"The corporate brand is not only used to improve competitive
positioning and express company aspirations, it can also be a powerful
tool to motivate employees."
The surging stock market rally not only is repairing personal balance sheets and 401(k) accounts. It is also defusing the corporate pension crisis.
The funded status of the typical US corporate pension plan in February rose 0.4 percentage points to 88 percent, according to monthly statistics published by BNY Mellon Asset Management.
It looks like more and more employers are opening their wallets for their best workers.
A Towers Watson survey found that companies are budgeting merit pay hikes of 3 percent for 2011. This compares with the average 2.7 percent merit increase awarded to employees in 2010 and is the largest merit increase since before the financial crisis when increases typically averaged 3.5 percent to 4 percent, according to the benefits consultancy.
Companies are also planning to provide some reinforcements for their overworked employees.
Controlling cross-border payments risk is ever more important, as companies deal with volatile FX markets in managing their global ventures. As they reach out to banking partners for help, businesses are demanding better solutions, greater STP, and a focus on security and regulatory compliance.
Companies with foreign interests are increasingly turning to their banking partners to help with risk management in international payments. Plus, they are demanding more from those banks that they choose to partner with on cross-border payments.
Federal regulators announce that some small bank cannot continue on its own and a rival is brought in to take over the assets and continue as if nothing had happened.
According to a survey of 100 chief financial officers at technology companies by BDO USA, LLP, just 35 percent said they are currently outsourcing services or manufacturing to companies outside of the US. This represents a 43 percent decrease from the 2009 high when 62 percent of companies were outsourcing and a slight decline from 2010 (37 percent).
It looks like most companies are not ready for the new lease accounting standards expected to be finalized as early as mid-year.
According to a recent Deloitte survey, just 7 percent of executives believe their companies are extremely or very prepared to comply with the new lease accounting standards proposed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).
With the bulk of the companies having already reported their results, how did the fourth quarter shape up? Well, it all depends upon what you compare them against.
If you look at the comparable period the year before, the fourth quarter looked outstanding. However, it was only slightly better than the prior three-month period.
Chief financial officers at manufacturing companies seem a little schizophrenic these days.
On the one hand, despite daily signs of an improving economy less than a majority (45 percent) are actually forecasting expansion for their industry in 2011. What's more, this is down sharply from the 59 percent reported last year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's recently released 2011 CFO Outlook.
in Risk Analysis by 
