IT organizations are under increasing pressure to meet the business goals of their companies. This challenge can be particularly daunting because it involves complying with regulations, such as the Sarbanes- Oxley Act (Sarbox) and Basel II. Compliance requires strong corporate governance capabilities that are demonstrable to outside auditors. Because IT plays such a major role in business proce…
THE CREATION OF BUSINESS CONNECTIVITY SERVICES (BCS) for Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 involved a massive investment of people and resources by Microsoft. The result of this investment is a set of services, components, and technologies that have signifi cant implications for the entire SharePoint community. Gradually, the impact of BCS is beginning t…
In early 2009, I was relaunching my business in a new city (my family and I relocated in late 2008). We had actually planned this move for a couple of years, but the timing of the sale of our house coincided with the unfolding Financial Crisis. Like many other families, we were impacted in a negative way. Our relationship with money was forever redefined, and careful budgeting became a top pri…
Financial analysis has never been an exact science. Occasionally, the theoretical models upon which it is based are even “bad” science. The root cause is that economic decisions undertaken in a real world of uncertainty are invariably characterised by hypothetical human behaviour, for which there is little empirical evidence. Thus, a financial model may satisfy a fundamental requirement of …
In a world of geo-political, social and economic uncertainty, strategic financial management is in a process of change, which requires a reassessment of the fundamental assumptions that cut across the traditional boundaries of the subject. Read on and you will not only appreciate the major components of contemporary finance but also find the subject much more accessible for future reference. …
Many of the most important decisions made within an organisation relate to risk, because anything that is innovative or competitive or worth doing is likely to be risky. However, risk exists at various levels within an organisation, from top to bottom. As a result the effective organisation needs to be able to communicate about risk between levels in a way that enables it to manage uncerta…
In this book, we argue that the strategies a company’s managers pursue have a major impact on its performance relative to rivals. A strategy is a set of actions that managers take to increase their company’s performance relative to rivals. If a company’s strategy does result in superior performance, it is said to have a competitive advantage. Much of this book is about identifying an…