FinanceWatch

Financial strategy

Outsourcing Is Overrated
Financial strategy Compensation, Benefits Hiring
HR Management Job Trends Outsourcing Productivity Team Work
Sending factory work over to Asia has become so often a recommended strategy over the years that outsourcing now spurs a knee-jerk reaction in many entrepreneurs. Want to make something? Call China. And yet, it can make a great deal of sense to run manufacturing in the U.S. Ironically, one proponent is...
5 Negotiation Tips From Steve Jobs
Leadership, Career Presentations Financial strategy
Mobile Wi-Fi Meetings Writing Skills
A series of emails about ebook prices between Apple and HarperCollins, including ones written by Steve Jobs, were recently released as part of the Department of Justice price-fixing suit against Apple and a number of major publishers. As the site Quartz pointed out, these offer some great insight into how Jobs negotiated. However, Zachary Seward at Quartz called it an example of...

Warren Buffett Helps Teach Online Course That Lets Students Give Money Away
Business Intelligence Leadership, Career Lifestyle
Financial strategy Motivation
A free online course... [will offer students the chance to learn about giving from Warren Buffett and help decide how to spend more than $100,000 of his sister's money. More than 4,000 people have already signed up for the course that will also feature philanthropic advice from baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr. and the founders of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. Boston Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner and journalist Soledad O'Brien are other featured guests. The amount being given away could grow if...

Tuaw

Hospital Calculates Return On iPad Investment At Nineï؟½Days
Financial strategy Health Job Trends
Retraining Mobile Wi-Fi Productivity Time Management Working Remotely
If you've been around the medical profession, you have probably seen an explosion of iPads. Doctors I've talked to say they are easy to carry around, and the iPad mini in particular seems a great fit for pockets. Meanwhile, companies that write software for medical uses are...

Today's Leadership And Mentoring Environment For Financial Executives
Leadership, Career Financial strategy Employee Retention
Hiring HR Management Job Trends Motivation Training Meetings
The genesis of any win-win relationship is clear communication and an understanding of expectations. That sentiment held true 50 years ago, just as it still does today. If you're currently in the mentor's chair, was this established at the outset with your protege? Every professional's needs and goals are different when it comes to selecting a mentor or a mentee. Musician Phil Collins once said...

Can You Spend A Week Without Cash?
Lifestyle Financial strategy Record Keeping
Internet Virtualization
The crunch point came when I stood outside a cafe in the bucolic Devonshire town of Totnes, pondering the questionable ethics of taking food away from a homeless person in the name of journalistic enterprise. I'd ducked into a covered alley to escape a sudden springtime downpour and the icy ankle-deep stream it sent coursing through the narrow streets, and there I chanced across the Happy Apple cafe. A sign in the window...

Protecting Boards From Their Ownï؟½Shareholders
Law Leadership, Career Financial strategy
Motivation Record Keeping
I teach corporate law, and one of the topics in a typical introductory corporate law course is hostile takeovers. The central legal question is: to what extent is a board of directors allowed to undertake defenses against a takeover bid, even if (as is always the case) the potential acquirer is offering a premium over the current market price? Whenever I teach one of these cases, I always...

The IT Cloud: Silver Linings
Law Financial Reporting Financial strategy
Job Trends Cloud Computing Data Security Developers/Programmers Enterprise Hardware Enterprise Software Internet Security Software Techniques Virtualization
"I'VE only got one IT guy," says Segun Akintemi, the chief executive of Renaissance Credit, a Nigerian moneylender that opened for business in October 2012 and signed up about 3,000 customers in its first six months. "Whenever I walk past his desk he is surfing the web." That the firm has just one bored computer specialist is not a sign of backwardness. On the contrary,...
[US Banks:] The Triumph Of Low Expectations
Business Intelligence Law Financial Reporting
Financial strategy Motivation Record Keeping Productivity
"It could have been worse" was the common refrain as American banks began reporting their second-quarter earnings. Indeed, the striking characteristic of the returns was their consistency. Big and small, local and national, lenders across the country have been benefiting from some common tailwinds. Legal settlements are becoming sparser; the economy is expanding, albeit feebly, and the housing market is recovering; auditors are...
Sticky Fingers [Who's Bribing Who?]
Law Financial strategy IRS
Health Motivation
IN SOME countries the need to grease the palms of officialdom remains a depressing fact of life. That, at least, is the finding of a new survey by Transparency International, a Berlin-based campaigning group. Over one in four people said they had paid a bribe in the past year for public services relating to tax, health, police, land and others. Bribery is most widespread in...
[The Rising Dollar:] Green And Back
Business Intelligence Lifestyle Financial strategy
Productivity
Visitors to America this summer will find their money does not stretch quite as far as on previous trips. The dollar has risen this year against a broad range of currencies, so holiday purchases will be a bit pricier than usual. A strengthening dollar is a rare thing. The upward bursts in the early 1980s and the late 1990s were deviations from a generally falling trend. Since it was freed from the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates four decades ago...

