CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives articles from March 2004

CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives archives from March 2004

Signs of spring.(from the editor)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... THERE WILL BE GROWTH IN THE SPRING. THAT, ANYway, is the consensus of CFOs (see "Global Confidence Survey,' page 24), with readers around the globe reporting cautious optimism about the economy. Translating that optimism into growth at...

A taxing approach.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... NICE ARTICLE ON STATE TAXES ("Stingers," January). As a Maryland practitioner, CPA, and former Big Four SALT office practice leader, I can tell you that Maryland is going beyond the bounds of Comptroller of the Treasury v. SYL Inc. It is...

Lifting the ban.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... IN "THEY MIGHT be Giants" (January) you ask: "It's been nearly two years since Arthur Andersen went under and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was passed. Have the Big Four audit firms changed since then?" Reading that, you might surmise that the...

Greed or ambition?(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... IN YOUR DECEMBER 2003 EDITORIAL, "The Greed Factor" (From the Editor), you suggested that greed fuels capitalism. But you also found it necessary to caution that you were not condemning capitalism or advocating socialism; you were merely...

Learning from the UK.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... LORI CALABRO MAKES many valuable points in assessing the need for board compensation committees to protect themselves and their stockholders from unfair CEO-pay outcomes ("Above Board," October 2003). While stock options are being replaced with...

Clarification.(letters to the editor)(Correction Notice)
March 1, 2004... The December 2003 article "Subject to Failure" stated that Morningstar has recommended that plans consider removing the four fund companies named in the Canary Capital settlement. Morningstar's fund analysts made this recommendation to...

It's academic--unfortunately.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... APPARENTLY THERE'S ONLY ONE way to view the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 from the "ivory tower. Letters to the editor from academicians regarding "Sticker Shock" (September) unanimously endorsed all sections of Sarbox, no matter what the cost....

Hard time.(news watch)(l0-year sentence for securities fraud)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Andrew Fastow isn't getting much sympathy from his peers these days. A recent CFO magazine survey suggests that many CFOs think Enron's former finance chief got off easy with a l0-year sentence for securities fraud. Only 5 percent thought...

Making the list.(Pension Plans)
March 1, 2004... EMBARRASSED by N.Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's aggressive muckraking, a newly assertive Securities and Exchange Commission is now scouring neglected corners of the investment business for wrongdoing. In its latest foray, the Commission is...

IRS aims to soup up audits.(Tax)(INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE is expediting its process for auditing corporate taxpayers, cutting the three-year examination time to 18 months by promoting electronic filing, narrowing the scope of its checkups, and encouraging its agents to...

A few good lawyers.(SEC)(Securities and Exchange Commission)
March 1, 2004... The Securities and Exchange Commission received $30 million less than it requested from Congress this year, putting its new budget of $811.5 million roughly 15 percent above last year's. Is Congress starving the securities watchdog? Not quite....

Food fight.(Trade Relations)
March 1, 2004... IF ONLY THAT MAD COW in Washington State were the worst beef facing U.S. trade representatives. Sure, it's payback time for the countries whose meat was once banned here. But the United States has far more countries frothing at the mouth over...

Twice as nice?(Capital Markets)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... IN JANUARY, SIX BIG BOARD companies announced that they would also list on Nasdaq, as part of the competing exchange's "dual-listing initiative." The six--Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab, Countrywide Financial, Cadence Design Systems, Apache,...

Alien nation.(Immigration Law)
March 1, 2004... With an estimated 8 million to 10 million undocumented workers in the United States, many businesses are hailing President Bush's recently proposed "temporary-worker program" as much-needed step in the right direction. The measure would grant...

The mint is extra.(Travel Expenses)(hotels)
March 1, 2004... BUSINESS TRAVEL may be picking up, but some hotels still boost revenues by tacking unexpected and sometimes ludicrous charges onto bills, according to ongoing research by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Among the charges likely to make...

Benchmarking anxiety.(Underfunded Pensions)
March 1, 2004... As politicians debate, companies wait anxiously for word on the new benchmark for measuring pension obligations. In late January, the Senate passed the Pension Stability Act, which will replace the current discount rate with one based on an...

