Outsource Infrastructure?

When web portal company Ibelong.com went looking for tools to manage its operations-critical network, which supports clients ranging from Avon to the AFL-CIO, it expected to buy software and handle the job itself. But when Mike Harvey, director of operations at the Waltham, Massachusetts-based fi...

By Alix Stuart • Nov. 1, 2000

Inside the Machine

Five years ago, the managers of established, old-economy companies concentrated on running their business well: making cars, perhaps, or selling life insurance. They had to contend with constant change, of course, but normally of a fairly predictable kind: costs had to be cut, new products launch...

By Frances Cairncross • Nov. 1, 2000

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 to Be an E-manager

Across the desk of anybody writing about management these days pours a torrent of books about running an e-business. Most start off by saying that everything is different — and then talk as though everything was much the same. It is true that the Internet changes the skills required from managers...

By Economist Staff • Nov. 1, 2000

Home for the Holidays

Just a year ago, E-tailers were warming up for a rousing chorus of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Chaos,” but as the holidays approach, companies are singing a new tune. The past 12 months have given them time to expand the technological and logistical underpinnings of their operations, as we...

By Scott Leibs • Nov. 1, 2000

Salvaging the Dot-coms

One company’s distress is another company’s business model. And as dot- com after dot-com loses fuel and starts heading for a nosedive, there’s an Internet company in place to provide parachutes or ultimately sift through the wreckage, if need be.The company, iSolve.com, is a surplus asset manage...

By George Donnelly • Nov. 1, 2000

New Life on Lease

Snack pies and roasted coffee aren’t just tasty treats for Lee Rucker, the new CFO of Horizon Food Group Inc. They’re the core of his business–and the impetus for his recent foray into the world of Web-based equipment financing. The year-old San Francisco company, formed through mergers and acqui...

By Tim Reason • Nov. 1, 2000

SIDEBAR: So What Exactly is Encryption?

These are exciting times in the encryption field, not only because of the RSA patent expiration, but also because the U.S. government has just announced a new encryption standard called Rijndael to be adopted by the entire government. An encryption key is like the password or PIN that you use to ...

By John Xenakis • Oct. 31, 2000

A Dot-Com Melodrama With Real Money At Stake

If it had been the plot of a made-for-TV movie, critics would probably pan it as a cliché. A geeky loner goes through high school obsessed with computers. The other kids poke fun at his “nappy” hair.But his determination and dedication only increases with time. His daydream for a website graduall...

By Ed Zwirn • Oct. 27, 2000

Techwatch

Pushing the Envelope Adecade ago, workers who wanted computerized communication with their cohorts were likely to sign up for MCI Mail or similar offerings. Despite its heritage as an outsourced service, however, today E-mail is one function that most companies seem unwilling to leave to others. ...

By Scott Leibs • Oct. 1, 2000

Store and Deliver

As buzzwords go, it isn’t a stroke of genius: data paired with warehouse unites two of the most mundane words imaginable. Data pales before the far sexier information, and as for warehouse, well, one need only think of the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which a treasure of incalculabl...

By Scott Leibs • Oct. 1, 2000

When Ads Get Personal

Anthropologically speaking, marketing is a pretty recent development. The advertising of products didn’t really get going until 1898, when fledgling ad agency N.W. Ayer helped National Biscuit Co. promote its Uneeda biscuit. Eight years later, W.H. Kellogg placed adverts for Corn Flakes in six Mi...

By Randy Myers • Sept. 15, 2000

Rust Never Sleeps

Managers at Heller Financial Inc. know something about capital assets. After all, the Chicago-based Heller (www.hellerfin.com) arranges equipment financing for small to midsized companies. But ironically, until recently, managers at Heller didn’t know what to do with their own office equipment. A...

By Gary M. Stern • Sept. 15, 2000

The Dot-com Before the Storm

Scene: The eToys Inc. offices in Santa Monica, California, just a stone’s throw from Hollywood — if the stone’s encased in a missile. The headquarters of the online toy retailer is the new-economy equivalent of an acid trip. One receptionist morphs into another receptionist. They look exactly the...

