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Companies today face significant talent challenges that barely existed a few years ago. What are these challenges, and what are companies doing to address them effectively?

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.” While Albert Einstein was referring to physics when he made this statement, his words are just as applicable to business.

We all know how important it is to think outside the box, but many companies still need to learn how to think outside of 10 or 15 boxes. When it comes to designing an effective organizational strategy, companies frequently fall victim to boxology, where instead of clearly defining the capabilities, structure and roles required to execute business strategy, they settle for simply redrawing their organizational charts.

What company could do without spreadsheets? After all, they’re ubiquitous, efficient and cost effective. For executives they can provide an instant and concise snapshot of their organization that often drives critical business decisions. But that snapshot may be out of focus.

Not only is the adoption of a single accounting language desirable in an era of increasing globalization, but it carries many benefits as well — including reduced complexity, greater transparency and improved efficiency in financial reporting.

Putting a value on a target company’s assets can be tricky at best, but it’s especially so in politically unstable countries with shaky economies and unpredictable legal systems.

Companies that outsource and offshore their services and labor are on a metaphorical diet. By focusing narrowly on cost reduction, they can lose sight of the other important benefits outsourcing can offer.

Divestiture isn’t simply integration in reverse. It’s a complex process that requires special skills.

Each day seems to bring more news of roiling markets, debt write downs and tightening credit. Financial analysts are practically reduced to reading tea leaves to figure out whether the economy is about to stall out or rebound.

Information is a hot commodity — literally. The servers, drives and other electronic components that make information technology (IT) possible generate a great deal of heat and consume a surprising amount of energy besides. With soaring energy costs and growing alarm about climate change, however, companies are waking up to the need to go green. And they are realizing that one of the best places to start is with their IT functions.

Our industries are facing a talent crisis the scope of which we are only now beginning to understand. The skills shortage and aging work force, combined with the increasingly sophisticated and global nature of business, have made talent recruitment, retention and management imperative. Representing the manufacturing, real estate and financial services industries, our professionals discuss strategic and innovative solutions that focus on harnessing the power of Generation Y.

It’s only when our cars, computers and cell phones stop functioning that we bother to think about what made them work in the first place. That’s true of major companies as well. What keeps them running smoothly is a shared services organization (SSO). SSOs can streamline and standardize a company’s processes, improve its technology and deliver services to internal customers at competitive levels of cost, quality and timeliness. Many SSOs, however, have a hard time getting the respect they deserve, and once an SSO gets a bad reputation, it can mean a lot of lost time, money and energy for all concerned.

There’s a new kid on the block, a member of a rising new breed of innovative young talent entering the workforce and radically reinventing the way companies do business.

If a doctor only checked a patient’s blood pressure but didn’t bother to ask him how he was feeling or how well he was sleeping, we wouldn’t put much faith in her diagnosis. But that, in effect, is what many companies are doing when they focus only on profits and losses and neglect many other vital signs of corporate health: the company’s reputation, employee commitment, the loyalty of its customers, the quality of its governance and its capacity for innovation.

The behavior of leaders is the most critical element in establishing an ethical workplace culture. What must leaders consider each day and how do leaders think about ethics in the work force? What behavioral influences do employees look to for ethical guidance? What work-life strategies promote an ethical environment that attracts and retains the top-level talent necessary to grow and sustain America’s corporations?

Information Technology (IT) is the elephant in the room. Ask most directors what they really know about IT, and you are likely to experience an arctic freeze strong enough to build igloos on the equator.

The Strategy Paradox, that explores the nuances of success and failure, and introduces profound new ideas to help leaders to implement strategies that deliver remarkable results without unnecessary exposure to an uncertain future.

Since the industrial revolution, the business model for success has been the relentless pursuit of growth and profitability. This model, this machine if you will, has sought out growth on a global scale with a corresponding expansion in need for ever more resources - people, facilities, technologies, organizations and natural resources. Throughout most of the 20th Century, these resources seemed limitless and their impact on the environment secondary; however, as that century came to close and the new one began, the realization was that these resources were not limitless and the impacts of unbridled growth on the environment were real and should be a priority.