Good, but not great.(Global Confidence Survey)
March 1, 2004... THINGS ARE LOOKING UP in America's boardrooms, but only minor relief is in sight for job seekers. According to this quarter's survey of CFO expectations, 72 percent of U.S. finance executives say they have a positive outlook on the domestic...

Answering RFQs, PDQ: new software helps companies optimize prices. One caveat: it often comes with an optimized price.(techwatch)(Request for Quotation)(Pre-defined Query)
March 1, 2004... A CYNIC, WE'RE TOLD, knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Well, Michael Towe isn't a cynic, but he does know the price of everything--or at least everything sold by GE Transportation International Pool (TIP) and GE Modular...

The cruelest blow of all.(E-mail)
March 1, 2004... HERE'S A SIGN OF THE DIGITAL TIMES: in a recent study conducted by Dynamic Markets, technology employees said they thought E-mail outages were more stressful than ear accidents or divorces. While the survey provides a glimpse of the strange...

The two faces of bank mergers: corporate customers should look beyond the rhetoric of consolidation's advantages.(new deals)
March 1, 2004... DESPITE ALL THE TALK about the "seamlessness" of the mergers being planned in the nation's fast-consolidating banking industry, CFOs of bank customers aren't all that convinced. And their concerns are both financial and personal: Will the...

Haven or hell: the IRS wants to crack down on multinational corporations that transfer U.S. intellectual property to tax havens.(Spotlight: taxes)
March 1, 2004... ON THE DAY in early January when talks over a long-running tax dispute between Glaxo SmithKline and the Internal Revenue Service broke off, Glaxo's share price fell nearly 2 percent. And no wonder. The IRS wants the U.K.-based pharmaceutical...

Going for growth: finding new sources of growth is harder than ever. These companies show how to do it--without damaging your roots.(Cover Story)
March 1, 2004... FOR THE PAST THREE years, Corporate America has been nothing if not stingy. Stalled by sluggish demand, companies have slashed spending on new factories and equipment, salaries and bonuses, technology, benefits, and travel. They have exited...

Scrubbing the numbers: cleaning up the balance sheet boosts year-end cash flow, but it can leave some messy problems.
March 1, 2004... THE HOLIDAY SEASON IS NOT A happy time for many finance executives. While others attend parties and eat turkey, finance departments in companies with a calendar year-end often spend the two months between Halloween and New Year's Eve...

New world order: IASB chairman Sir David Tweedie says global accounting standards are within reach.(A CFO Interview)(Interview)
March 1, 2004... SIR DAVID TWEEDIE IS ON A QUEST. The 59-year-old chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is overseeing the development of a single set of international accounting standards for the European Union (EU) by March and...

The discreet charm of the SMB: increasingly, enterprise software vendors are targeting small and midsize businesses.(Tech report: ERP software)(small to midsize businesses)
March 1, 2004... A RULE, FINANCE EXECUTIVES AT SMALL, MID-western companies tend to be less guarded and less politic than their counterparts at large, East Coast companies. It's not entirely clear why that is. Some believe it's because smaller companies usually...

Bar hopping: officer and director bars are at an all-time high. But are they made of iron, or air?(regulation)
March 1, 2004... ALREADY CONSIDERED ONE OF the most severe civil penalties for securities violations, officer and director (O/D) bars have been embraced by the Securities and Exchange Commission with a new zeal. Too bad they aren't being enforced with equal...

Goin' to the chapel: a court decision means employers may be required to provide full spousal benefits to gay couples.(benefits)
March 1, 2004... SINCE 1982, WHEN THE VILLAGE VOICE offered domestic-partner benefits to its employees, some 41 percent of the Fortune 500, along with thousands of smaller companies, have followed suit, according to the Human Rights Campaign. But in the wake of...

Going public.(Beyond The Private Sector)
March 1, 2004... NO MATTER THE BUSINESS MODEL MOST EXECUTIVES spend their careers striving for revenue growth and profitability. But in the public sector, the definition of success is not so clear. From balancing the needs of varied constituencies to working...

