Research

The recession has caused all sorts of difficulties for CFOs: falling earnings, tumbling stock prices and, occasionally, knotty negotiations with lenders. For most of them, it has also brought tougher targets for earning their bonuses.

On August 16 the Japanese Cabinet Office announced that Japan's second-quarter GDP was for the first time smaller than China's. A media frenzy ensued, and analysis firms raced to predict when China would surpass the U.S.

Home prices in Phoenix have been on a welcome upswing for several months, but preliminary data for July shows no change from last July, according the W. P. Carey School's Karl Guntermann, who calculates the ASU-Repeat Sales Index (ASU-RSI).

Before a bank offers you a mortgage re-fi, or a credit card company dangles a low interest rate before your eyes, some information-systems worker has probably pegged you as a promising prospect. He most likely used predictive modeling to do it, and it wasn't a quick, easy task.

When the first quarter ended, many analysts projected the subsequent months would bring even stronger gains in Gross Domestic Product. But the high hopes of economy watchers for acceleration in growth were dashed by reality when the U.S.

Some small firms have weathered the economic storm by cutting expenses and reducing staff. But others have continued forward by focusing on what they do best: exemplary customer service, employee excellence and innovation. They tweaked their business plans to react to the new economic realities.

High foreclosure rates and negative equity continue to haunt real estate markets across the nation. In fact, a new report states that about 20 percent of mortgages nationally are under water.

A cynic might say that information systems consultants shortchange their clients. They can, for example, promise more than they deliver. Or they can tarry and delay. Or they might ask, on the back end, to bill for "unanticipated" work.

More state labor markets are pulling out of the economic slump created by the recession. As recently as March of this year, only two states (North Dakota and Alaska) were adding nonfarm jobs year-over-year. By May, the number of states posting year-to-year growth had improved to an even dozen.

Companies like IBM, PetSmart and Marriott have been proving that enormous success, and enormous profits, can be found in services. Yet services have always been difficult to get your arms around — difficult to understand.