What CFOs Really Think about Technology

Call it the fantasy baseball syndrome.Back in 1998, when the Internet first started coming into real prominence, players of rotisserie baseball believed the Web would give them an insuperable advantage over their competitors. By going onto the Net, fantasy leaguers could read every local newspape...

By John Goff • Jan. 29, 2002

Guard Up, Hacking Down

A welcome byproduct of increased national security is that the frequency and cost of computer-code viruses has dropped, says a new report from Computer Economics Inc. With cyberspace patrolled more heavily since September 11, “virus activity has been extremely low compared with prior months and y...

By Alix Stuart • Jan. 16, 2002

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

Data Storage: No Room at the Inn

Miklos Bajzath was in a bind. Staff at Volvo Information Technology, where he’s vice president of infrastructure and operations, were busier than ever providing managed-storage services for their main customer, Volvo Car Corp. While that was good for Volvo IT in one sense, in another it was a nev...

By Anthony Sibillin • Jan. 2, 2002

Ready for PRM Time?

These days, corporate executives banter about “relationships” more enthusiastically than a gaggle of guests on “Oprah.” They also seem willing to put their money where their buzzwords are: Customer relationship management (CRM), for example, is now a $13 billion industry growing at 20 percent a y...

By Scott Leibs • Jan. 1, 2002

Technology: Ten Smart Moves

For lots of companies, buoyant IT budgets are but memories. Many CFOs are now saddled with low returns on their investments. Yet for those in a position to invest, now might be the right time to play off the front foot. The question is, where best to channel resources in today’s tough business cl...

By Adam Lincoln • Dec. 1, 2001

The Ten Most Intriguing Technologies for 2002

“New technology buzzwords will be kept to a minimum next year and corporate IT investment will focus on projects that make a solid business case,” pronounces Klaus Elix, the chief technology officer of AMS Europe, a consultancy. While that might actually be music to the ears of many CFOs, the und...

By Anthony Sibillin • Dec. 1, 2001

Peering Through the Windows: A Conversation with Microsoft’s John Connors

In December 1999 longtime Microsoft CFO Greg Maffei announced he was leaving the software giant to become CEO at Worldwide Fiber, a Vancouver-based communications company now known as 360Networks. While investors barely reacted to the departure of the high-profile finance chief — Microsoft’s shar...

By Kris Frieswick • Dec. 1, 2001

Accounting for Bandwidth

Your company may block employees from visiting Web sites that don’t appear to further the corporate mission, but preventing that sort of wasted bandwidth is just one facet of a larger problem that often goes ignored. Business units think of bandwidth management as a problem for IT departments. Di...

By Anthony Sibillin • Dec. 1, 2001

Grow Your Own Way

The holidays are right around the corner, and Kristen Onken knows just what she wants: better visibility across the supply chain and paper-thin inventory. Not exactly Irving Berlin territory, but most CFOs can relate. December is a crucial month not only for makers of toys and molders of cheese l...

By Scott Leibs • Dec. 1, 2001

Clear and Present Danger

Anthrax may be getting all the headlines, but the next lethal infection may be the technological kind. Hackers have posed a threat for years, but the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have raised fears that terrorist groups might wreak havoc on the Internet.According to security ...

By Esther Shein • Dec. 1, 2001

A Good Idea Gone Bad

It seemed like a small, simple problem. In January, four customers of New York-based AXA Financial Inc. reported difficulty using a new self- service feature of EQAccess, the Web site that has provided individual customers with access to their life insurance and annuity accounts since 1998.Simple...

By Tim Reason • Dec. 1, 2001

Computer History: It All Started with Pies

“Is this the first step in an accounting revolution, or merely an interesting and expensive experiment?” asked The Economist in an article devoted to the world’s first business computer, nearly 50 years ago. The machine, the Lyons Electronic Office (LEO), was built by Lyons, a British catering co...

By Economist Staff • Nov. 21, 2001

Shake Well: Getting ERP and E-commerce to Mix

Executives at Whirlpool Corp. know a thing or two about spin cycles. After all, the company has been selling washing machines, along with a whole host of home appliances, for decades.So when it came time for the white-goods specialist to start conducting E-commerce in an enterprise resource plann...

