The Federal Reserve announced a big new round of quantitative easing, or QE, last week, which has the markets positively thrilled.* This is the Federal Reserve using its small but mighty bag of tricks — lowering interest rates and getting cash to big banks with the hopes that they will lend it out — all for the purpose of stimulating the economy.
But does it even work?
“The Finance Talk. When I sit you down and explain that if you miss your income statement, you might get chewed out a bit, but if you miss your balance sheet, you get fired”. In layman’s terms, that means that if I missed the forecast there was a chance I’d get a tongue lashing, but if I was hiding things on the balance sheet, that was cause for dismissal.
Which brings me to the subject of values and corporate strategy. How do you go about communicating these things in your organization?
While over 2000 organizations already have registered sustainability reports with the Global Reporting Initiative(GRI), and more than 3000 organizations have submitted their environmental information to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), investors are pushing for more consistency and global standards in environmental and sustainability reporting and standards are being defined for integrating sustainability reporting with financial reporting.
…some firms have found that tactical approaches — doing just enough to meet the reporting requirements — have not been sufficient for increasing regulatory demands or the needs of internal business users.
Apparently risk wasn’t entirely solved during the 1980s and 1990s when big systems went into banks from Algorithmics, SunGard and other major players. SAS recently ranked in the upper right quad of a Chartis report on risk systems, along with Algorithmics, now part of IBM; Moody’s analytics; SunGard and Oracle.
An Austrian bank took the tactical approach to create reports from existing infrastructure, Rogers said by way of example.
“But tactical can mean not necessarily considering all the elements you need. You meet the reporting for your regulator, but you don’t have the long term infrastructure to extend those reports to areas you really want to work on for stress tests, capital planning or overall risk management reporting.”
“The Cloud” has become one of the hottest buzz topics in the industry this year, and what started out as a topic mostly of interest to IT executives is quickly moving to the radar screen of CFOs and Finance Executives.
Some of the advantages of cloud-based applications include improved time to value, reduced up-front costs, leveraging 3rd party skill sets and having a scalable environment to support future growth. Some of the considerations and risks include security, performance, integration of cloud-based applications with on-premise systems and long-term costs of ownership.
Find out more here.
The Real-Time Web has matured to the point where it is now possible to collect enough data and perform detailed analysis on almost any customer or potential customer. This analysis can be used to enhance more traditional means of determining payment terms. The potential market for the application of Big Data Real-Time Technology and process models has never been larger and timing never better.
“Modern financial executives are moving toward a more central and expanded role as stewards of the company’s longevity, using the finance function to enable growth, especially in new markets and in response to market changes. For those who are ready for change, the new finance is an exciting and rewarding way to help shape a more intelligent enterprise that is better connected to the market and its customers.
To be a devil’s advocate, what proof do we have that Gianni’s observation is true?
A NEW CFO PRIORITY: TALENT DEVELOPMENT WITH A FOCUS ON SOFT SKILLS In previous years, the finance function sat mostly on its own and “crunched the numbers” without having much input into daily operations or long term strategy. However, the finance role has evolved to one that needs to provide sharp and meaningful analyses to…
For most organizations, cash is king, and optimizing the order-to-cash cycle has become a strategic priority.
An equally important priority in today’s business environment is compliance with an ever-increasing and complex body of regulatory requirements. Regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act require that all business processes be effectively monitored; however, the complex nature of the order-to-cash cycle presents a number of challenges to the effective testing and monitoring of internal controls.
How do you optimize the O2C (Order-To-Cash) cycle using big data?
The discoveries of certain constant numbers have pushed the world forward as much as the the light bulb or the assembly line.
These constants have led to bridges being built, finances being accounted for, and th completion of many other significant and necessary tasks throughout history.
There are many important numbers that have made this world what it currently is. But the following 10 are the most important numbers, or constants, in the entire world.