I picked up this book after I sensed some similarity between the book and my new assignment, value maps. It was definitely a worthwhile exercise, in the sense that it gave me a thorough understanding of Strategy maps and Balance scored card. The understanding does put a lot of my experiences and learning’s in a holistic perspective. To begin with, I was always skeptical of the word, ‘strategy’, not only because it figures out as a prominent word in the bull fighter software, but also because it is used by so many people in so many circumstances that it had lost significance to me.

Investment in Analytics tools pays off says Accenture…With so many MNCssetting up their back offices in India, hopefully the next killer Analytics tool should be from India…

Via Yahoo Finance: 1. A lawyer to create investor contracts and such, at a charge of $400 an hour, or about $30,000 a year  2. Back-office outsourcer to handle stuff like shareholder communications runs as much as $75,000 a year 3. Optional compliance consultant ($15,000-ish), who ostensibly would keep the regs away 200,000 is the basic infra cost..There is track record that you need to bring to the table and one needs to have a superb power to speed network,,,

Via WSJ.com The 401(k) retirement plan, one of the most important savings tools available to Americans, is about to get a makeover.Some of the new features that would be part of the new plan from 2008 are Automatic enrollment, Automatic increase by employers, investments in higher yielding investments. Why is it being changed? The problem is, too many people are making bad decisions, such as leaving their money parked in low-yielding investments instead of more

“Over the last year, the average rate for a home equity line of credit has jumped from 6.58 percent to 8.22 percent, while the average credit card rate has shot up from 12.4 percent to a little above 14 percent” Given the above facts , one would be really wary of the strategy adopted by various mortgage banks who give a piggyback HELOC to a customer along with a First Mortgage.