuing a macro-economic policy aimed at creating a stable environment for business, ending the boom-bust...

Compliance - knock, knock. When investigators rap on your office door at 6am do not panic or lock them in the lift. Co-operate, without giving them too much information.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Peter Bartram. Executives of bus companies Arriva and FirstGroup must have thought they were doing a clever deal out of the public's gaze when they met discreetly in a hotel room to fix up who would run a couple of bus routes in...

Logistics - Send it back. Thanks to catalogue shoppers and corporates with laser printers ready for the scrapyard, the reverse supply chain is becoming a real problem for vendors. New waste regulations now make it a legal burden, too.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Ben King. What do you do with a single shoe, an old television, or a paddling pool that leaks? Until recently, the answer was simple - find the cheapest way to dispose of it. Now, innovative companies are increasingly looking...

Decisions - Sick pay - Important assets.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Byline: Andrew Sawers. People are your most important assets. They are also the most difficult assets you have. They get sick for no apparent reason, leaving you to figure out whether they are work-shy layabouts throwing a duvet day, or...

Decisions - Sick pay - In sickness, in health. Refusing to pay staff wages on those days when they pull a sickie is Snothing new, but the fact that one of the UK's most profitable retailers Sis doing it has raised a few eyebrows. So, is this the future of business, Sor will employees soon get sick of the new arrangements?
March 1, 2005... Byline: Neil Hodge. Last May, supermarket giant Tesco announced it was going to test a pilot scheme, whereby the company would refuse to pay staff for the first three days an employee was ill. The retail chain that makes [pounds...

Decisions - Pensions up in smoke. The pensions 'Simplification' initiative will eliminate reams of confusing rules governing senior executive pensions. Plenty more confusing rules will arrive on A-Day next year.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Anthony Harrington. One of the great ironies of the Inland Revenue's pensions 'Simplification' initiative, which kicks in on 6 April 2006 (universally known as A-Day), is that simple it ain't. The new rules sweep away...

Decisions - Longevity - making retirement work. Life expectancy is on the increase, but retirement age is not. The only solution, it seems, is to either retire later or save harder. The consequences of doing neither are grim indeed.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Anthony Harrington. The English language is rich in hoary old sayings like 'now't for now't', or the impossibility of extracting red corpuscles from a rock. We feel the truth of these bits of wisdom in our bones but, in some...

Decisions - Benefit schemes - the right carrot. It's hard enough to recruit well-skilled staff. Once you've found Sthem, retaining and motivating them continues to be an enormous corporate Schallenge.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Richard Willsher. Managers are increasingly likely to resign because their salaries are not rising fast enough, according to the latest annual Chartered Institute of Management survey. The research, carried out in conjunction...

Decisions - Employment law - rights and wrongs. Tougher employment regulations give employees new rights to be Sinformed and consulted about changes in their employers' position and Sprospects.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Neil Hodge. From April 2005, the Information and Consultation of Employees' Regulations 2004 gives employees a right to be informed about an organisation's economic situation, employment prospects, and decisions that are likely...

BA Supplement - Travel pricing - Rise and shine. To say the travel business is booming may be stretching it, but one thing is certain: people still travel. And it seems airlines and hoteliers are making a tidy profit from global jetsetters.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Amon Cohen. Business is on the march once more. The number of miles flown by airline passengers worldwide was 16% higher in the first 11 months of 2004 than the same period for 2003, meaning the skies are busier now than they were...

BA Supplement - Travel pricing - More travel for your money.
March 1, 2005... Travel: cost-saving tips 1. Negotiate deals This is increasingly important as spot-price bargains shrivel up. The key is in good preparation. That means, according to WPP European head of travel procurement Celia Allbut: "You need...

BA Supplement - Travel policy - A Long day's journey. At one time, corporates would only approve club class travel for senior executives - everyone else flew cattle class. But all that has changed as cost, not position or status, determines the passenger hierarchy.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Anthony Harrington. Whether businesses are cost-conscious or comfort-conscious, virtually everyone has a travel policy. And the need for prudence - a classic accounting virtue if ever there were one - means that even companies with...

BA Supplement - Technology - Check in log on. The tinny, maddening sound of other people's personal stereos used to be the norm on air travel. But then laptops became popular. Shorty thereafter, mobile phones slipped into the top air travel nuisance slot - at least until take-off. Now it's even possible to get real-time connection to phones and the internet in-flight as well.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Anthony Harrington. The internet, email and mobile phones are now so integrated into the fabric of business life that the prospect of a long-haul flight without access to these support functions sends business travellers into a...

BA Supplement - Travel - Going, going, gone. The latest in procurement is the reverse e-auction, where suppliers bid live online to try to undercut their competitors. Hoteliers are the latest to join this craze, which is as effective as it is controversial.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Amon Cohen. Reverse e-auctions, where vendors bid live online to undercut one another for a specified contract, are all the rage in procurement and are even spreading to buying services such as corporate travel. When one looks at...

BA Supplement - Hotels - Room with a view. The last thing an FD on business in a foreign city wants at the end of a long day is to schlep to a hotel across town. Amon Cohen reviews some hotels that have opened up in finance centres the world over.(financial director)
March 1, 2005... Little more than a decade ago, hotels in the heart of the City of London were few and far between. The Thistle near the Tower of London was among the few hotel chains to offer the kind of accommodation that a weary FD craved after a long day's...

BA Supplement - Outsourcing - Cost and effect. Travel costs can be prohibitive for even the biggest corporate giants. It seems there are two realistic options to cutting travel costs: do it yourself, or keep tighter control of those managing travel for you.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Anthony Harrington. Managing business travel costs is a huge undertaking. In global companies, air flight bills alone can be in excess of [pounds sterling]100m, and hotels can add tens of millions more to the bill. Managing...

BA Supplement - Leisure - Work and perk. Employees who spend a lot of time away on business struggle to maintain a work-life balance. Perhaps, then, companies should pick up the tab for some on-the-job 'me-time' so staff can combine business and pleasure.
March 1, 2005... Byline: Anthony Harrington. Maintaining a work-life balance is difficult these days. And while take-home pay is among the most attractive aspect in recruiting staff, salary alone is no longer incentive enough. To differentiate themselves...