Spreadsheets: Cleaning Out Old Records

Editor’s Note: To read more about spreadsheets, share a tip with other readers, or suggest a topic for Bill Jelen to cover in an upcoming column, click here to visit CFO.com’s Spreadsheet Tips Page.Jeff M. wins an autographed copy of Guerilla Data Analysis Using Microsoft Excel from CFO and MrExc...

By Bill Jelen • Feb. 3, 2011

Social-Media Frenzy

The collection of Web capabilities and practices grouped under the rubric of “Social Media” has quickly morphed from a cutting-edge way to foster brand awareness to a mainstream business practice. In fact, given its growing popularity, companies that don’t get their arms around social media may r...

By David McCann • Feb. 1, 2011

Explore the Trendline➔

The CFO Strategy for Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence’s impact on the office of the CFO continues to evolve, and finance chiefs must be aware of the opportunities it will create for growth. 

By CFO.com staff

Social-Media Frenzy

The collection of Web capabilities and practices grouped under the rubric of “Social Media” has quickly morphed from a cutting-edge way to foster brand awareness to a mainstream business practice. In fact, given its growing popularity, companies that don’t get their arms around social media may r...

By David McCann • Feb. 1, 2011

Spreadsheets: The Vertical-Horizontal Flip

Editor’s Note: To read more about spreadsheets, share a tip with other readers, or suggest a topic for Bill Jelen to cover in an upcoming column, click here to visit CFO.com’s Spreadsheet Tips Page.Dana A. wins an autographed copy of Learn Excel 97-2007 for this question posed during the recent P...

By Bill Jelen • Jan. 26, 2011

Spreadsheets: Highlighting Formula Cells

Editor’s Note: To read more about spreadsheets, share a tip with other readers, or suggest a topic for Bill Jelen to cover in an upcoming column, click here to visit CFO.com’s Spreadsheet Tips Page.Reader Nancy P. wins an autographed copy of Learn Excel From MrExcel from CFO and MrExcel.com for h...

By Bill Jelen • Jan. 12, 2011

Best of 2010: Technology

Histories of information technology will recall 2010 as the year when cloud computing spilled into the consciousness of nongeeks. CFOs, for their part, got engaged in analyses of which computing workloads could be managed more cost-effectively by converting the capital expense of on-premises hard...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Jan. 5, 2011

Best of 2010: Technology

Histories of information technology will recall 2010 as the year when cloud computing spilled into the consciousness of nongeeks. CFOs, for their part, got engaged in analyses of which computing workloads could be managed more cost-effectively by converting the capital expense of on-premises hard...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Jan. 5, 2011

Be Clear about the Cloud

Companies still face plenty of questions regarding cloud computing. Increasingly, however, the dominant question is not whether to do it, but how intensely.In fact, given the pace at which companies are offloading at least part of their IT infrastructure to public clouds (generally defined as thi...

By David McCann • Dec. 1, 2010

Be Clear about the Cloud

Companies still face plenty of questions regarding cloud computing. Increasingly, however, the dominant question is not whether to do it, but how intensely.In fact, given the pace at which companies are offloading at least part of their IT infrastructure to public clouds (generally defined as thi...

By David McCann • Dec. 1, 2010

Members Only

While traditional retailers anxiously monitor the holiday-shopping season (which is expected to show slight growth from last year, thanks largely to aggressive discounting), one corner of the retail world expects to flourish: a very specific kind of online luxury-goods purveyor.At first glance, m...

By Leah Tedesco and Kate O'Sullivan • Dec. 1, 2010

Total Trouble

There’s a generation gap among Microsoft Excel users, and the younger generation is increasingly falling into a trap. It seems that the nearly instantaneous totaling function — known as automatic calculation mode — that’s used to tally columns of numbers is being mysteriously turned off. That cou...

By Marie Leone • Dec. 1, 2010

What Generation Gap?

