The Role of Regulation in Strategy

For companies in many nations, regulatory policy increasingly shapes the structure and conduct of industries and sets in motion major shifts in economic value. In network industries such as airlines, electricity, railways, and telecommunications, as well as in banking, pharmaceuticals, retailing,...

By The McKinsey Quarterly • Dec. 14, 2005

How to Cope with Too Much Growth

There are few more self-evident financial truisms than the assertion that growth is a good thing for a company. But for a small business just getting started, an overwhelming amount of it can present problems. That’s what happened to John and Kira’s Jubilee Chocolates, a private Philadelphia comp...

By Lisa Yoon • Dec. 13, 2005

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

U.S. Productivity Up 4.7 Percent in Q3

U.S. nonfarm productivity grew 4.7 percent in the third quarter, revised upward from an earlier estimate of 4.1 percent, the Department of Labor reported.One reason for the improvement: Labor costs fell 1.1 percent during the third quarter after dropping 0.9 percent during the prior three months,...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 6, 2005

What’s My Metric? Drug-Company CFOs

(Editor’s note: This is the first in a continuing series of articles that seeks to unearth “the metrics behind the metrics.” Rather than cover the numbers that most concern the broad range of finance chiefs — earnings or p/e ratios, for instance — each story will discuss the unique financial gaug...

By David Katz • Nov. 29, 2005

Scaling COSO by Company Size

A recently released exposure draft by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) may have been designed for smaller businesses, but it has applications for larger companies as well.Chuck Landes, vice president of the professional standards groupfor the American In...

By Helen Shaw • Nov. 28, 2005

Intelligence Gets Smarter

Cendant Hotel Group, one of the world’s largest lodging franchisors, licenses more than 6,300 properties under Travelodge, Super 8, Ramada, and other brand names. To search for rooms and tour packages across this empire, customers can go to the company’s brand Websites or to those of distribution...

By John Verity • Nov. 15, 2005

Company Size More Important to VCs

Venture capitalists are increasingly investing in larger, more-established companies, according to data published by the National Venture Capital Association and reported by the The Wall Street Journal.In the third quarter of this year, half of all venture financing went to bigger, later-stage co...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 9, 2005

Who’s Got the Edge?

As CFO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC), Lora Ho is no stranger to business cycles. Every few years, her industry is tossed violently from peaks of stretched production lines and handsome profits to troughs of bleak inactivity and desperate losses. But just because the sem...

By Justin Wood • Nov. 9, 2005

The Hidden Wealth of the Poor

In rich countries, financial services on the whole work remarkably well, despite the exotic salaries, the crackpot deals and the occasional bust. The vast majority of people have access to interest-bearing savings accounts, mortgages at reasonable rates, abundant consumer credit, insurance at pre...

By Tom Easton • Nov. 8, 2005

The Kids Are Alright

Add the word “student” to an innocuous activity, and very quickly you might have cause for concern. Think of the student driver merging into your lane, or the student barber asking just how short you’d like it.Now try this one: “student business consultant.”The idea may seem quaintly civic-minded...

By Lisa Yoon • Nov. 8, 2005

Airline Fails; Private Jets Soaring

Soaring prices for jet fuel have pushed yet another commercial airline into bankruptcy: Independence Air. The discount airline and its corporate parent, FLYi Inc., announced Monday that Independence would file for bankruptcy.Reuters reported that Dulles, Virginia-based Independence has been hit e...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 7, 2005

Retailers Report Promising Sales

It seems as if consumers are comfortable with opening their wallets, which bodes well for the overall economy. A large number of retailers have reported very strong October sales, beating not only revenue forecasts but same-store estimates as well. As a positive influence on sales, The Wall Stree...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 3, 2005

View from China: Less Admiration for U.S. Business

China’s financial community is experiencing a subtle but powerful shift in perceptions about the United States. Two recent events have eroded what had been a grudging admiration for American capitalism. The first is the uproar over last summer’s failed effort by China National Offshore Oil Corp. ...