By Esther Shein • Nov. 20, 2001

Doing eBay’s Bidding

To most punters, the thrill of an auction lies in its unpredictability. But auctions are meant to set prices efficiently, which ought to mean that, in an open auction, similar items fetch similar prices. This is especially true for goods with a published “book value”, such as old coins and stamps...

By Economist Staff • Nov. 9, 2001

Bandwidth on the Run

Bandwidth-laden wires are the arteries of a healthy E-business. Clog them with MP3 files, sports scores, and the like, and you risk starving individual business units of their data oxygen. So it is alarming that few companies pay much attention to who and what is responsible for the data that tra...

By Anthony Sibillin • Nov. 1, 2001

Application Mining: Dig We Must

For years, corporate IT managers have been trying to get their programmers to become meticulous record-keepers, documenting for posterity each and every piece of code that they write.One peek at any big IT department, however, reveals why this is far from the case today. Programmers simply don’t ...

By Anthony Sibillin • Nov. 1, 2001

Beyond the Photo ID

Here’s a new metric to consider: biometrics. Used to verify an employee’s identity before granting access to a building or room, biometric devices — including finger, hand, eye, and face scanners, as well as signature and voice verification systems — are becoming more common among big and small b...

By Marie Leone • Nov. 1, 2001

The Global Paper Chase

The allure of global trade is difficult to resist–what company doesn’t want to tap vast new markets? Many of its complexities are obvious: foreign markets can be difficult to understand; there are logistical problems galore; and regulations, from taxes and tariffs to restrictions on what can and ...

By Anthony Sibillin • Nov. 1, 2001

For IT, a ”Triple Witching Hour”

In the wake of the terrorist attacks, the outlook for corporate IT departments has gone from bad to dismal. Already under the pall of economic uncertainty, firms must now reevaluate their contingency plans and computer security, and perhaps expand their use of a range of collaborative technologie...

By Scott Leibs • Nov. 1, 2001

Banks Slow to Deliver Net Products for Treasurers

A recent study by Greenwich Associates of 207 treasurers of large companies found that corporate issuers favor online services and are looking to the Internet for debt issuance. About 50 percent of respondents said that online services are important to them, and about one-third said they have dir...

By Joseph McCafferty • Oct. 29, 2001

The Future of Money

Behind the bright, brown eyes of Helen Li, the 43-year-old head of finance for Café de Coral, is a brain that’s restlessly making connections. Li is also head of logistics and IT for Café de Coral, Hong Kong’s leading Chinese fast food chain. And lest you think that the food industry is just abou...

By Tom Leander • Oct. 1, 2001

IT Infrastructure: Is Grid a Lock?

Big Iron appears ready to give way to Big Pipe. Over the past few months, IBM has unveiled several iterations of its “grid” computing architecture, a system that tackles complex problems by harnessing the processing power of many computers connected by a high-speed network.Sound familiar? Arpanet...

By Scott Leibs • Oct. 1, 2001

And You Thought Y2K Was Grim

Pity the CIOs who report to CFOs these days; they must not be relishing the Monday-morning meeting. In its fourth annual survey devoted to technology issues, Financial Executives International (FEI) uncovered a bleak picture of reduced ambitions, confused direction, and general stagnation.Even E-...

By Scott Leibs • Oct. 1, 2001

Xtreme Accounting — It’s Coming

Time to learn another acronym. Later this month a new version of xBRL, a subset of the XML Internet language intended to standardize how financial data is shared among Web-based applications, will be released. Leading makers of accounting software say they will incorporate xBRL-tagging capabiliti...

By Alix Stuart • Oct. 1, 2001

What’s Your IT IQ?

With the invention of the first electronic spreadsheet, finance folks were dragged — sometimes kicking and screaming — into the forefront of corporate technology management. And despite the ongoing debate over whether and when the CIO should report to the CFO, the signs suggest that for the next ...

By Alix Stuart • Oct. 1, 2001