From the editor.

No one in corporate life can dispute the far-reaching impact of technology on productivity; in fact, news reports in recent months constantly point out that productivity keeps rising even as job rolls are shrinking. Just what the dimensions of those improvements are, and if they are accelerating, will be grist for statisticians and economists for years to come.

James Champy, co-author of the seminal 1994 book, Reengineering the Corporation, has thought long and hard about the nexus between better technology and productivity. In our cover story, he talks about the pluses and minuses of the corporate plunge into high tech, and the potential importance of what he calls "X-engineering," in which "X" represents organizational boundaries, which have become far more permeable.

"We are now at the point where both present and future productivity improvements will come from the redesign of the processes that operate between a company, its customers, suppliers, partners and possibly, its competitors," he writes. "The potential improvements in efficiency and service are extraordinary when cross-organizational thinking is applied to tech-driven process change."

In a companion piece, performance guru Jim Loehr spoke to Managing Editor Ellen M. Heffes about a key issue he says effects personal productivity: workplace disengagement. Very few executives really give companies the energy and the attention that they're capable of, he says, and offers suggestions for improving that energy output.

After months of appearing to have gone dormant, fears of the SARS virus were resurrected briefly in September--a grim reminder for many that the virus' danger hasn't been totally contained. Marsh Inc. executive James Connolly looks in detail at the issues surrounding the SARS outbreak in discussing the precautions and the planning that businesses should consider for potentially catastrophic events--specifically, "an asymmetrical response capability that is not built on static or historic assumptions."

This issue has two articles about corporate boards. Freelance writer Steven Van Yoder spoke with a number of corporate recruiters about the surge of activity in seeking CFOs for boards--and the related difficulty in finding people willing and able to serve. And Bill Sinnett, research manager at Financial Executives Research Foundation, turned a dialogue on private company boards, posted on FEI's new FELIX PC service for private companies, into an article looking at the way various private firms are altering their board practices in response to changes they see happening at public firms.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has some very specific language dealing with auditor independence and internal controls. Accounting professor and expert Paul Munter looks at some of these provisions and offers his analysis for companies that might be unsure what roles management and its auditor can now play.

While the overall software market has slumped in the past few years, the business intelligence sector has been relatively healthy--and Sarbanes-Oxley is expected to drive more growth. No wonder, then, that a long-expected market shakeout is underway, and that a number of companies that aim at top finance officers are looking to make acquisitions that will give them more tools, or entire software suites, to sell. As these vendors sense, anything that can boost corporate intelligence in this too-often-choppy economy sounds like a life raft for companies to swim toward.