Kremed!

What could be more perfect than a Krispy Kreme doughnut? Hot from the fryer and loaded with sugar, the Original Glazed is practically irresistible. For a time, Krispy Kreme’s stock seemed irresistible, too. When the company went public in April 2000, at the peak of the Internet whirlwind, investo...

By Kate O'Sullivan • June 1, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: Render unto Cesar Romero

Disclaimer: This column, such as it is, does not, in any way, shape, or form, purport to adhere to traditional journalistic concepts.It has not been approved by the American Society for Quality, the Ukrainian Society for Mediocrity, the Literary Guild, the Lollipop Guild, the Knights of Pythias, ...

By John Goff • May 27, 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

Extreme Competition

Jack Welch once said that the 1980s would be a “white-knuckle” decade of intensifying industrial competition — and that the 1990s would be tougher still. Despite history’s greatest bull market, rising incomes, and unprecedented prosperity throughout much of the world, the former GE chairman was p...

By The McKinsey Quarterly • May 24, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: Throw Edamame from the Train

Disclaimer: This column, such as it is, does not, in any way, shape, or form, purport to adhere to traditional journalistic concepts.It has not been approved by the Gordon Commission, Commissioner Gordon, the IMF (Impossible Missions Force), the Elmira KOC, the Elmira KFC, the Urban League of Ame...

By John Goff • May 20, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: It’s Not the Heat, It’s Thucydides

Disclaimer: This column, such as it is, does not, in any way shape or form, purport to adhere to traditional journalistic concepts.It has not been approved by the Group of Eight, the Gang of 4, the College of Cardinals, the St. Louis Cardinals, UNESCO, Ionesco, or any group associated with the Wo...

By John Goff • May 13, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: Be Sure You’re Right

Disclaimer: This column, such as it is, does not, in any way shape or form, purport to adhere to traditional journalistic concepts. It has not been approved by the European Commission, the Warren Commission, the Cato Institute, the Ponds Institute, the House of Burgess, the House of Burgers, or a...

By John Goff • May 6, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: The Lord Alps Those…

Disclaimer: This column, such as it is, does not in any way, shape or form, purport to adhere to traditional journalistic concepts. In addition, it does not meet the high literary standards set by James Joyce, Joyce Brothers, the Brothers Johnson, Johnson & Johnson, Russell Johnson, and Russe...

By John Goff • April 29, 2005

U.S., E.C. Eye ‘Roadmap’ to Convergence

The United States and Europe are moving much closer toward recognizing each other’s accounting rules, which would remove heavy burdens on companies that want to list on exchanges outside their home continent.William Donaldson, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission has discussed a “ro...

By Stephen Taub • April 25, 2005

Finance Looking for Growth, Not Cuts

Three-quarters of senior finance executives believe that over the next three years, top-line growth will be a greater contributor to earnings than cost containment. That’s one major finding of “The Activist CFO,” a new study by consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and CFO Research Services (a sist...

By Stephen Taub • April 22, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: Amazing Medical Breakthrough!

Disclaimer: While the entries in GW/BW are based on actual news items, some of the people, quotes, and hat sizes in this article are fictional. Other stuff I just plain made up.Please, no lawsuits.GOOD WEEK:1. Plan SponsorsSome good news this week on the benefits front. According to Mercer Human ...

By John Goff • April 22, 2005

A Little Bit Softer Now

Almost unnoticed, the economic expansion reached the ripe old age of 40 months this month—at least according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is the official arbiter of such periods. Before the anomaly of the 1990s, the average length of a period of recovery was just 35 months ...

By Joseph McCafferty • April 1, 2005

The Turning Point

Blockbuster Corp. has looked at life from both sides now. When it leaped out of the gate in 1985, it quickly swallowed its mom-and-pop competitors to become the dominant player in the fast-growing video-store industry. Today, it faces the grimmer side of the corporate life cycle as emerging techn...

