Speaking at the Annual Financial Controllers Conference Prof.

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Last month I was sent a link to a seminar given at Harvard University on the 25th September of this year called “Understanding the Crisis in the Markets”, in which a panel of experts from Harvard University do their best to get to the bottom of the problem.

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Strong leadership is the difference between business failure and success, especially in a challenging market.

Support your local Director of Finance Directors of Finance become very vulnerable when financial institutions get into difficulty.

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan ended a long period of ‘positive government’, which had endured since at least the Second World War.

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Most people today believe their actions contribute to our changing environment, and they have started to make changes at home to reduce the impact of their actions.

The survey findings confirm that companies remain committed to innovating; the vast majority of respondents plan to maintain or increase their investment in innovation right now, economic concerns notwithstanding.

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The result to your business? Well it reaps valuable monetary rewards and positive affirmations about your customer service. Imagine and picture this scenario, you have just returned from a shopping trip.

Two of the main concerns I hear over and over is from people telling me they don’t have time for marketing, and that they are frustrated because they aren’t converting interest into paying business.

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The dilemma for many companies is assessing the likely scale of the downturn and therefore the right level of response to the current situation.

Everybody is aware by now of the deepening credit crisis and the abrupt turnaround in the economic situation.

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In 1995 the world had to suffer the collapse of Barings Bank due to the dealings of one individual and in 2001 it had to deal with Enron amongst others.

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If you had an average of 100 customers per day and you were able to increase their value by just £10, that’s an additional £1000 through your till! An easy way to increase a customers value is to ‘up sell’. Up selling is only acceptable if it will benefit the customer.

In the face of the emergent economies of the East it is clear that we in the West are not competitive, even taking into account the reliance of the East on a huge and very cheap labour force. It is universally acknowledged that we must change the way that we manage to stay competitive but even with the concentration of management talent that was present this week in Birmingham it seems that we are still struggling to understand the nature of the change that we have to make. In almost every case there is an assumption by managers that they are the ones who will find the right changes to make, the ones that will restore our ability to compete in a world market. The problem is that the problem is this assumption. You may want to read that again. The assumption by managers that they know the answer is the cause of the resistance to change.

Rob Devlen, head of business consulting at Fujitsu Services said: “IT consultancies will have to begin showing initiative in this direction and start incorporating team change guarantees into the contracts before they become mandated by customers.

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Design or execute? How much of a car's cost is attributable to its construction? In the average movie budget, what proportion goes on shooting the action? And, on your local high street, what percentage of the price of a pair of shoes accounts for their manufacture? In each of these cases – and many, many more – the answer is: maybe ten per cent.

Outsourcing has been around for as long as people have been in business.

Many of us routinely get involved in doing strategy studies or developing strategic plans, without any worry about what exactly we are taking part in.

Clients are, naturally enough, demanding and want to see a clear return for their investment.

The flood of emails and telephone calls received by US congressmen and senators in recent days reveals considerable public resentment against Wall Street and the financial establishment.

If you're getting feedback along the lines of "not interested", "not right now", "call back in a month", then what the prospect is telling you is "this isn't a priority right now".

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Teaching people to work and live simply is a goal in our company and what I try to apply in my own life.

Boards must be more open and positive according to Prof.

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The never-ending quest to find talented resources at competitive prices drove the consulting industry to follow other industries in the drive towards offshore outsourcing.

I once worked with a business owner who, on the surface at least, appeared to be doing ‘all the right things’.

Who holds the real expertise for delivering change? In most cases you’ll find that the real knowledge and energy to improve the way things work is already there, buried within the business itself.

Many directors misunderstand their roles.

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When we seek to change the way that an organisation works it has been argued that 95% of these efforts fail.

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Do you find that your prospects are focused on the price of your products and services and often pressure you to give them discounts? You've told your prospects in so much detail about all the great value they will receive but they just don't seem to get it.

Many of us put off creating or overhauling our marketing materials until we have "time." But with all the responsibilities we have, who on earth has time? In my experience, the time excuse is very often a smokescreen, covering the fears hidden underneath.

Several years ago, I was on a holiday at Club La Santa in Lanzarote, a sports resort where there are lots of fitness classes scheduled throughout the day.