Deep Dive: A Capital Planning Executive’s Perspective on Trends In the Building Materials Industry

Deep Dive: Building Materials After several turbulent years, the building materials industry finally appears to be on steady ground. Supply chain snags have unsnarled, the economy is relatively stable, and the U.S. government has passed legislation supporting more domestic construction. Yet, a number of obstacles remain, including complying with environmental, social and governance (ESG) regulations […]

Deep Dive: A Capital Planning Executive’s Perspective on Trends In the BioPharma Industry

Deep Dive: A Capital Planning Executive’s Perspective on Trends In the BioPharma Industry The biotech and pharmaceutical sectors flourished in 2021 due to a low-interest rate environment and strong pandemic-driven demand, achieving top-line growth of over 30%. However, 2022 proved to be quieter as financing waned and large companies shifted their focus to divesting non-core […]

Zero-based budgeting for Capex: the post-pandemic view

Zero-based budgeting for Capex: the post-pandemic view Coming out of the worst of COVID, we’re all ready to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. Why not do the same with your budgeting process?   Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) has gained renewed interest post-pandemic as a way to ensure that expenses are aligned with organizational objectives. […]

Deep Dive: A Capital Finance Executive’s Perspective on Trends in the Utilities Industry

Whether it’s upgrading aging infrastructure, adapting to changing regulations, or protecting grids against outside threats, utilities have a range of challenges to navigate these days.   In this deep dive, we’ll review the top issues facing the industry, and how capital planners can respond by strategically and responsibly allocating capital to growth, maintenance, and regulatory […]

California’s PG&E Crisis: Lessons Learned and the Capex Connection

Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E) rise to becoming one of California’s most powerful energy providers was a success story for much of the 20th century. Yet in recent years, costly missteps ultimately sparked tragic wildfires and bankruptcy—marking an unfortunate end to its long reign in the Golden State.  So, what are some important takeaways from […]

Top 10 Capital Budgeting Best Practices

When it comes to capital budgeting, there’s no shortage of grievances against the process. And rightly so. A comprehensive capital plan, which takes months to put together, can become obsolete soon after the ink dries. Projects can take forever to make it through complex, manual approval workflows. And making comparisons to a prior year’s plan […]

For This CFO, Nothing’s More Important Than ROIC

Finario sat down with former ITT Corp CFO Tom Scalera to talk about critical issues facing the CFO, including managing ROIC amid shorter tenures. Watch the full interview here. Tom Scalera knows a thing or two about capital planning. As CFO of ITT Corporation for nearly a decade, he oversaw the firm’s vast industrial portfolio, […]

2023 Trends for Capital Planners

When it comes to predicting future trends in capital spending, and finance more broadly, there’s no shortage of opinions. So we’ve cut through the noise to consolidate the predictions and viewpoints that have reached broad consensus.  In short, workforce challenges are top of mind for most CFOs, followed by recession worries and a focus on […]