Digital ads dominating

Posted by & filed under Corporate Strategy.

Description: It probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to most of us: digital advertising is continuing to profit while print is in trouble. But television advertising is also seeing its numbers slipping. TV execs are placing some hope in the arrival of “addressable TV” where each home would receive ads based on its… Read more »

Cybertheft

Posted by & filed under Auditing, Data security.

Description: This past Thursday one of the world’s biggest steel manufacturers, ThyssenKrupp, revealed that earlier this year it had been hit by cyberattacks. The hackers, from somewhere in Southeast Asia, stole valuable trade secrets from ThyssenKrupp. The company delayed informing the media about the attack until new security features were put in place. Date: December… Read more »

Facebook Workplace

Posted by & filed under Corporate Strategy, Cost Accounting.

Description: Facebook has built a huge business on its advertising based social media platform. But now, after a year of testing, Facebook is offering a new platform called Workplace  to compete with the Startup company Slack. Workplace – like Slack – will combine various productivity technologies like e-mail and newsletters. Workplace will be sold to… Read more »

Food prices dropping?

Posted by & filed under Canadian Economy, Corporate Strategy.

Description: You might think lower food prices would be good news. But Sylvain Charlebois, Dean of Dalhousie Univeristy’s Faculty of Management says that we might want to hold off on the celebration. Agricultural commodity prices have dropped to about half of what they were in 2012, creating challenges for producers, retailers and processors. Date: October… Read more »

Phoenix fallout

Posted by & filed under Canadian Government, Data security.

Description: It was supposed to be one of the centerpieces of the former Conservative government’s efforts to prove they were the ones to deliver savings and efficiency in the way the public sector delivered services. But now with weeks of stories on how employees have gone without pay cheques or been paid the wrong amount,… Read more »

Profiting from the FBI success

Posted by & filed under Corporate Strategy, Data security.

Description: This past week the FBI announced that it had cracked the Apple iPhone associated with the San Bernadino tragedy. Subsequently, the FBI withdrew from its court action against Apple as the need for Apple’s co-operation in unlocking the phone was now a moot point. Speculation is that the FBI’s success against the iPhone may… Read more »

Apple vs. FBI

Posted by & filed under Corporate Strategy, Data security, Managerial Accounting.

Description: It’s a pretty big battle out there with Apple going head-to-head with the FBI over the issue of encryption. Apple CEO Tim Cook has announced that the giant corporation will not cooperate with the FBI in opening up access to the cellphone of a terrorist. Apple has concerns that opening up its encryption secrets… Read more »

Watch that password

Posted by & filed under Data security, eCommerce.

Description:  Splashdata is a tech company that has developed a software tool for managing passwords. And each year Splashdata entertains and educates us by publishing a list of the 20 worst passwords. This year’s worst two are unchanged from the previous results – “123456” and “password” still top the list. And what makes it worse,… Read more »

Goodbye to deferred charges

Posted by & filed under Advanced Accounting, Corporate Strategy.

Description:  At one time, mutual fund companies dominated the retail sales market for mutual funds. And part of those days were big deferred sales charges (DSC) levied when retail investors wanted to cash in their holdings. But many players in the industry have moved away from deferred charges, to the point where Globe and Mail… Read more »