Five Ways Big Data Is Useful To CFOs
Business Intelligence Financial strategy Big Data
Best Practices Productivity
These days, CFOs are challenged with producing more accurate forecasts of their business, complying with ever-changing regulations and reporting more frequently based on newer streams of data. The business environment today is inordinately more influenced by the events outside the control of businesses than those within the control of organizations. In this hyper-connected world bridged by mobile, social and other real-time technologies...
Why HR Doesn't Get A Seat At The Table
Leadership, Career Financial strategy HR Management
Job Trends Best Practices
As CFO, your role boils down to this: helping your company maximize profitability, growth and shareholder value. And you want everyone on the leadership team to share in that mission, right? Among human-resources practitioners, a common frustration is that HR is often denied the proverbial "seat at the table." They want to influence...

The Madman Theory Of Negotiations
Leadership, Career Presentations Financial strategy
Motivation Meetings
Try this approach when you negotiate your next business deal: Start by being nice and cheerful, then flash some anger. Rinse and repeat as often as necessary, but always in that order. Never start with anger. That will throw your opponents off balance, making them think you're...
Boards: CEOs Not Good At Managing People
Leadership, Career Financial strategy Health
HR Management Performance-Evaluations Best Practices
Directors are not very high on the mentoring skills of the CEOs in their charge. Nor are they all that keen on how CEOs deal with them. Yet oddly, directors do not appear to believe this is a problem. New research, a joint effort by the Center for Leadership Development and Research at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University's Rock Center for Corporate Governance, and The Miles Group, found that boards focus on...
Companies Are Using M&A For The Wrong Reasons
Business Intelligence Leadership, Career Financial strategy
Productivity
The M&A marketplace is still tepid by 2007 standards. True, there have been a few big dealsï؟½the acquisitions of Tumblr ($1.1 billion) and Warner Chilcott ($8.8 billion), for instance. But most are small and specialized or driven by financial backers. Strategic buyersï؟½in particular, large-cap buyers that provide the "sizzle" in the marketï؟½are holding back. That's partly...

Three Things I've Learned From Warren Buffett
Leadership, Career Lifestyle Presentations
Financial strategy Motivation Meetings Productivity Time Management Writing Skills
Last month, I went to Omaha for the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting. It's always a lot of fun, and not just because of the ping-pong matches and the newspaper-throwing contest I have with Warren Buffett. It's also fun because I get to learn from Warren and gain insight into how he thinks. Here are three things I've learned from Warren over the years:...

Why Successful Companies Stop Growing
Business Intelligence Leadership, Career Financial strategy
Best Practices Productivity
We've all seen examples of unstoppable companies that suddenly hit the wall. Growth slows down, stock prices start to decline, shareholders get nervous, and the press starts to speculate that something is wrong. In some cases, like P&G and Starbucks, the board brings back a former CEO who can presumably return the firm to its previous glory. In other cases...

How To Grow Your Company
Business Intelligence Leadership, Career Financial strategy
Hiring Job Trends Best Practices Productivity
How do you grow your company? There are generally three ways: 1. Building on your internal resources (funding innovations, running product development teams); 2. Borrowing from others by making licensing or alliance agreements; or 3. Buying your way in by acquiring other companies. Put like that, it sounds deceptively simple, but...