Protecting Information in the Cloud

The use of highly scaled, shared, and automated IT platforms—known as cloud computing—is growing rapidly. Adopters are driven by the prospects of increasing agility and gaining access to more computing resources for less money. Large institutions are building and managing private-cloud environmen...

By Chris Rezek and James Kaplan • Jan. 2, 2013

How SAP’s Sustainability Program Got Built

Less than three miles south of Stanford University, just below a slope crowned by Coast Live Oaks, sits the American office of the world’s largest business software company. From here, Chief Sustainability Officer Peter Graf directs the sustainability and corporate social responsibility efforts o...

By Liz Enochs • Dec. 26, 2012

It’s Their Phone but Your Risk

When the phrase bring your own device entered the corporate lexicon, the business world rushed to implement safeguards for employee-owned mobile gadgets and devise policies for their use. But according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’s 2013 Global State of Information Security survey, the rush has slow...

By Taylor Provost • Dec. 18, 2012

Highway Robbery

Truck cargo theft is a perennial headache for Corporate America, thanks to the ease of stealing a truck and disposing of stolen goods, the omnipresence of gangs, and the relative indifference of law enforcement. Such theft amounts to $30 billion a year, according to a 2010 estimate by the Federal...

By Caroline McDonald • Dec. 15, 2012

Sandy Clogs the Fuel Line

Gas shortages in the wake of Hurricane Sandy have revealed weaknesses in the Northeast gas supply chain that will require fixes from the private sector and federal and state government, according to a petroleum analyst.Fuel problems that already existed, such as obsolete laws and a shortage of re...

By Caroline McDonald • Dec. 15, 2012

Do CFOs Need a Service Provider for Service Providers?

Starting your enterprise’s cloud journey is the easy part.  Implementing a stand-alone cloud application is relatively painless, and almost immediately yields significant cost and productivity benefits.  Given that ease, and those benefits, CFOs may be reluctant to stand in the way of further clo...

By Rob Livingstone • Dec. 11, 2012

Looming Strike Spurs Supply-chain Angst

A labor strike that would begin December 30 could cripple East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, cost companies billions in lost revenue, and even impair the U.S. economic outlook for 2013, according to a new report.If the International Longshoremen’s Assn. (ILA) does strike ­­— and observers are expec...

By Caroline McDonald • Dec. 11, 2012

Company Cedes Twitter Account to Ex-Employee

Some observers were hoping that a lawsuit filed last year would help decide questions about who actually owns certain Twitter accounts. But with the case ending on Monday in a negotiated settlement rather than a legal decision, such hopes were dashed.The case involved Noah Kravitz and his former ...

By David McCann • Dec. 4, 2012

Storm-Surge Damage Boosts Loss Estimate to $22 Billion

AIR Worldwide, a risk-modeling firm, said today that after analyzing superstorm Sandy’s characteristics and effects, it now estimates that insured losses from the storm will be between $16 billion and $22 billion. On October 30, the catastrophe-modeling firm projected insured losses of between $7...

By Caroline McDonald • Nov. 26, 2012

Rate Expectations

Companies that have grown accustomed to coasting through their insurance renewals in a flat market are now bracing for higher premiums on some types of coverage. A long string of natural catastrophes, costing insurers more than $100 billion in 2011 and hammering their investment returns, has made...

By Caroline McDonald • Nov. 15, 2012

Insurers Equipped to Pay $10 Billion in Hurricane Sandy Losses

Preliminary estimates of losses from Hurricane Sandy are up to $10 billion, likely making it a much more damaging event than Hurricane Irene, which had early estimated losses of $5 billion. But because the property-casualty insurance industry has enjoyed a good year financially up until now, it’s...

By Caroline McDonald • Oct. 30, 2012

Their Business, Your Risk

Security, privacy, location of data, total cost of ownership, lack of standards, and vendor lock-in are just a few of the well-understood risks of cloud computing. A less understood, but no less important, risk is your cloud provider’s business model. By understanding your provider’s underlying b...

By Rob Livingstone • Oct. 17, 2012

Wal-Mart Saves Money, But Will It Live Better?

Wal-Mart has long had what is virtually beyond question the largest retail supply chain, as measured  by number of suppliers, global reach, volume of material, and overall spend on supplier goods. That was most recently documented in a 2011 study by Kantar Research. Wal-Mart also has been touted ...

