2010 is just around the corner. Have you reevaluated your IT strategy? Here are some important questions to consider in the new year.

Patricia Cochran, CFO of Vision Service Plan, Randy Guba CFO of IES and Tim Carmack, CFO of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital trace their finance career roots as part of Steve Player's 2009 interview series.

Here's a roundup of some of the wackiest taxes of 2009, including a new sales tax on yoga classes in Missouri and a special birdseed tax in Oregon that was introduced and later withdrawn.

Owens & Minor, an $8 billion distributor serving 4,000 health care providers, is helping its customers to energize their supply chains one link at a time.

How long will your budget remain relevant? A majority of respondents in a recent Business Finance survey said their budgets were obsolete within four to six months. In his Finance Transformation blog, Steve Player lays out why that happens and what you can do to address the problem.

Companies still have the opportunity to save on this year's taxes. The federal tax "Survival Guide" from Big-10 accounting firm Crowe Horwath explains how.

Large companies have dominated the use of the research tax credit, claiming a majority of the total $6 billion worth of credit in 2005, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

Smartphones, cell phones capable of e-mail and Web browsing, are the phone of choice for people who want to stay connected even while out of the office; however most businesses dole them out without first thinking through the role of the smartphone in the organization's IT plan or its business strategy. Here are applications that can help organizations take advantage of the technology's capabilities.

According to Professor Karthik Ramanna of Harvard Business School, adopting a single set of accounting standards worldwide could have some serious consequences, including potentially undercutting accounting innovation due to a lack of competition.

Our interviewer Steve Player speaks with Joe Householder, SVP, controller, and chief accounting officer of Sempra Energy about his finance career and how the energy company develops its talent.

In a speech to the Innovation Economy Conference in Washington last week, Larry Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, hit on hot issues for the American business world, including corporate taxes, which he said are "actually very low."

Unlike many U.S.-based manufacturers that have become displaced by offshore competitors, Emerson Electric, the $20 billion, St Louis-based electronics and components manufacturer, continues to compete and succeed as a global manufacturer. Our interviewer Steve Player talked to Emerson's CFO Walt Galvin in the recent past, and their discussion concerning Emerson's planning process appears ever more revealing in light of industry's present economic challenges.

Few careers track the rise of Lean techniques and strategies as closely as that of Mark DeLuzio, who nearly 20 years ago implemented one of the first Lean accounting processes in the United States. A vice president and corporate officer of Danaher Corporation, DeLuzio led the corporate-wide implementation of Lean and designed what is known today as the Danaher Business System (DBS). Our interviewer, Steve Player, recently caught up with the Lean pioneer and asked him to retrace the milestones of his career along Lean's trajectory.