@Risk

What’s the biggest headache for corporate finance executives these days?

No surprise –it’s the unpredictable global economy.

According to a recent poll of 435 CFOs, corporate treasurers and other senior finance executives, nearly three-fourths (72 percent) agreed their top concern is managing financial uncertainty, including the risks associated with credit, liquidity, interest rates and currency/foreign exchange.

In addition, more than one-third of respondents are worried about risks associated with:

• macroeconomic conditions, such as the pace of economic growth and inflation (38 percent)
• business/operations, including supply chain and/or production disruptions, litigation, labor and outsourcing (36 percent)

External risks (country, regulatory, natural disaster) and commodity risks (power/heat, crude oil & distillates, agricultural and metals) also emerged as concerns for a significant share of the organizations polled, but to a lesser degree.

And, four in ten respondents (41 percent) said they expect even more earnings uncertainty in the coming years.

The survey results, released last month by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), also revealed that: (more…)

Many employees now use mobile devices to access their company’s network. But, what happens if those devices are lost, stolen or resold to others outside the company? Could sensitive data be compromised?

The risks may be greater than you think.

Earlier this month, Motorola announced that approximately 100 out of a batch of 6,200 Xoom tablets that were refurbished by Motorola Mobility may not have been completely cleared of the original owner’s data prior to resale. An earlier analysis found that more than half of 50 mobile phones purchased from second-hand resellers on eBay contained personal data left over from their original owners.

New research from Mobilisafe, a Seattle-based mobile security company, reveals just how widespread employee mobile device use is and how little oversight IT departments are exercising –particularly at resource-constrained small and midsized businesses (SMBs).

For the study, employees at SMBs agreed to help evaluate a product that provides visibility to all mobile devices accessing their company’s network. Then, over the course of three months, Mobilisafe mapped more than 38 million employee mobile device connections, providing key data for its analysis. The interim results from the beta trial showed that: (more…)

Over the next few decades, US water resources are likely to be severely strained by the combined impacts of population growth, increases in power generation and climate change.

In fact, more than one in three of the 3,100+ counties in the US could face a “high” or “extreme” risk of water shortages by the middle of the 21st century, according to a new study in ACS’s Journal of Environmental Science & Technology.

The research also found that seven out of ten of the US counties could face “some” risk of shortages of fresh water for drinking, farming and other uses.

The study, Projecting Water Withdrawal and Supply for Future Decades in the U.S. under Climate Change Scenarios,  features a “water supply sustainability risk index” that includes water withdrawal, projected growth, susceptibility to drought, projected climate change and other factors in individual US counties for the year 2050. It also takes into account renewable water supply through precipitation using the most recent downscaled climate change projections and estimates future withdrawals for various human uses.

By using this water index, the research team was able to conclude that climate change could foster an “extreme” risk of water shortages that may develop in 412 counties in southern and southwestern states, as well as in southern Great Plains states. (more…)

The results are clear: Private companies in the US are focused on growth.

PwC’s latest Private Company Trendsetter Barometer found that more than three-fourths (78 percent) of the 250 CEOs polled expect positive growth over the next 12 months. About four out of ten (43 percent) anticipate single-digit growth, and more than one-third (35 percent) are projecting double-digit growth.

Overall, these results indicate the rate of expected growth for Trendsetter companies has risen 18 percent.

Hiring projections for the next 12 months are on the upswing, too.

More than half (54 percent) of the CEOs responding said they intend to add to their workforce over the next  year –that’s up from 48 percent the prior quarter. Just 3 percent believe they’ll reduce headcount, with an overall 2.0 percent increase projected for private companies’ composite workforce.

PwC looked specifically at export revenue and found that internationally active Trendsetter companies forecast a 9.6 percent revenue growth rate over the next year. (more…)

Researchers at Dartmouth University have found potentially harmful levels of arsenic in several commercial food products, including infant formula, cereal/energy bars and high-energy foods used by endurance athletes.

What’s arsenic, which is known to be both toxic and potentially carcinogenic, doing in food products like infant formula and cereal bars?

As strange as it sounds, the common denominator here appears to be organic brown rice syrup.

As an article at the Dartmouth website points out, food manufacturers have recently begun using organic brown rice syrup as an alternative to high fructose corn syrup for sweetening food.

But, most rice produced in the US is grown in southern states where the soil was previously used for cotton farming, and so treated with pesticides containing arsenic.

Here are a few of the –rather alarming –results from the Dartmouth research: (more…)