By Shawn Casemore • Oct. 15, 2012

To Cargo Thieves, a Truck’s a “Bank on Wheels”

A whole host of factors, including the ease of breaking into and stealing a truck and trailer and of dispensing of stolen cargo, the omnipresence of gangs, and the relative indifference of law enforcement has turned trucking piracy into a big and burgeoning risk for a wide range of companies, ris...

By Caroline McDonald • Oct. 2, 2012

Ruling Favors Employer Tax Refunds on Layoffs

Editor’s Note: this article is one of three submissions CFO received from attorneys regarding an important court decision on FICA taxes for severance pay. While each reaches essentially the same conclusion, each also contains a unique discussion of the issues involved in the case. Read the other ...

By Thomas D. Sykes • Sept. 25, 2012

How Risk Management Kept the Olympics on Track

Despite speculation that they might not be, the preparations for the London Olympics were pulled off with barely a hitch. The Olympic Games were successful and safe because of the way they were managed from the very beginning, contends Chris Bell, chief marketing officer with Active Risk, a risk-...

By Caroline McDonald • Sept. 5, 2012

Reputational Risk Tops Board Worries

For the second straight year, corporate directors view reputational risk as their chief concern, aside from financial risk, according to a survey by EisnerAmper LLP. The study, “Concerns About Risks Confronting Boards,” found that 66% of 193 directors see reputational risk as their top concern, c...

By Caroline McDonald • Sept. 1, 2012

New SEC Rules Target Conflict Minerals, Supply Chains

In a controversial 3-2 vote on August 22, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued final rules designed to cut off funding to groups committing human rights violations in central Africa. The new rules were created pursuant to an obscure provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Cons...

By Adam M. Taylor and Obiamaka P. Madubuko • Aug. 28, 2012

C-Suite Slipping on Information Security, Study Finds

While computer hackers and data thieves are always improving, developing ever-more sophisticated ways to breach corporate security systems, businesses have been falling behind in the measures they’re taking to protect themselves, a PricewaterhouseCoopers report released Wednesday asserts. C-suite...

By Taylor Provost • Aug. 17, 2012

Reputational Risk Still a Top Concern for Boards

For a second straight year, boards of directors see reputational risk as their top concern. They’re also displaying a new optimism about a financial recovery, and are making plans to hire staff to support CFOs, according to a survey by EisnerAmper LLP.Looking at internal growth and expansion, “th...

By Caroline McDonald • Aug. 14, 2012

When Clouds Collide, You Get Lightning

As the cloud carnival slowly makes its way through town, organizations (fortunately) are becoming increasingly aware of many of the pitfalls associated with the adoption of nontrivial, enterprise cloud-computing solutions. Oft-cited risks include data privacy, uptime reliability, security, total ...

By Rob Livingstone • July 31, 2012

‘Total Cost of Risk’ Redefined

The risk-management profession needs to expand the definition of total cost of risk (TCOR) beyond the insurance-based context it has traditionally focused on, risk-management experts said during a Thursday webinar.From an insurance standpoint, TCOR is generally defined as premiums + retained loss...

By Caroline McDonald • July 27, 2012

Social Media Gives, but Also Takes Away

Business uses for YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are fast catching up to the leisure uses that have been their primary raison d’etre so far, and usage of LinkedIn, which was created as a business tool, keeps soaring.But among more than three-fourths (75.8%) of U.S. companies that have built corpo...

By Caroline McDonald • July 6, 2012

State-led Hacking Cost Company 1 Billion Euros, U.K. Spy Chief Says

A British company suffered lost revenues of €1.0 billion ($1.25 billion) because of a state-sponsored cyber attack against its computer systems, according to the head of the United Kingdom’s inland security agency. The hit was said to be suffered through intellectual-property loss and from “comme...

By Andrew Sawers • June 27, 2012

No Escaping Cyber Risk, Companies Warned

Neither a company’s size, its location, nor its industry is a deterrent to cyber crime, which costs organizations an average of $5.5 million per data breach and can have an impact on the privacy of customers, employees, and business partners, experts say.In the past, cyber-risk management was mos...

By Caroline McDonald • June 26, 2012