Category: Management & Leadership

According to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July.

This is being taken as a very positive sign, as the report offered a significant rise in job creation, compared to the figures reported during the preceding three months.

For those firms that are looking to capitalize on the current bout of economic growth by hiring new workers, it may be in their best interest to partner with a firm of professional recruiters. Working with experts offers several key benefits to a company.

Partnering with professionals eliminates the need to rely on personal connections to come up with candidates in a timely manner, which can lead to imperfect outcomes. Also, professional recruiters have a level of experience and focus that allows them to provide a significant aid to their clients throughout the recruitment process, helping companies to identify, evaluate and recruit their top choices for the positions that they are looking to fill.

However, it is important for businesses to ensure that they are prepared to expand their staff before taking on new payroll and benefits commitments. The news in last month’s jobs report was not all positive, as the unemployment rate rose slightly to 8.3 percent, due to the expansion of the workforce. And, as we’ve reported previously, global events such as the European financial crisis continue to exert a drag on the U.S. economy.

Working with a financial project consulting service can help your company determine whether this is the right time to be making significant long-term commitments by bringing in new staff members.

Key committees in both chambers of the U.S. Congress recently approved legislation that would remove decades-old restrictions on trade with Russia, which were implemented in 1974 to pressure the Soviet Union to change its human rights policies.

The removal of these outdated trade barriers may create a significant number of opportunities for U.S. businesses. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has estimated that U.S.-Russian trade, which was about $10 billion in 2011, could double or triple as a result of normalized trade relations.

The Chamber has also asserted that the Russian state will require nearly $500 billion worth of infrastructure development over the course of the next five years. This could present a particularly lucrative opportunity for American construction firms, especially given that the domestic real estate market has still not fully recovered from the bursting of the housing bubble.

However, doing business overseas and dealing with foreign tax and regulatory systems can be challenging. It requires careful planning and attention to detail. Emerging markets can present a particularly high level of risk for investors.

Working with a financial project consulting service can help business leaders identify and act on opportunities in a way that maximizes returns and mitigates risks.

For firms that are seeking to take advantage of renewed trade with Russia and other opportunities abroad, retaining the services of an international tax consultant can be extremely helpful in navigating other nations’ taxation systems and ensuring that new business ventures will generate enough revenue to be worthwhile. An interim investment analyst can also aid companies that are looking to put their capital to work in emerging markets.

According to a new study conducted by research firm Truven Health Analytics, eliminating employees’ health benefits may put businesses at a significant disadvantage with regards to their ability to recruit and retain talented professionals.

Under the terms of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), businesses with over 50 employees that do not offer health insurance plans to their staff will be required to pay fees that will be used to support public health insurance exchanges. However, the Truven study asserts that employers’ calculations must account for more than simply balancing current healthcare costs against the nominal penalties established by PPACA.

The study states that “employers must provide market value – in benefits and compensation – to retain skilled workers.” It goes on to explain that employers will find it difficult to unilaterally eliminate benefits, due to the need to offer compensation packages that will be attractive to leading professionals.

Dr. Raymond Fabius, chief medical officer at Truven, asserts that “Not only is eliminating group health coverage not cost efficient, it would have an enormous negative impact on an employer’s competitive market position.”

Recruiting and retaining high-performing executives and financial professionals may turn out to be especially difficult for firms that eliminate health benefits, as the most talented individuals may be accustomed to a compensation system that includes comprehensive health coverage.

Working with professional recruiters can help companies identify and address obstacles in their recruitment process and position themselves to experience greater success during an executive or financial professional search.

On Monday, July 30, the Federal Reserve Board announced that it had established finalized standards for risk management at financial market utilities (FMUs) that are designated as “systemically important” by the Financial Stability Oversight Council.

FMUs are institutions that provide infrastructure to clear and settle payments and other financial transactions. Some examples include central securities depositories, payment systems and central counterparties.

The final rule – termed Regulation HH – implements two provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was passed in 2010. The new regulations establish standards for managing the risks involved in payment, clearing and settlement operations at critical FMUs. Institutions that are registered as clearing agencies with the Securities and Exchange Commission or Commodity Futures Trading Commission are exempt from the new rules.

Regulation HH also establishes requirements for designated FMUs to provide advance notice before implementing material changes to their rules, procedures or operations.

The standards are based on those developed by the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems and the Technical Committee of the International Organization of Securities Commissions.

