The stakes have never been higher. Capital is scarce, management is under pressure and high quality talent is in short supply. Difficult economic conditions compels those involved to ‘close the deal' as quickly as they can. Whatever people say, experience of partnerships is often mixed. How often do partnerships take longer to negotiate and become more difficult to implement than expected? Why do they look great on paper but rarely deliver in practice? Why are strategic objectives forgotten in the heat of ‘battle'?.

This report shares practices that successful CFOs have used to navigate transitions, with a special emphasis on those critical questions that need to be asked. In contrast to many excellent books and articles on general leadership transitions.

Given the complex world future leaders will inherit, how do the views of today's students and CEOs compare in regard to the role of business leadership? According to a new global study of more than 3,600 students in college and graduate schools, the future leaders already have some distinct ideas based on their values about globalization and sustainability.

While the average M&A transaction destroys value for the acquirer, returns from deals done during downturns are higher on average over the short and long term than returns from deals done in upturn years, according to a new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) titled Accelerating Out of the Great Recession: Seize the Opportunities in M&A.

The aim of the study was to find out how strongly and in which areas the crisis is still affecting companies in 2010 and what managers view as the opportunities in the upcoming recovery. The major conclusion is, that the economic crisis has bottomed out and that companies around the world again focusing on growth strategies.

Despite challenging economic conditions and regulatory uncertainty, global executives believe that the climate change agenda will significantly impact business performance and strategy over the next few years according to a new survey by Ernst & Young: Action amid uncertainty: the business response to climate change. Three hundred global corporate executives from 16 countries with at least US$1b in annual revenue participated in the survey conducted during spring 2010.

Linkedin is a social network with over 53 million users that enables you to make better use of your professional network and help the people you trust in return. It's no secret that Linkedin is a great place to network professionally, post and find jobs, and answer questions and build thought leadership.

Tras la crisis financiera global, los sistemas de jubilación de todo el mundo, presos de incontables problemas, se enfrentan ahora a nuevos desafíos que pueden tener como resultado la reducción drástica de las pensiones de los jubilados. Además, los trabajadores más jóvenes podrían tener que alargar su vida laboral. El estudio describe una serie de nuevos riesgos para la estabilidad del sistema de jubilación, que van desde el ahorro individual inadecuado hasta la incertidumbre global, que ha resurgido como consecuencia del colapso financiero.

La inteligencia competitiva debe abordarse como un nuevo modelo de negocio. Esto es, que implique a toda la organización y sea embebida en la cultura organizacional como "la manera de hacer las cosas" de cara a obtener mejores resultados en la innovación, minimizando el riesgo desestabilizador.

The effects of rising complexity call for CEOs and their teams to lead with bold creativity, connect with customers in imaginative ways and design their operations for speed and flexibility to position their organizations for twenty-first century success. To capitalize on complexity, CEOs embody creative leadership, reinvent customer relationships and build operational dexterity.

En un momento de crisis como el actual, o en el mejor de los casos de inicio de la recuperación, muchos son los ojos que se dirigen a la innovación como motor de para la reactivación económica a fin de poner en marcha la maltrecha economía nacional e internacional.

For several months spanning 2008 and 2009, the global economic system was teetering on the edge. Employees everywhere were looking to their leaders to make sense of the chaos. Leadership was then-and remains-a huge challenge, even for companies relatively unscathed by economic turmoil. Today, employees continue to seek guidance from their leaders, who must find time to reassure their people while trying to establish a pole position for the future.

NESTA's Corporate Connect programme recognises that big business, though its relationships with myriad suppliers customers and consumers, is vital to the UK's economic health. Each enterprise sits at the centre of its own ecosystem, producing new value from its links with others. Open innovation is a new way of strengthening these links, making them more productive, efficient and long-lasting.

La publicación de la 3ª Encuesta de Alta Dirección en España, impulsada por la Fundación PricewaterhouseCoopers, coincide con los primeros síntomas de recuperación económica en el entorno internacional, pero se resiste a nivel español. La encuesta pone de relieve las preocupaciones y las expectativas de futuro de nuestros altos directivos.

What practical actions can be taken today and in the near future to create an eco-efficient economy-one that delivers competitively priced goods and services that satisfy human needs, while progressively reducing environmental impact? To answer this question, the IBM Institute for Business Value brought together earlier this year business executives, government officials, non-governmental organization (NGO) leaders, journalists, analysts and environmental experts from more than 60 countries.

En el actual contexto económico, el papel de la función financiera ha cambiado y cubre aspectos que van más allá del control y supervisión tradicional de su función. De hecho, "aportar ideas sobre la estrategia corporativa" es la máxima prioridad de la función financiera. Prueba de ello es que más del 70% de los directores financieros reconoce que está participando actualmente en la toma de las decisiones más relevantes de la empresa.

Después de que se diera a conocer la versión número trece de la famosa lista que elaboran anualmente la revista Fortune y la firma Hay Group, en la que enumeran las compañías más admiradas del planeta, se revelaron también los datos de un estudio paralelo realizado por Hay Group, según el cual en estas exitosas compañías las estrategias para fortalecer el compromiso de los empleados consiguen que haya una mayor lealtad hacia la organización y que los resultados y el desempeño sean mucho mejores.

The IT organization can, and should, do far more than simply act as an order-taker. Instead, the IT function can play an active role in shaping the company's business direction and performance, says a new report from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).The survey found that the benefits of having the IT unit act as a change driver are indeed substantial. It also found that IT units that drive business change are quite distinct-in structure, staff roles, HR practices, outsourcing, and governance-from their less-proactive counterparts.

In our groundbreaking new benchmarking study, we find that the majority of global companies generate far less sales and earnings from the introduction of new products and services than the world's top corporate innovators. Most companies, while considering innovation a top priority, are selling themselves short.

Un nuevo estudio de The Conference Board ha puesto de manifiesto que los directivos del mundo están saliendo de la estrategia de recortar gastos para salir de la crisis y se están centrando en la planificación estratégica de los recursos humanos para consolidar la recuperación. Consideran que los recortes presupuestarios han hecho más mal que bien a sus empresas y que es el momento de recuperar la competitividad perdida.

Sales is an engine of growth and thus of high performance-and yet many sales organizations continue to underperform. Accenture outlines how using analytics can help complement the intuition, judgment and skills of sales executives to create a much more effective sales organization.

Providing best practice examples from companies around the world, One Report shows how integrating financial and nonfinancial (environmental, social and governance performance) information into a single report can drive sustainability into a company's strategy and create value for the company, its shareholders, and all other stakeholders.

With rampant change seemingly on all fronts, do your employees and leaders have what it takes to compete on a global stage that places a premium on adaptable expertise? Most organizations can envision the rewards of integrating global teams while accommodating local differences, but that's only part of the puzzle. What concrete actions can help transform your organizational culture in ways that let you tackle the challenges and grasp the opportunities of globalization?

In 1982, W. Edwards Deming's landmark book, Out of the Crisis, changed the way businesses thought about making things. It showed managers in the US and Europe how to build products and deliver services with the meticulous attention to quality for which Japanese business was known (and which Deming himself, stationed in a war-wrecked Japan in the late 1940s as part of the Marshall Plan, had helped engender).

BCG has developed an analytical framework-the Global Advantage Diamond-for assessing a company's current market position and devising strategies to achieve global competitive advantage. The Global Advantage Diamond differs from previous global-strategy models in its focus on all four aspects of global advantage.