Another inside job?(grapevine)(Amy Butte appointed as executive vice president and finance chief)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... THE NEW YORK STOCK Exchange continued to shake up its executive suite last month, naming Amy Butte executive vice president and finance chief upon Keith Helsby's retirement in April. Most recently chief strategist and CFO of Credit Suisse First...

Skin in the game.(gravevine; United Way administration Marjo Daum's fundraising efforts)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Marjo Daum has taken the concept of putting skin in the game to literal new heights. As finance and administration director for the United Way of Lincoln and Lancaster counties in Nebraska, Daum, 54, likes to make bets with the charity's...

Moore Wallace Inc.(CFOs On The Move)(suspends)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Moore Wallace Inc. suspended its CFO, Mark Hiltwein, with pay pending an investigation of claims that he back-dated documents relating to the company's planned merger with R. R. Donnelley & Co.

Longtime Apple Computer Inc. CFO Fred Anderson will retire on June 1.(CFOs On The Move)(retires)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Longtime Apple Computer Inc. CFO Fred Anderson will retire on June 1. Taking over the spot is Apple controller Peter Oppenheimer.

Scholastic Corp.(CFOs On The Move)(Mary Winston appointed)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Mary Winston, formerly VP and controller of Visteon Corp., is the new CFO of children's book publisher Scholastic Corp. Previous CFO Kevin McEnery resigned.

Papa John's International Inc.(CFOs On The Move)(appointed David Flanery)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... David Flanery was named CFO of Papa John's International Inc. Flanery was formerly SVP of finance.

We'll deal, but will we manage?(editor's note)(Editorial)
March 22, 2004... While there are many reasons why CFOs now play a larger role in IT strategy than ever before, the staggering cost of technology remains the biggie. True, IT has come to dominate the capital budgets of most companies. And true, when you're a...

The complaints you never hear.(Browser: news, trends, and research that drive IT strategy)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... It's tax time again, and while that naturally gets everyone's blood boiling, Intuit Corp. hopes the level of ire is a little lower this year. Last year, when customers encountered some features that displeased them (primarily having to do with...

Hold that golden spike.(IT Strategy)
March 22, 2004... Rarely has a topic engendered so much agreement yet so little progress as IT/business "alignment." Last year it topped the priority list among members of the Society for Information Management (SIM), a professional organization of CIOs that has...

Will IT be a bonus baby?(Buying Time)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... While capital spending has been recovering for the past two years, it still lags the levels seen in 1999 and early 2000. A tax break that expires at the end of this year may help alleviate that. Written into the Jobs and Growth Tax Act of 2003...

Somewhere under the rainbow.(Sarbox Update)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... Think you're relieved that the deadline for compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has been moved back several months? IT vendors are no doubt cheering as well. In December, IT consulting firm Meta Group Inc. said...

Work that body.(Massachusetts Institute of Technology's research on information technology in decision-making)(Brief article)
March 22, 2004... One of the primary uses for IT in the workplace is to aid decision-making. A countless number of software programs attempt to help knowledge workers do smart things, usually by churning through data looking for trends, patterns, and similar...

One company's trash ...(Asset Disposition)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... While there's probably nothing in your garage or basement that can't find a buyer on E-bay, the same is not necessarily true for the goods that your company may deem ready for the trash heap. Every year an untold amount of merchandise is...

Innovators' (other) dilemma.(Bright Ideas)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... CFOs, it's often said (in fact we say it a couple of times in this issue), should be keenly involved with their companies' IT strategies because they are "guardians of shareholder value" and as such must keep tabs on big expenses. More...

Happy warriors.(Workforce Management)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... In the movie Multiplicity, an overworked Doug Kinney (Michael Keaton) allows himself to be cloned so that he can accomplish collectively what he can't do individually. It doesn't work out. Now, technology analysts predict something similar...

"F" is for "focus".(The New CFO)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... A corporate function that once had a cost base equal to 3 percent revenue now requires only 1 percent. As a result, the executive in charge has enjoyed a concomitant rise in influence. That's you--in theory anyway. According to a survey of...

