Mend Your Spend

You may have heard the saying that “small business is big business,” and with more than half of the U.S. economy populated by small enterprises, this statement has substance. For executives of small businesses, it’s important to develop this big-business attitude when it comes to your supply chai...

By Shawn Casemore • Sept. 30, 2011

SBLF: Helping Those Who Need It Least?

Tomorrow marks the close of investment under the Small Business Lending Fund, a $30 billion account created last year by Congress to spur community banks to lend more to small businesses.  How successful has this effort been? Best case, according to its own projections, the Treasury Dept. expects...

By Barry Hester • Sept. 26, 2011

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

How to Avoid Power-Hungry Bosses

It’s an often-told sad story: a finance executive is hired by a fast-growing private company to help it move up to the proverbial next level. There’s great professional potential and tantalizing financial upside. Soon, though, the truth emerges: the CEO, owner, or founders have no intention of le...

By Alix Stuart • Sept. 26, 2011

Crowd-Funding Draws New Attention

This past summer, Thomas Young raised more than $60,000 for his nascent ear-bud business, with no dilution to his company or bad blood between him and his relatives. The magic ingredient? Raising a little money from a lot of people, via an online “crowd-funding” platform.Young collected $61,000 o...

By Alix Stuart • Sept. 22, 2011

Risk Managers’ Anxiety Rises

Blame it on the U.S. economic slowdown, the European debt crisis, and the continued lack of job growth. For many reasons, risks managers are feeling ill at ease these days. By nature more prone to consider worst-case scenarios, risk managers are keeping a close watch on the unfolding developments...

By Sarah Johnson • Sept. 21, 2011

Breakups Overshadow Mergers

Last week was more about subtraction than addition. Two large corporate spin-offs were announced. Tyco International split into three groups: a residential security company, a non-U.S.-based flow-control products group, and a Switzerland-based commercial fire and security business. Meanwhile, McG...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 20, 2011

Help Wanted: How to Hire in Europe

A software company in New Hampshire is in the process of expanding farther into Europe. It has decided to start hiring in Germany – primarily sales and support staff – and is considering hiring for similar roles in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.While the company can use many of the searc...

By Bill Hite • Sept. 20, 2011

Should You Join the Cloud Crowd?

Intellicheck Mobilisa is a small public company that makes a widely used security application that helps sniff out fake IDs by scanning drivers’ licenses and cross-referencing the information it gets with government databases.  But despite 16 years in business and brand-name customers including J...

By Alix Stuart • Sept. 19, 2011

SEC Gives Small Business a New Voice

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that it has established an advisory committee on small and emerging companies. The 19-member committee “is intended to provide a formal mechanism through which the Commission can receive advice and recommendations specifically related to” sma...

By Alix Stuart • Sept. 13, 2011

Is Water on Your Risk Horizon?

Recent water-related events — from extreme droughts across the southwestern United States to flooding in central China — provide vivid examples of the potential impacts of water on people, businesses, and local infrastructure.In a 2010 survey of 150 large corporations conducted by CDP Water Discl...

By Jeffrey Fulgham • Sept. 6, 2011

M&A: Back-to-School Doldrums

In a run-up week to a national U.S. holiday, in which equity markets remained volatile, North American merger and acquisition activity slowed to a crawl.Twenty-seven deals were announced the week ending September 2, with a total disclosed value of $4.4 billion, according to mergermarket. That’s d...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 6, 2011

The Humbling of Brand USA

Looking at the United States as a brand, how much is that intangible asset worth? According to one educated guess, $1.2 trillion less than it was five months ago.That’s from U.K.-based Brand Finance, which claims to be the world’s largest brand-valuation service. Corporate customers use the firm ...

By David McCann • Sept. 1, 2011

How Not to Grow

Remember that essential business tool, the PalmPilot? In the 1990s, any businessperson who wanted to be “with it” had his or her Palm at the ready, to make appointments and look up phone numbers. As recently as five years ago Palm Inc. remained at the top of the game, a $1.6 billion company boast...