The Board described the new rule as “substantively similar” to the version that had been proposed previously. It includes one new provision empowering the Federal Reserve Board to waive certain elements of Regulation HH for particular FMUs where the nature of its operational risk would make adherence to specific standards inappropriate.

For any firms that may be affected by these new regulations, which will officially go into effect on September 14, 2012, working with a financial project consulting service can be extremely helpful in navigating the transitional process and ensuring that compliance does not come at the price of operational flexibility and efficiency.

In the past few years, we’ve watched as major U.S. financial institutions went bankrupt, a global recession set in and a string of sovereign debt crises wracked Europe. Development has even slowed in China and India. Even the U.S. Postal Service is struggling.

This turmoil should serve as a reminder to financial professionals that no investment is perfectly safe and even a highly successful business model may become outdated over time.

For example, consider the situation currently confronting Facebook. As consumers shift toward mobile devices – tablets and smartphones – the social media company’s business model is being put under a considerable amount of stress, as it generates little revenue from mobile traffic.

According to documents the business filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 85 percent of its revenue came from advertising in 2011. However, the vast majority of this was derived from showing ads to users accessing the site through conventional computers – desktops and laptops.

With research firm Javelin Strategy predicting a 40 percent increase in consumer adoption of tablets by 2016, this is a serious challenge to Facebook’s business model. The company will need to develop new revenue streams in order to remain viable, especially now that its stock is being publicly traded, which means that disappointing projections regarding future profits could have drastic ramifications for the business’s financial health.

It’s important for businesses to make investments and operational decisions with a strong focus on the way things will change in the long-term. For any company that lacks the trained financial staff to conduct this sort of analysis, partnering with an interim investment analyst can provide an invaluable aid. And, for firms that are struggling with a particular challenge along the lines of Facebook’s mobile adoption dilemma, working with a financial project consulting service can help ensure that solutions strike a balance between short-term concerns and long-term needs.

Business leaders should draw an important lesson from the recent break up of the partnership behind MSNBC. Microsoft and NBC terminated their cooperation after Comcast – the company that owns NBC – bought out Microsoft’s share in their joint venture.

NBC and Microsoft first teamed up in 1996 and, for a time, the partnership was mutually beneficial. By combining NBC’s broadcast experience and journalism resources with Microsoft’s technological capabilities, the two companies were able to produce a cable channel and website that offered quality news.

However, over time, the situation started to deteriorate as the two businesses began moving in different directions. Microsoft pulled out of the cable channel in 2005.

In recent years, this caused cross-media ad sales to become a major source of tension between the two partners. According to the New York Times, NBC was receiving an increasingly large amount of interest in the purchase of advertisements that would run on both the televised programming and the website. However, Microsoft ran the ad-sales for MSNBC.com – making the process unnecessarily complex.

Therein lies the lesson for CFOs and other financial professionals who may be tasked with evaluating the long-term outlook of particular partnership opportunities. Joint ventures and other cooperative efforts should enhance your company’s capabilities and empower your staff to achieve top-notch performance levels. If a deal with another organization will eventually restrict your business’ ability to innovate, adapt and succeed in a constantly changing market, it is not a partnership that is worth pursuing.

Working with an interim investment analyst can help your company thoroughly examine the long-term value that will be provided by a particular partnership opportunity, as well as the inherent risks.

The latest scandal afflicting the banking sector offers an important lesson for all businesses in terms of the importance of conducting regular internal audits and keeping a sharp eye out for any instances of indiscretion by its financial professionals.

The current controversy is centered around manipulation of the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), which is calculated daily by Thomson Reuters based on a number of major banks’ responses to a survey that asks what interest rates they would expect to pay loans in particular currencies. LIBOR is used to determine payments related to a variety of financial agreements, including mortgages. It was previously held that, because the rate was calculated based on multiple banks’ suggestions, it would not be possible for any one bank to manipulate the rate for its own benefit.

Of course, as the scandal has developed, investors’ confidence in LIBOR, and the financial institutions involved in setting it, has plummeted. Lawsuits have begun and many more are being contemplated by organizations that believe the return on their investments was affected by banks’ manipulation of rates.

Barclays has already admitted to manipulating LIBOR and paid out $450 million to settle the charges that had been laid against it. However, even after reaching a settlement, there will still be repercussions for any bank found to be involved in the price-fixing scheme. Especially for financial institutions, reputational damage can have a major effect on future revenue.

