My fellow students and I returned to a moderately sunny Geneva in April for an intense module in finance and management accounting. The regular five-hour drive from Mannheim in Germany was not too bad, and although I had left my winter tyres on the car in case it was still a little snowy in Switzerland, thankfully I was wrong.
Carried over from March was my assignment in macroeconomics and, as with all the previous modules, there was also a lot of preparation to be done for the next one. (more…)
It’s probably far from the minds of tired European leaders following last night’s summit, but an announcement from the Chinese Ministry of Finance should give them pause for thought.
As reported by the state newspaper Xinhua, government departments have been told to continue to “buy China” (as well as ban the purchase of “luxury office supplies”, so Politburo officials can forget about ordering those gold-plated staplers). (more…)
If you are feeling a bit worried today about the state of your finances, then you are not the only one (and I’m not just thinking of George Osborne).
Professor Geoff Beattie from the University of Manchester (formerly the psychologist on Big Brother) claims to have calculated a formula that works out when people feel most anxious about their finances. And guess what? It is this week. (more…)
Access to cash remains a continued priority for finance and procurement chiefs. The way to make businesses more agile through better availability of funds is by having a more collaborative relationship between procurement and finance – from the top down.
Many of the answers lie in the use of more effective technology, linking together supplier information to strengthen negotiation. But it’s not just technology. Finance is from Mars and procurement is from a different part of Mars. Despite the links between the two, there are two different languages and distinct circles of influence. (more…)
Alex Martin is writing a series of blogs about studying part-time for an MBA. You can find his previous entries here.![[Bloglines]](http://blog.supplymanagement.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/bloglines.png)
![[del.icio.us]](http://blog.supplymanagement.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://blog.supplymanagement.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://blog.supplymanagement.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Google]](http://blog.supplymanagement.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[LinkedIn]](http://blog.supplymanagement.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/linkedin.png)
![[Twitter]](http://blog.supplymanagement.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
