Adapting to a strong dollar.

In early November, Canadians found themselves in a fiscal environment they hadn't enjoyed for a long time--the Canadian dollar hit 83 cents U.S. for the first time in more than a dozen years, putting the two currencies essentially at par for purchasing power.

As with any change in the value of the dollar, feelings have been mixed--while we can buy more, this might make selling product in the U.S. more difficult. What it will require from a lot of businesses is a focus on strategic growth and innovation, to differentiate more of our products by their unique value rather than simply by price.

Effective investment in technology is one way companies can improve their competitive edge. Although some pundits argue that information technology has lost its effectiveness as a competitive edge, others still believe that there's enough mismanagement of technology that greater gains can still be found in this growing piece of the operations pie.

Many companies have spent a lot of time and money implementing sophisticated IT systems without a model in place to measure the systems' return on investment. CMA Canada aims to remedy that with a new Management Accounting Guideline, which highlights the introduction of the IT Contribution Model. "Measuring the payoffs of IT investments," our first feature in this issue, provides an overview of the guideline, including a glimpse at the basic concepts behind the new contribution model.

It's useful to have financial targets for a company or a product, but as an organization you have to know how to reach those targets. To get anywhere, a company, no matter how large or small, has to have a vision, mission, and a culture that supports both. John Perry, a senior adviser and senior vice-president at the National Quality Institute, notes that any management team that hopes to make its organization do more than simply meet the requirements of market watchers has to maintain a broader focus. It has to monitor the quality of service throughout the organization, to constantly move toward a goal of excellence. Such an approach should naturally lead to better governance, while creating a host of other benefits to the company and our economy. Read his feature article, "Excellence through quality," on page 26, to learn more.

As an organization, CMA Canada believes that the federal government has an important role to play in boosting Canadian productivity. In November, the association made a submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance as part of 2005 pre-budget consultations. In this issue, we offer a synopsis of what appeared in the report. The goal is to encourage new approaches to debt reduction and establish tax and incentive plans that will increase investment in small and medium-sized enterprises, thereby enhancing productivity in Canada.

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Robert Colman

Editor-in-Chief