Deploying CRM Analytics Software

First developed in the early 1990s by Siebel Systems as a management tool for sales personnel, customer relationship management (CRM) technology has since morphed to include campaign-management applications, call-center software, and customer self-service programs.Despite years of declining inter...

By John Goff • July 6, 2004

Inflated Expectations

How much further will the Federal Reserve have to raise rates? This week it added some flesh to America’s skeletal interest rates when it raised them by a quarter of a point, to 1.25%. The market predicts that rates will gradually rise to 4% or thereabouts by the end of next year. The economy is ...

By Economist Staff • July 2, 2004

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

Prices Start to Creep Up

Economists looking back on this period might well end up saying that this is the point at which a surge of inflation started.Indeed, citing a need to pass on price increases in energy and other raw materials, a growing number of companies have begun to raise prices. Such hikes help explain why th...

By Stephen Taub • June 24, 2004

Where the CFO Would Like to Be

Many CFOs wish they were someplace else — namely, the corner office, if not as the full-time inhabitant then at least as a frequent visitor. That is, they’d like to spend more time advising the CEO on long-term strategy and less time analyzing costs, metrics, and the like.So says a survey by CFO ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • June 22, 2004

In the Shadows

Have you ever paid cash to a builder for the odd home improvement? Or perhaps bought fruit from a street vendor who lacked the required hygiene certificate? Maybe you have employed a maid or a nanny, and have never got round to filing all that paperwork for social security?If so, then depending o...

By Economist Staff • June 18, 2004

Mental Shortcuts Lead to Costly Errors

Can we be counted on to make sound decisions under uncertainty? Are our judgments always rational? Do we invariably make choices in our best interests, based on a full understanding of trade-offs and probabilities? Are we truly, in short, the homo economicus assumed by many economic models?Or are...

By Edward Teach • June 17, 2004

The Meter System

The computer industry has a certain genius for turning its own excesses and errors into new business opportunities. Computer code written with no regard for a new millennium? What an opportunity for Y2K remedial work. The Internet as a playground for hackers and identity thieves? Let us show you ...

By Norm Alster • June 16, 2004

How to Establish Compensation Targets

“We’ve seen the ruination of many firms” as a result of compensation practices that encourage earnings management, says Michael Jensen, a renowned finance professor at Harvard Business School and a principal at Monitor Group, a consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And while the incentive ...

By Ronald Fink • June 4, 2004

Curbed Enthusiasm

High fuel costs and the potential for higher interest rates have taken some of the shine off the gleaming view of the economy held by CFOs. While finance executives are still overwhelmingly positive, expectations have fallen a few notches from last quarter. According to this quarter’s survey, 70 ...

By Joseph McCafferty • June 1, 2004

When Do Companies Outgrow Their Spreadsheets?

Pressured by senior management and boards of directors to produce more detailed budgets, forecasts, and performance data, while seeking a longer term view of the financial horizon, many finance executives at midsize companies are reevaluating their reliance on spreadsheets for planning, budgeting...

By Russ Banham and Sam Knox • June 1, 2004

Food for Thought: The Big Mac Index

How fast is the world economy growing? How important is China as an engine of growth? How much richer is the average person in America than in China? The answers to these huge questions depend crucially on how you convert the value of output in different countries into a common currency. Converti...

By Economist Staff • May 28, 2004

When Worlds Collide

Fior time immemorial, China has furnished foreign yarn-spinners with tales of epic battles. Now, as capitalism takes hold, a literature is emerging devoted to the conflicts of business. Books such as China Dream by Joe Studwell, and the newly released Mr. China by Tim Clissold—former CFO of Asimc...

By Yang Jian • May 28, 2004

Techs and the City

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.Why am I overselling this? Because the particular Big Idea up ...

By Scott Leibs • May 26, 2004

Deep Six for Six Sigma?

The relevance of Six Sigma, the corporate efficiency program made famous by General Electric, is being questioned by none other than one of its creators.Jay Desai, who helped implement Six Sigma at the conglomerate, said in a recent Reuters story that when companies must demonstrate change throug...

By Stephen Taub • May 18, 2004

Managing for Improved Corporate Performance

What does it mean for a company to perform well? Any definition must revolve around the notion of results that meet or exceed the expectations of shareholders. Yet when top managers speak with us privately, they often suggest that the gap between these expectations and management’s baseline earni...

By The McKinsey Quarterly • May 17, 2004

CFOs Still See Room to Cut Costs

Despite three years of downsizing and belt-tightening throughout Corporate America, 85 percent of CFOs reported that cutting costs is still their highest priority, according to a new Booz Allen Hamilton report.In fact, just 3 percent of the 156 finance executives surveyed by the consultancy belie...

By Stephen Taub • May 11, 2004

Don’t Laugh at Gilded Butterflies

The Gillette company’s website flashes out a message to the e-visitor: “Innovation is Gillette”, it claims. There are few big companies that would not like to make a similar claim; for they think innovation is a bit like Botox — inject it in the right corporate places and improvements are bound t...

By Economist Staff • April 23, 2004

The Great Divide

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 BridgeGate, an executive recruitment firm in Irvine, California, “but he is constantly being pum...

By Laton McCartney • April 21, 2004

So, Why Be Public?

It has been over two years since the Enron scandal broke and well over a year since Congress passed its sweeping reform legislation, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Enough time, perhaps, to gain some perspective on a series of scandals that continue to shock the senses of even the most jaded business obs...

By CEO and Joseph Fuller • April 14, 2004

Corporate Pension Aid Approved by Bush

On Saturday, President Bush signed into law a bill that will save U.S. companies more than $80 billion in pension contributions through the end of 2005.The new law applies to traditional “defined benefit” pension plans, many of which have become underfunded in the past few years due to a weak sto...

By Dave Cook • April 12, 2004

Job Growth Stronger than Expected

Unexpected good news on the jobs front: Non-farm payrolls climbed 308,000 in March, the strongest month since April 2000. Job growth increased across all sectors, with construction and retail sales seeing the largest gains, according to the government report.The March expansion was about triple t...

By Stephen Taub • April 5, 2004

Herculean Labours

The metaphor was all too apt. In August last year a crowd of spectators, press and athletes gathered at a sparkling new rowing and canoeing venue northeast of Athens to watch the World Rowing Junior Championships and test out one of several new venues built specially for the 2004 summer Olympic G...

By Jason Karaian • March 25, 2004

Hold That Golden Spike

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 been actively studying the issue for three years and...

By CFO Editorial Staff • March 17, 2004

Will IT Be a Bonus Baby?

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 (HR 2), it piles “bonus” depreciation onto the normal ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • March 16, 2004

More CEOs Forecast More Hiring

Chief executive officers of many of the largest companies are upbeat about their hiring plans.According to the latest quarterly survey from The Business Roundtable, 33 percent of CEOs expect to hire more people over the next six months, compared with 25 percent of CEOs who were surveyed in Decemb...

By Stephen Taub • March 4, 2004