Imagine this scenario, your company didn’t make its earnings last quarter, and you as the CFO have the unenviable task of bringing those numbers to your leadership team. Everyone’s going to start talking and pretty soon someone will come up with the idea that you need to cut costs. Maybe you’ll even decide to use Lean to cut costs in your company. Well, you wouldn’t be alone. A recent headline from CNBC states, Coke goes Lean to cut 1200 jobs as part of an $800 million cost savings plan. Today, so many companies use lean to cut costs, that Lean has become a four-letter word in many organizations.

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​I liken mergers and acquisitions to terminal illnesses. We all either know somebody or have ourselves been impacted by a terminal illness and our outlook has been quite negative. I blame this negative outlook on the famous quote by Albert Einstein that goes “We keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results”. This is also known as the definition of insanity.

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At some point, you as the CFO are going to realize that you have responsibility over the tax function. This may come as a surprise, hopefully not, but it may. This will be the case whether you have an internal tax director or whether you rely on an outside advisor for your tax services. Your role will probably be a little more complicated if you’re relying on outside advisor. But in any case, you’ll have that responsibility. So knowing that you have that responsibility, you need to assess where your tax knowledge is; What do you know about taxes? What should you know about taxes? Do you think there’s a gap? How do you fill that gap? Well we’re going to talk about a few things here that will help you get through that process.

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Some of America’s best run companies fail when implementing an ERP system. Andrew describes how three simple concepts; lead, limit and organize can make your system implementation a success.

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Atlantic City is a wondrous place; I remember visiting years ago, when the casinos were filled, and the players were waiting in line for a table. Today, most casinos are closed, and those remaining are empty with $5 tables on weekends. As I sit down at the roulette table and watch the ball run around the track, you can see the eyes on players filled with nothing but hope.

This look of hope is what I see from too many employers come renewal time. Unfortunately, most employers’ hope lands on green double zero as they watch the insurance carrier win their ante for the next twelve months. If the employer strategy is to annually interview consultants in a grand search for the lowest cost fully-insured carrier, how can the future be bright? If an employer does not address the major issues as to why healthcare costs are spiraling out of control, they are simply gambling with the future of their companies.

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