Five Ways a Small Business Can Get Fortune 500 Deals

Large companies have an obvious advantage negotiating with vendors.   After all, if your purchases represent a significant percentage of the supplier’s bottom line, it’s easier to get a good deal.  Big companies also typically have large procurement organizations, with sourcing specialists for ea...

By Scott Drobes • Oct. 10, 2012

A Mobile-Payment Revolution

It’s lunchtime in Boston’s financial district and the line at Boloco, a burrito chain, is long. A few people stand with credit or debit cards in hand, but most are holding their smartphones as they advance toward the register. A cashier glances at a customer with his phone at the ready. “Oh, hey,...

By Taylor Provost • Oct. 8, 2012

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

Healing America’s Economy: Obama vs. Romney

U.S. companies are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Five years after the credit bubble burst and the world settled into a financial gloom, economic uncertainty continues to prevail. The two candidates running for President in November, Democratic incumbent Barack Obama and Republican chall...

By Russ Banham • Oct. 8, 2012

Shaky Ground

In the face of the ongoing euro-zone crisis and slowing growth in Asia, and with the Presidential election looming at home, CFOs are becoming more pessimistic about the U.S. economy, according to the latest Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey, now in its 66th consecutive q...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 8, 2012

Growth Culture

Name: Wendy DiCiccoPosition: CFO of Nuron Biotech, a rapidly growing biotechnology company that develops vaccines and biologics for neurodegenerative and infectious diseases. Nuron has doubled in size since last year, from 18 to 36 employees.Previous Positions: Business consultant at The Campbell...

By Marielle Segarra • Oct. 8, 2012

CFOs Can’t Afford to Opt Out of Social Media

Many CFOs and their organizations are ignoring new social-media technologies and networks because they’re “not comfortable with them,” said Cal Slemp, managing director of Protiviti, a consultancy and internal audit firm, speaking on a panel about the risks and rewards of social media at this wee...

By David Rosenbaum • Oct. 4, 2012

Building Brands in Emerging Markets

As the rapid growth of emerging markets gives millions of consumers new spending power, those consumers are encountering a marketing environment every bit as complex and swiftly evolving as its counterpart in developed countries. Product choices and communication channels are exploding; so is the...

By Yuval Atsmon and Jean-Frederic Kuentz • Oct. 1, 2012

Private Companies Invest While Public Companies Punt

Privately held companies are 3.5 times more responsive to investment opportunities than publicly traded firms, and the difference increases in industries where stock prices are more sensitive to earnings news, according to recent research out of Harvard and New York University.“On average, privat...

By Mary Ellen Biery • Sept. 27, 2012

The Evolving Role of the Hospital CFO

Even in the midst of the great national health-care debate, as CFOs parse the enormous impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and businesses begin to alter the ways in which they provide health care to employees, small changes can still make big differences to the quality of care and to the bott...

By David Rosenbaum • Sept. 27, 2012

Gaming the (CRM) System

It’s not news that salespeople don’t like to show their work. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems were designed to not only collect and mine customer data, but also let CFOs and other executives keep a closer eye on their enigmatic sellers.But there’s a problem with CRM systems: many s...

By Taylor Provost • Sept. 26, 2012

Euro Zone 2013: Zero Growth, More Defaults

If you were looking for a euro-zone recovery in 2013, forget about it, says ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. Its previous forecast of 0.3% growth in gross domestic product has been cut to exactly zero. Moreover, 2012 is now looking worse, with euro-zone economic activity expected to contract...

By Andrew Sawers • Sept. 26, 2012

Despite Gloom, Europe’s CFOs See Revenue Growth Coming

Is it any surprise? CFOs across Europe have lower hopes for the economy and their companies’ prospects than they did three months ago. The latest Duke/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey shows that fully 46% of CFOs are less optimistic about their nations’ economies and only 20% are more ...

By Andrew Sawers • Sept. 25, 2012

Ex-PayPal CFO Joins Industry Upstart

YapStone, a small payment-systems vendor that’s in a powerful growth phase, has scored a coup by hiring PayPal’s former CFO, Mary Hentges, as its finance chief. She is set to join the company on October 1.Hentges led PayPal’s finance team for seven years until 2010, when she became CFO of CBS Int...