Bouncing back.(Plan Another Day)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... Nothing, it seems--including the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001--can galvanize Corporate America to adequately address business continuity, aka disaster recovery. More than two years later, major financial institutions, an industry...

What's the deal? Leasing IT gear is more popular than ever, thanks to a host of new options. But more for lessees is not guaranteed.(bookmark)
March 22, 2004... Lease or buy? Finance executives grapple with this decision constantly, whether it's for office space, furniture, vehicles, maintenance equipment, or scores of other products. Now, thanks to mostly flat sales in many types of computer hardware,...

One month at a time.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... Hardware companies aren't the only players in IT that are looking for new ways to move the merchandise. Software companies now offer an expanding array of alternatives to traditional one-time, perpetual licensing, notably with...

Amazon finally clicks: ten years old and profitable at last, it offers a textbook lesson on how to be both focused and flexible.
March 22, 2004... The foosball tables are still there, as are the desks made from sawhorses, plywood, and old doors. And no one wears a tie, not even CFO Thomas J. Szkutak. But if some E-commerce trappings are alive and well at Amazon.com headquarters, others...

The great divide: or, what CIO would really like to say to you if only the job market were better.
March 22, 2004... A CIO recently complained to an executive recruiter that his company's CFO was making his life a living hell. "The CIO came on board to effect change," says Kevin M. Rosenberg, a managing partner with Bridge-Gate, an executive recruitment firm...

You wouldn't keep an employee who only works 10% of the time. Now, a word about your servers.(A guide to the on demand world: optimization)
March 22, 2004... It's an on demand world. You know that. It's why your servers are up 24x7. Answering queries. Managing information. Heading problems off at the pass. Apparently, working as hard as they can. But appearances can be deceptive. "On" doesn't always...

Your place or mine? Telecommuting can produce real savings, but employees are now reluctant to cut the cord. Should companies do it for them?
March 22, 2004... As a CFO in these still uncertain economic times, imagine saving $3,000 per employee per year. And lopping $71 million off your real estate bill. Oh, and how about a 4 to 12 percent boost in employee productivity? Sound good? Those are...

A world of trouble: even with an extended deadline for Sarbox compliance, questions about offshoring have companies on edge.
March 22, 2004... Beware a false sense of security: Even though the SEC has pushed back the deadline for compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, a little-known and perhaps largely outdated auditing standard for outsourcers could hamstring...

Home is where the cash is.(A World of Trouble)
March 22, 2004... Don't ask John Cox to outsource his treasury function offshore. It's just not going to happen... ever. As chief financial officer of BMC Software, he has been more than willing to outsource other areas of his finance department, including...

There's no "IT" in "thrift": well, ok, there is. But don't tell Washington Federal.(IT strategy)
March 22, 2004... Take a new, young CFO, ensconce him in the downtown Seattle headquarters of a small but growing company with operations in eight western states, and you can be pretty sure that information technology will be an important aspect of his growth...

The price you pay: companies say price-optimization software is worth the effort it demands.(software)
March 22, 2004... Companies have grown accustomed to using information technology to design, manufacture, and ship products, and to slice and dice the numbers in every conceivable way after the fact. But what's less well known is the role IT can play in...

Stuck on the middle: enterprise software companies try to lure smaller customers with tailored products and lower prices.(midmarket IT)
March 22, 2004... It's no secret--to IT vendors, anyway--that the "midmarket" represents a golden opportunity to win sales as large companies rein in spending. Now, experts say, that opportunity may be even more golden as midmarket firms brace for a spending...

ROI: the long and short of it.(Midmarket IT)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... When Fortune 1,000 corporations make major software investments, they know they may wait years to real ROI. When midmarket companies buy IT, they want IG: instant gratification. "You can't convince SMBs to think in a three-to-five-year...

Techs and the city: toward a new way of thinking about the many-headed beast that is IT.(take-away)
March 22, 2004... It is the nature--and, one should add, the responsibility--of the C-level executive to think conceptually, to deal in strategic visions and grand designs. Niggling details may fall to others, but, by God, real leaders revel in Big Ideas. ...