Spreadsheets: Rein In the Dueling Pivot Table Problem

Editor’s Note: If you would likek Bill Jelen to answer your Excel question in an upcoming column, send an e-mail note to billjelencfo.com. If he chooses your question as a topic for his column, you’ll win a book from CFO and MrExcel.comDipesh M. will receive an e-book copy of Learn Excel 2007-201...

By Bill Jelen • Oct. 28, 2010

Software Blunders Trip Up Businesses

A gathering plague of glitches in software code that is threatening the financial health of many companies will only worsen as reliance on technology inevitably accelerates.So says Jeff Papows, former CEO of two big software companies that are now IBM business units, Lotus Software and Cognos. In...

By David McCann • Oct. 22, 2010

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

How Well Do You Decide?

No executive would argue with the notion that a company’s ability to effectively make and execute decisions is a cornerstone driver of performance.But most, when asked just how adept they are in this area, admit they simply don’t know, says Michael Mankins, a partner with management-consulting fi...

By David McCann • Oct. 7, 2010

Round-Trip Cost Control

In these days of aggressive cost control, the 1% to 2% of revenue that a typical company spends on travel and entertainment (T&E) looks riper than ever for scrutiny.Simply eliminate unnecessary travel? Sure. But a more lasting payoff from travel-expense management hinges on understanding what...

By David McCann • Oct. 1, 2010

CIOs Called Clueless about Extra Costs

To avoid big overspending by chief information officers, CFOs should order forensic-accounting audits of large information-technology projects, an advocate for data-center efficiency says.Often unaware of finance and accounting considerations, CIOs frequently fail to include the majority of the t...

By David Katz • Sept. 27, 2010

Tech Spending to Jump Next Year

The number of information-technology executives who are expecting budget increases for 2011 is reminiscent of prerecession days, a new survey from the Society of Information Management suggests.Thirty-eight percent of respondents said their budgets will be up next year, a leap from the 27% in las...

By David McCann • Sept. 21, 2010

Smart Phones Pose a New Risk

Employees are increasingly using their personal mobile devices on the job, often with the explicit approval of their employers. But while that permits more work to be done outside the office and at odd hours while sparing companies from paying for the devices, it doesn’t add up to a pure win-win ...

By David McCann • Sept. 9, 2010

Software Safety Zone

It may comfort CFOs who sign off on technology expenditures to know that, regardless of the recession, software vendors are likely to be stable, healthy, and good bets for survival.While it is perhaps no surprise that the software sector, with its potential for delivering efficiencies to customer...

By David McCann • Sept. 3, 2010

The Truth About SAS 70

SAS 70 certification validates that Sabrix operates as a certified and trusted outsourced tax research provider that meets the rigorous operational controls associated with Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.That declaration, which resided at press time on the Website of Sabrix, a tax-management software-...

By David McCann • Sept. 1, 2010

Trouble Looms for Company Websites

How would you like it if customers had to log in at your e-commerce site over and over during the same session? Or if you couldn’t tell where site visitors were from? What would you think if you sounded as if you had a speech impediment during a streaming-video press conference?Those are just a f...

By David McCann • Aug. 16, 2010

Six Costly Cloud Mistakes

The chance to cut costs is one of the chief reasons companies turn to cloud computing, but how much is saved may depend on avoiding some common mistakes and misperceptions.On the surface, moving to the cloud seems like a can’t-lose deal. When third parties (such as Amazon.com, Google, Hewlett-Pac...

By David McCann • Aug. 12, 2010

The Cloud’s Legal Lining

Everyone, it seems, is weighing in with opinions on how the evolution, or revolution, of cloud computing will play out, and attorneys are no exception.Reed Smith, one of the nation’s largest law firms with more than 1,600 attorneys, is planning a series of white papers exploring legal and regulat...

By David McCann • Aug. 10, 2010

Your Cloud or Mine?

Unless you’ve been on a very long sabbatical, you have no doubt heard about “cloud computing” as the future of information technology.But the conversation is quickly morphing from a discussion of “the cloud” to a potentially confusing choice between “public clouds” and “private clouds.”Definition...

By David McCann • July 15, 2010

Internal Auditors Target Spreadsheets

Last month the Institute of Internal Auditors plugged a gap in its guidance for members by issuing recommendations for the auditing of “user-developed applications,” which generally are spreadsheets and databases developed by end users rather than by IT personnel.User-developed applications, or U...

By David McCann • July 8, 2010

The Cost of Social Media Phobia

Many executives may remain skeptical that the use of social media in the workplace is anything other than a distraction from the work at hand. But companies that forbid or severely restrict the modern communications technologies may miss out on assorted opportunities.To assess the business value ...

By David McCann • July 2, 2010

Why IT Should Be a Snap for CFOs

Charlie Feld has a message for CFOs: when it comes to information technology, chill out. It’s no more difficult to get your arms around what you need to know about IT than it is for any other important company function.CFOs, of course, often don’t see it that way. And many have grown jaded over t...

By David McCann • June 24, 2010

The Cloud Casts a Shadow

The proliferation of cloud-computing services is enabling many companies to lower information-technology costs and the capital risk associated with innovation. But there is a darker consequence of the cloud: a rise in “shadow IT.”Shadow IT is the purchase or development of technology services out...

By David McCann • June 15, 2010

Certainties: Death, Taxes, and the Cloud

Cloud computing is fast gaining traction as an effective way to scale computing capacity according to shifting needs and to lower the operating cost of IT services. Indeed, most business functions are worthy candidates for outsourcing to the cloud, to the point where companies may soon begin to q...

By David McCann • June 4, 2010

Slate Expectations

This year’s biggest buzz-generating gadget, Apple’s iPad, has beaten even the rosiest sales forecasts. Domestic demand for the snazzy tablet computer topped one million units in the month following its April 3 debut. While critics complained that the iPad is both less than a phone and less than a...

By David McCann • June 1, 2010

Web Access Limits: Not Suitable for Work?

When news broke in April that 28 Securities and Exchange Commission staffers had been caught porn-surfing, it was a reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In fact, ever since Internet access became common at work, companies have struggled over whether and how to limit ...

By David McCann • June 1, 2010

IT Changes Quickly, Perceptions of It Don’t

Information technology is getting faster, richer, and more powerful at ever-accelerating speed, but views on its value by people making technology purchase decisions at corporations are evolving at a more deliberate pace.CDW, a tech-consulting firm, has been conducting a survey of such decision m...

By David McCann • May 25, 2010

Digital Divide

What could bring Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich into harmony? Not much, at least politically. But the former president and ex-House speaker are among a host of luminaries who are offering high praise for a new book that describes how the concept of “pull” presents companies with unprecedented opp...

By David McCann • May 20, 2010

Tech CFOs Eye Role in Policy Debates

A key hallmark of the Great Recession was a deep dip in corporate spending on information technology. By the same token, an uptick in tech spending is heralding the economic recovery, with companies like Intel, Microsoft, Advanced Micro Devices, and IBM recently reporting surging revenues and pro...

By David McCann • May 10, 2010

Push-Button Patent Review

For players in innovative fields like technology and pharmaceuticals, winning patents is a big part of the battle — and so is getting rid of them. Large companies may hold thousands or even tens of thousands of patents, some of which they no longer need or want.Battling “patent creep” can be an i...

By David McCann • May 4, 2010

An Action Plan for IT

When a CFO assumes oversight of IT, it may be cause for congratulations — and condolences. Information technology is often an underleveraged asset, and a leader who can tap its full potential will make a major contribution to the business. On the other hand, such an advance is sure to entail head...

By David McCann • May 1, 2010