By John Goff • Sept. 15, 2000

Malice in Wonderland

When managers at Pittsfield, Massachusetts-based KB Toys decided to join the digital revolution, they did what lots of managers at traditional brick-and-mortar companies are doing.They built an independent organization with a separate name (KBkids.com), staff, compensation, and funding. Then they...

By Russ Banham • Sept. 15, 2000

The Next Great Business Machines

Sitting on a sofa in his office in San Francisco, Dr. James Canton is pondering the future. Specifically, he’s mulling the technologies he believes will drastically alter the business landscape over the next half-decade. Suddenly, midthought, Canton comes out with a startling statement. ”The CFO ...

By Adam Lincoln • Sept. 15, 2000

Handing Off Finance

Re’Nu Office Systems may seem an unlikely candidate for financial business process (BP) outsourcing. After all, the Santa Fe Springs, California-based firm generated only $10 million in sales last year and employed a finance staff of five — hardly the profile of a traditional outsourcing client, ...

By Kris Frieswick • Sept. 1, 2000

Share Where?

What’s in a name? Ask Donald Janson, director of the artfully named Common Administrative Resources (CAR) unit at Ingersoll- Rand. CAR by any other name would be known as “shared services,” but Janson says that given the highly independent nature of the eight divisions that make up Ingersoll-Rand...

By Tim Reason • Sept. 1, 2000

Are You Being Served?

If the thought of a little downtime sounds good to you, keep it to yourself. In today’s wired world, “downtime” doesn’t connote a day at the beach, but rather a technological headache that will most likely have your IT staff racing toward whichever server is on the blink.Odds are good they’ll hav...

By Tim Reason • Aug. 1, 2000

Hacking It

ECharge Corp. believes it has a great value proposition: offer a secure way for online companies to accept payments with absolutely no chance personal information can be stolen or fraudulently used, and back it up with a guarantee. But no matter how good a service might be, guarantees entail some...

By Russ Banham • Aug. 1, 2000

Sun Likes It Hot

Mike Lehman isn’t known as a high-profile deal maker. Nor is the 49-year-old CFO of Sun Microsystems Inc. a certified black belt in balance-sheet legerdemain. After all, Sun has engaged in relatively little financial engineering or deal making during its 18-year rise from a four-person start-up t...

By Ronald Fink • Aug. 1, 2000

E-Privacy Momentum Grows

In a policy reversal critics say could potentially cripple E-commerce, the Federal Trade Commission has called on Congress to pass legislation protecting consumer privacy in cyberspace. And two senators have responded with specific proposals.Until recently, the FTC has been content to let the Int...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Aug. 1, 2000

The Bottom Line Moves Online

Bill Meyer finds himself facing good and bad news. The bad news: his company, InSilicon Corp., needs new accounting software, and soon. The good news: He may be able to choose from a growing list of companies that supply such software online, charging users by the month and sparing them the expen...

By Scott Leibs • Aug. 1, 2000

In Your Face

By now, it’s become a veritable pledge of allegiance for Corporate America: The customer is always right; the customer comes first; customer service is key; we exist for our customers. If there’s a mission statement out there that doesn’t exalt a company’s commitment to its customers, it would pr...

By Scott Leibs • July 1, 2000

Portal Envy

These days, it’s just about impossible to find a product that isn’t sold over the Internet. A random search by CFO magazine recently uncovered E-tail sites hawking pipe cleaners, arugula seeds, and aglets (those little plastic things on the ends of shoelaces). If you have a PC, a Web browser, and...

By Tim Reason • July 1, 2000

HR on the Outside

As outsourcing noncore functions becomes increasingly popular, more companies are asking themselves just how much of the human- resources function needs to remain on the premises. Enter the professional employer organization (PEO), which absorbs many, if not all, human-resources processes offsite...

By George Donnelly • June 1, 2000