While there is little doubt that younger people are more comfortable with a range of technologies than are older Americans, the gap may not be as wide as you might think. A recent survey of 43,000 consumers by Forrester Research, for example, found that, among Americans of working age, computer o...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Dec. 1, 2010

Members Only

While traditional retailers anxiously monitor the holiday-shopping season (which is expected to show slight growth from last year, thanks largely to aggressive discounting), one corner of the retail world expects to flourish: a very specific kind of online luxury-goods purveyor.At first glance, m...

By Kate O'Sullivan and Leah Tedesco • Dec. 1, 2010

What Generation Gap?

While there is little doubt that younger people are more comfortable with a range of technologies than are older Americans, the gap may not be as wide as you might think. A recent survey of 43,000 consumers by Forrester Research, for example, found that, among Americans of working age, computer o...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Dec. 1, 2010

How to Work the Angles with Microsoft

Negotiating license agreements with Microsoft is similar in many respects to doing so with any other technology provider, but there are some special considerations related to its size.Although the company is no longer quite the technology monopolist it once was, a typical large or midsize busines...

By David McCann • Nov. 15, 2010

How to Work the Angles with Microsoft

Negotiating license agreements with Microsoft is similar in many respects to doing so with any other technology provider, but there are some special considerations related to its size.Although the company is no longer quite the technology monopolist it once was, a typical large or midsize busines...

By David McCann • Nov. 15, 2010

Tablets Get Down to Business

Our suggestion a mere six months ago that businesses might find some productive uses for the iPad, Apple’s much-hyped tablet computer, already looks like a decided understatement.Although seemingly designed to appeal mostly to consumers, and less than perfectly compatible with most corporate comp...

By David McCann • Nov. 1, 2010

Sensors, Sensors Everywhere

If you think of yourself as a good driver — and doesn’t everyone? — you might have the chance to prove it, and save money in the process. Progressive Insurance’s MyRate program, available in eight U.S. states, outfits your car with a sensor that tracks speed, acceleration, braking, and other driv...

By David McCann • Nov. 1, 2010

Finance as a First-Mover, Literally

As U.S. companies restructure their finance departments in pursuit of greater efficiencies (see “The Incredible Shrinking Finance Department“), the experiences of one European health-care/pharmaceutical company might be worth a closer look.Like other companies, Copenhagen-based Novo Nordisk was d...

By Janet Kersnar • Nov. 1, 2010

Attack of the Apps

The success of tablet computers (and smart phones before them) has been driven by the fact that people increasingly prefer that information and communications capabilities be available at the touch of a button rather than at the end of a Web search.Having been told endlessly that “there’s an app ...

By David McCann • Nov. 1, 2010

18,000 Errors and Counting

An initial assessment of XBRL-tagged financial statements reveals thousands of errors traceable to multiple causes, yet both the Securities and Exchange Commission and XBRL US (the consortium of accounting firms, software companies, and consultants that develops the taxonomy, or digital dictionar...

By David McCann • Nov. 1, 2010

Finance as a First-Mover, Literally

As U.S. companies restructure their finance departments in pursuit of greater efficiencies (see “The Incredible Shrinking Finance Department“), the experiences of one European health-care/pharmaceutical company might be worth a closer look.Like other companies, Copenhagen-based Novo Nordisk was d...

By Janet Kersnar • Nov. 1, 2010

Sensors, Sensors Everywhere

If you think of yourself as a good driver — and doesn’t everyone? — you might have the chance to prove it, and save money in the process. Progressive Insurance’s MyRate program, available in eight U.S. states, outfits your car with a sensor that tracks speed, acceleration, braking, and other driv...

By David McCann • Nov. 1, 2010

Tablets Get Down to Business

Our suggestion a mere six months ago that businesses might find some productive uses for the iPad, Apple’s much-hyped tablet computer, already looks like a decided understatement.Although seemingly designed to appeal mostly to consumers, and less than perfectly compatible with most corporate comp...

By David McCann • Nov. 1, 2010

Attack of the Apps

The success of tablet computers (and smart phones before them) has been driven by the fact that people increasingly prefer that information and communications capabilities be available at the touch of a button rather than at the end of a Web search.Having been told endlessly that “there’s an app ...

By David McCann • Nov. 1, 2010