All of this goes to show that it is extremely important for businesses to ensure they are operating with appropriate practices. Guaranteeing that a LIBOR-like scandal isn’t around the corner can be invaluable for any firm that has long-term success as its goal.

Working with an internal audit consultant can help in this regard by bringing an outside perspective to a company’s auditing process. This enables internal auditors to uncover hidden liabilities or even discover a scandal-in-the-making before it becomes an albatross around the organization’s neck.

The United States’ quadrennial presidential campaign often creates economic uncertainty in the country and election results can have a significant impact on markets, as they influence the laws that will be passed and the regulations that will be enacted.

National elections can cause variations in the value of a company’s investments or alter the demand for its products and services, as the U.S. Federal Government is a major purchaser in various sectors and influences the economy through regulatory action. Businesses should take these factors into account in their strategic planning efforts.

This election involves an especially contentious set of issues that concern the direction of the U.S. economy and the policies of the country’s elected officials can have a dramatic effect on businesses across many industries, from energy production to finance.

If your company currently lacks the trained staff necessary to perform this kind of specialized analytical work, it may be beneficial to partner with a firm of professional recruiters in order to carry out a targeted financial professional search that will quickly match your company with a number of high-caliber candidates that can meet your needs. Recruitment firms offer their clients access to a vast pool of experienced financial professionals and provide human resource expertise that helps you identify, evaluate and recruit the right individual to bolster your team.

For businesses that are not currently interested in recruiting new financial professionals, working with an interim investment analyst can aid your company in preparing for election-related turmoil or any other events. Partnering with a qualified financial project consulting service can help your company manage risk, keep costs down and complete any project efficiently.

Recently, we’ve reported on the changes taking place at some of the country’s top business schools. Today, we’ll take a closer look at what’s driving these ongoing updates and where American business education is heading in the near future.

The main shift involves measures centered on encouraging MBA recipients to develop practical skills that will allow them to pursue entrepreneurship.

One MBA candidate blogging for business school analysis site Poets & Quants explains that “Business schools are all about finding and developing leaders that make an impact; and right now, there is no greater impact that can be made than building a wildly successful organization that is then able to help thousands (or millions) of people. When universities can tout founders and top executives behind brands like Google and Facebook, it not only works wonders for the cache of the school’s name but it validates that they (and their alums) really are as good as they say they are.”

Taking this view, it is possible to see the startup-centric changes occurring in the nation’s business schools as a sort of natural evolution. Other changes taking place in the business environment can also be viewed as part of this trend.

For instance, many firms are finding that it is beneficial to partner with a financial project consulting service as they scale up their operations, rather than rapidly recruiting accountants and other financial professionals to meet short-term needs. Especially for a startup, working with outside experts on an interim basis can be an effective way for a company to bolster its staff’s capabilities and overcome immediate obstacles without overextending itself with too many new long-term personnel commitments.

The economic landscape may be shifting, but academic institutions and financial project consulting firms are working to provide aspiring business leaders with the tools they need to adapt to the changing times and succeed.

In a recent article for Inc. Magazine, entrepreneur Curt Richardson drew on his experience as a business leader to show how staying true to core values provides a source of strength that empowers a company to thrive over time.

When Richardson first started making waterproof cases in the early ’90s, it was little more than a hobby. He made the first prototype in his garage. However, by establishing a solid identity for his business and holding to certain core values as it expanded, he was able to make his small company into a big success.

One of the values emphasized by Richardson was adaptability. Being able to respond to unexpected events and avoid service disruptions are key factors in a company’s ability to maintain high customer satisfaction. But, any adaptive moves must also account for the future and fit within the organization’s overall strategy.

For instance, if a business is currently in a “crunch” period, it may be beneficial to partner with a financial project consulting service. This can help a company overcome short-term obstacles while ensuring that present success doesn’t impede long-term goals.

Of course, it can be a challenge to maintain consistency in corporate values over time, as new employees bring their own ideas into the business and even long-serving staff members will change over time. This speaks to the need for focused recruitment efforts.

Hiring should be about more than just filling chairs. When you work with professional recruiters, it ensures that every candidate is being closely scrutinized. Recruitment firms examine more than just technical qualifications when they look at an applicant, because they understand the importance of finding a good fit between an individual’s outlook and an organization’s core values.