By Kris Frieswick • April 1, 2005

HP Reinvents, Slowly

When Carly Fiorina unexpectedly resigned as CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co. last month, the question was raised yet again as to whether HP is caught in a no-man’s land between the vast product and services offerings of IBM and the ruthless cost-competitiveness of Dell. While it’s far too early to tell...

By Doug Bartholomew • March 30, 2005

Return on Infrastructure Employed

When Arinc Inc. makes decisions about technology projects going forward, it begins by looking backward.The Annapolis, Maryland-based company, which provides systems engineering solutions to the airline industry, has taken to examining its ROIE (return on infrastructure employed). ROIE is a retros...

By Russ Banham • March 23, 2005

Inflation Is Busting Out All Over

It’s time for companies to shift into inflation management mode for the first time in many years.On Wednesday morning the Labor Department confirmed the Federal Reserve’s warning from the previous afternoon: Prices are trending higher, which could put further upward pressure on interest rates.The...

By Stephen Taub • March 23, 2005

Senate Rejects Minimum-Wage Increase

Yesterday the Senate turned back two efforts to raise the minimum wage for the first time since 1996.Both measures were offered as amendments to a bankruptcy bill that has long been sought by lenders including banks and credit-card companies, and that would grant less relief to many individuals w...

By Stephen Taub • March 8, 2005

Health Care, Deficit Top CFO Concerns

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. chief financial officers believe is very important for Congress to address the cost of health care; a similar percentage feel that way about addressing the budget deficit. Only 31 percent of CFOs, however, believe that it is very important to implement Social Security re...

By Don Durfee • March 7, 2005

Fiorina Considered for World Bank

Carly Fiorina, who was tossed from the top spot at Hewlett-Packard last month, is now a “strong candidate” to become president of the World Bank, according to The New York Times, citing a Bush administration official. The current president, James Wolfensohn, will step down in May after a second f...

By Stephen Taub • March 2, 2005

Future Shock

Five years into the new millennium, a cloud of uncertainty hangs over Corporate America. The lackluster economy, the war in Iraq, public and private fiscal imbalances, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act — all this obscures the financial landscape, inhibiting new investment, and with it, innovation and growth...

By Ronald Fink • March 1, 2005

Closing the Strategy-to-Performance Gap

Companies are delivering only about two-thirds of their potential due to failures in planning and execution, according to a new survey of 197 senior executives at companies with sales of at least $500 million. The survey was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (a sister organization of C...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 22, 2005

Innovation Blowback: Disruptive Management Practices from Asia

In the days of the rudimentary pistol, unlucky shooters were now and then hurt when unburned gunpowder escaped backward toward their faces. They came to describe this unpleasant experience as “blowback,” a term that has subsequently gained wider application in military affairs — to any event that...

By The McKinsey Quarterly • Feb. 16, 2005

How CPM Software Empowers Users

To manage construction on an oil-and-gas delivery system, you have to like to travel — and not always to places familiar from tourist handbooks. That means a lot of miles logged on back roads and a lot of time spent in places where Internet connections — if they exist — are not always fast and re...

By Eric Laursen • Feb. 15, 2005

HP’s Fiorina Ousted; CFO Steps In

Carly Fiorina has resigned as chairman and chief executive officer of the Hewlett-Packard Co., effective immediately, under pressure from the company’s board of directors. In a statement, she cited differences with the board “about how to execute HP’s strategy.”Chief financial officer Robert Waym...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 9, 2005

IT, Compliance, and Performance Management

While U.S. companies have spent billons on information systems in recent years, only now are they translating their IT capabilities into true performance management (PM) systems. They’ve discovered — the hard way — that although IT investment is essential, it is not sufficient alone. That’s becau...

By Peter Krass • Feb. 9, 2005

Greenspan Sees Improving Trade Deficit

The growth in the U.S. trade deficit — “and its attendant financing requirement” — may soon begin to see improvement, according to the text of a speech delivered Friday by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.Addressing a business conference in London, Greenspan said that market pressures “app...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 4, 2005