By David McCann • Sept. 21, 2012

The eBay of Waste: Rubicon Helps Corporations Cut Costs, Trash

It stinks, it contaminates and pollutes and it’s increasingly expensive to get rid of. Garbage stands as a glaring, fetid symbol of unsustainability in our modern supply chain.Repurposing end-of-life materials is simultaneously the most important and most overlooked aspect of sustainability in ma...

By Mike McCullough • Sept. 20, 2012

Shocker! Small-Business Owners Favor Obama

According to a new study conducted by The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, 39% of more than 6,000 small-business owners surveyed said President Obama is “more supportive of small business” versus the 31% who believed that of Republican Presidential candidate...

By David Rosenbaum • Sept. 19, 2012

5 Sneaky Tripwires in Your SaaS Contract

In “10 Things You Just Gotta Have in Your Cloud Contract,” I covered a range of things (10, as a matter of fact) that CFOs should think about when they sign a cloud contract. But the subject is hardly exhausted, especially when it comes to software-as-a-service (SaaS), the most popular flavor of ...

By Rob Livingstone • Sept. 18, 2012

Insurance Rate Outlook: From Flat to Soaring

Companies that have grown accustomed over the past several years to coasting through their insurance renewals in a flat market are now bracing for higher premiums on some types of coverage. In reporting details to their CFOs, risk managers are preparing earlier, providing more background on losse...

By Caroline McDonald • Sept. 18, 2012

How a Broken Energy Policy Hurts Business

As John B. Hess, the chairman and chief executive officer of Hess Corp., said in a Harvard Business Review blog early this year, the United States needs a “strategic vision for a secure energy future that underpins economic growth and protects the environment.” But according to some experts — and...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 13, 2012

The Audacity of Hops

Craft beer is often defined by what it’s not. It’s not mass-produced. It’s rarely a low-alcohol light lager, like Budweiser or Coors. A craft brewer makes less than 6 million barrels a year (a barrel contains 31 gallons; Anheuser Busch, by contrast, shipped 97.9 million barrels of beer in the Uni...

By David Rosenbaum • Sept. 11, 2012

What the Elections Will Mean for Health Care

This first installment of a two-part series examines the likely fate of health-care reform given different election scenarios. Coming on Monday: CFOs sound off on the election, the reform law, and their future plans for employee health benefits.The extreme polarization of American politics dictat...

By David McCann • Sept. 7, 2012

First to a Mobile Payment Application Wins!

Why is Wal-Mart trying to develop a mobile-payment app that can be used at Target? Why is Target working with Wal-Mart to develop an app that can be used to pay for diapers at CVS? Wal-Mart, Target, and CVS all sell diapers. Why should they work together? And why would they be trying to embed loy...

By Taylor Provost • Sept. 7, 2012

Private Company Profit Margins Triple Since Recession

If there’s one thing America’s privately owned companies have learned over the past five years, it’s how to make the most of their sales in a shaky economy, according to new data from Sageworks, a financial-information company.Private companies in 2012 continue to strengthen their net profit marg...

By Mary Ellen Biery • Sept. 4, 2012

Banks Behaving Badly

Beset by scandals and debacles, from the peddling of subprime securities to money laundering, rogue trading, robo-signing, LIBOR fixing, and more, the banking industry has squandered much of its reputational capital in recent years. Indeed, banks’ very survival may depend on regaining their custo...

By Caroline McDonald • Sept. 1, 2012

Six Questions about the Cloud

At an increasing number of companies, cloud computing tops the technology agenda. That’s not surprising. It can be a lot cheaper and more efficient to buy and access computer services over the Internet (in the cloud) — whether it’s applications, software and product development tools, or servers ...

By David Rosenbaum • Sept. 1, 2012

As Corn Stalks Shrivel, So May Earnings

The worst drought to hit the U.S. Farm Belt in almost 60 years has companies of many stripes forecasting the potential ripple effects in Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Companies linked to agriculture are preparing for lower revenues, tighter margins, and even higher leverage ratios f...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 1, 2012