By Wu Chen • Nov. 3, 2005

Is This Any Way to Run a Railroad?

As Marx Brothers movies go, Go West isn’t much. The aging comedy team was running out of ideas, and it shows: the plot is predictable and the gags are stale. Yet there is one memorable scene in the 1940 film. In it, the boys — desperate to keep a steam-powered locomotive chugging along — feed the...

By John Goff • Nov. 2, 2005

Picture This

Unlike many corporate executives, Jan-Willem Beldman says he doesn’t have a problem with the vision thing. A team leader at Mentor Graphics Corp., a computer hardware and software design company, Beldman can quickly pinpoint up-to-the-minute financial forecasts, peruse regional sales results, or ...

By John Edwards • Nov. 1, 2005

WTO Warns about Higher Oil Prices

Add slower world-trade growth to the long list of casualties of sharply rising oil prices — a list that already includes higher inflation, larger than expected airline losses, higher chemical costs, and slower consumer spending.The World Trade Organization (WTO) has trotted out a report predictin...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 28, 2005

Downtick for VC Investments in Q3

Venture-capital firms invested $5.3 billion in 714 companies in the third quarter of 2005, according to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Venture Economics, and the National Venture Capital Association.Although the $5.3 billion was 15 percent lower than the figure for the previous quart...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 25, 2005

Basel Faulty?

Basel II may at long last be coming soon to a bank near you. And for better or worse, the new international bank regulatory regime promises to shake up the loan market.The accord sets new guidelines for determining how much capital banks in 13 developed countries around the world must hold in res...

By Randy Myers • Oct. 25, 2005

Bush Nominates Bernanke as Fed Chairman

President Bush has nominated Ben Bernanke, 51, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.If confirmed by the Senate, Bernanke would succeed Alan Greenspan, 79, who has served as Fed chairman since August 1987 — through the longe...

By Stephen Taub and Dave Cook • Oct. 24, 2005

A Market for Ideas

“The granting [of] patents ‘inflames cupidity,’ excites fraud, stimulates men to run after schemes that may enable them to levy a tax on the public, begets disputes and quarrels betwixt inventors, provokes endless lawsuits…The principle of the law from which such consequences flow cannot be just....

By Kenneth Cukier • Oct. 21, 2005

Cisco to Invest $1 Billion in India

Cisco Systems Inc. is aggressively ramping up its efforts on the subcontinent.The San Jose–based maker of computer-networking equipment will make a $1.1 billion direct investment in its subsidiary Cisco Systems India during the next three years, said company officials, who noted the growing impor...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 21, 2005

EC Plans to Lighten Antitrust Rules

The European Commission may be easing up on huge multinational companies.An internal group, led by EC competition commissioner Nellie Kross, plans to make it more difficult for prosecutors to find large companies guilty of breaking antitrust rules, according to The Financial Times, which cited co...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 21, 2005

From Push to Pull: The Next Frontier of Innovation

Ever since 1911, when Frederick Winslow Taylor published The Principles of Scientific Management, businesses have pursued efficiency with a focus that borders on obsession. Nearly a century later, CEOs and management authors are still writing hymns of praise to the benefits of executing operation...

By The McKinsey Quarterly • Oct. 19, 2005

Top Agenda Items for Directors

The top five issues on the agendas of corporate boards this quarter center on the impact of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the increasing cost of fuel, rising interest rates, employment needs, and board recruitment, according to a report by Christian & Timbers.The executive search firm, which b...

By Helen Shaw • Oct. 13, 2005

R&D Spending Doesn’t Spell Profit

Increased investment in research and development rarely buys the financial returns and growth that managers are seeking, according to a new study by Booz Allen Hamilton.The consultancy — which analyzed data from the 1,000 companies in the world that had the highest R&D spending in 2004 (and t...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 11, 2005