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Jack Sweeney The CFO Edge: Jack Sweeney today oversees the Business Finance Expert Network, including...more
To establish and maintain a competitive advantage, companies must correctly gauge, monitor, and leverage strategic risk. Rick Funston, principal, Deloitte & Touche, LLP, explains how risk avoidance too often undermines successful strategy. ###
In my last post, I shared some of the comments made at a recent brand-building conference for financial services firms.
One of the ironies about financial services firms is that while they are quick to praise client companies for investing in brand-building, they don’t always practice what they preach.
To underscore this point, I quoted one of the presenters, Omar Saad, global head of brand investing at Credit Suisse. Mr. Saad I found especially interesting, but not because of anything I revealed in my last post. Instead, what made Saad of keen interest to me was his unforgiving dismissal of social media as a means for brand-building. more
When it comes to the financial services sector, it’s been another tough year for brand builders.
However, the financial services sector appears to not be taking its brand thumping lightly.
Or at least it has successfully avoided repeating such tone-deaf antics as the February 2009 star-studded party and Sheryl Crow concert bankrolled by Northerntrust, a bank that had recently received $1.6 billion in bailout money.
Asked what brand attributes banks and financial services companies are now diligently working to better expose, Eileen B. Zicchino, chief marketing officer for JP Morgan Treasury Services, said, “I think transparency is clearly important. The big question now is ‘Where is my money?,’ and it wasn’t too long ago that a lot of cash managers didn’t even know the answer to that question.” more
Reading this morning’s papers, it’s clear that there’s no shortage of points of view regarding the historic financial reforms Congress approved yesterday. While the reforms have arguably pumped up the Federal Reserve’s power to regulate – stirring the smoldering ambers of late-20th-century political debate – one immediate consequence should be the entrenchment of finance professionals along the front lines of industry for years to come. more
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