Forecasts can make CEOs look really stupid at the end of the year.  This Forbes.com article addresses the situation and offers solutions.

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CEOs excited about growth often open the purse strings too widely and wind up in financial crisis.  Yet it is true that you have to spend money to make money.  So what’s the right balance?

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Mid-market CEOS are experts at managing fiscal cliffs, unlike Washington which has us teetering on the edge, and as of today, most likely falling off the cliff head over heels.

I did some thinking about the lessons that VC backed CEOs could teach Washington, and have written my latest post on just that subject.

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Hewlett-Packard’s $8.8 billion write-down of its $11 billion purchase of Autonomy Corp. is a stark lesson for all mid-market company CEOs who plan to grow via acquisition: Do your homework and then do it again because (unlike H-P) your firm’s survival may depend on it.

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Predicting market demand can seem like a dark art.  Many companies have collapsed because they spent money on plan, but the market failed to respond in time.  Read about simple steps the members of the c-suite can take to pursue both primary and secondary research that will illuminate market forces.

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What is the right way to determine how fast to spend when cash flow is negative? Read about how the confluence of market predictability, execution confidence and forecasting acumen affect good decision making.  These three big variables must be taken into account long before the runway grows short.

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For a mid-market company, choosing where to place your innovation bets is a dangerous game. Where you spend your time and invest your dollars are decisions that can make or break you.  How much time should a CEO and his team invest in looking at “new ideas?”  And how does a CEO select the most promising innovations and ignore the rest?

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When a mid-market company is in need of a transfusion of cash, nothing else seems to matter. This article looks at the high cost of a cash crash.  It also addresses some best practices best implemented long before trouble arises that will minimize the pain and give you a better chance to survive.

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Nearly every successful middle-market company eventually faces a swarm of competition. When their core business contracts, single-product companies can find themselves fighting for their lives. But the companies which plan highly-related diversifications before such downturns grow in good times and bad.

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It’s the rare business that never faces a cash crunch. For most companies, whether privately held or publicly funded, the problem will arise sooner or later. Here’s how to respond when it does.

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