By Alix Stuart • Sept. 1, 2011

Some Help from the Big Boys

September is National Preparedness Month, and as we reach the peak of hurricane season, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is taking on a new role: that of corporate ombudsman. Under a relatively new program, it is working with large companies to learn how they approach business continuity, ...

By Marielle Segarra • Sept. 1, 2011

A Double Dip? CFOs Are Divided

Just when we thought the new normal might bear a passing resemblance to the old normal, along came August. The mid-month market meltdown revived talk of a double-dip recession, and left everyone looking for someone to blame.We surveyed 300 CFOs on those issues the week of August 8, smack in the m...

By Scott Leibs • Sept. 1, 2011

M&A Deals: Big Deals, Big Risks

(Data for the following was provided to CFO by mergermarket.)The yo-yo equity markets didn’t dampen the enthusiasm for big-ticket deals last week, as companies in several industries plunked down sizable amounts of cash for acquisitions. Not only were the deals large, but some were transformative ...

By Vincent Ryan • Aug. 22, 2011

Trouble Ahead for Multiple-Employer Retirement Plans?

In a surprise development, Department of Labor representatives recently noted to a group of retirement-plan practitioners that a multiple-employer plan (MEP) may not satisfy the requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) if there is not a sufficient “connection” between t...

By Jeff Mamorsky • Aug. 18, 2011

How to Become a Portfolio-Company CFO

Many finance executives dream of becoming the CFO of a private-equity portfolio company. While breaking into that clubby market can be hard, “everyone has to do it for the first time,” notes Sean Carroll, an executive recruiter for private-equity and other investment firms with Polachi Inc. Landi...

By Alix Stuart • Aug. 17, 2011

40% of CFOs Didn’t Get a Raise Last Year

A recent survey of CFOs by MyCFONetwork found that 40% of finance executives at both public and private companies did not get a raise last year. Of those that did, most got no more than a 3% bump. Where does your compensation stand? Take our one-question poll to benchmark your salary increase aga...

By Alix Stuart • Aug. 16, 2011

Five Ways to Curb Fraud

This excerpt boils down the essential elements of one of CFO’s more popular articles from the past month. To read the full article, click here.CFO interviewed more than a dozen experts and examined several notable legal cases and compliance failures to determine the five most effective things fin...

By Kimberly Blanton • Aug. 11, 2011

Sending Out the Bill(ing)

Golf clubs and running shoes ship out every day from the facilities of sporting-goods maker Puma  to 11,000 retailers across the country like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Foot Locker. And every time they ship, a new invoice is created. That can yield up to 2500 invoices per day, all of which Puma em...

By Alix Stuart • Aug. 9, 2011

Always Growing Means Always Recruiting

The technology-assisted rise of continuous recruiting — finding candidates for positions that aren’t even open — is a perfect fit for high-growth companies that must be vigilant about not getting caught short at a time of acute need.New software products such as CareerBuilder’s Talent Network are...

By David McCann • Aug. 8, 2011

Will M&A Bidders Hit Pause?

(Data for the following is provided to CFO by mergermarket.)As the major stock indices fell last week, target firms that previously scorned what they deemed lowball bids were trading at discounts to the prices buyers were offering. Ralcorp Holdings, Temple-Inland, M&F Worldwide, and Dollar Th...

By Vincent Ryan • Aug. 8, 2011

The Price of Being a Private-Company CFO

Being a CFO for a private company looks like a pretty good gig these days, what with the agonizing gyrations of the public markets. But those jobs seem to come at the price of lower compensation, at least in terms of cash.  According to a new survey by MyCFOnetwork, a group for finance executives...

By Alix Stuart • Aug. 8, 2011

What Do You Make of the Dow’s Drop?

Just when it seemed the Dow might crest 13,000, a series of unfortunate events in Washington, Europe, and elsewhere sent global stock markets tumbling.  That’s good news if you’re a cable news commentator, because chattering away about a tepid recovery gets old fast. It’s also good news if you’re...

By Scott Leibs • Aug. 8, 2011