Ever since Uncle Sam pumped billions into banking behemoths to keep them alive, the question has come up: just how big is too big, when it comes to banks? The answer isn't as straightforward as it might seem.

The U.S. Postal Service, like most organizations lately, has been having a tough time making ends meet. Earlier this month, John E. Potter, postmaster general, mentioned several plans designed to staunch the red ink, including cutting mail service on Saturday. Such a move would impact several areas of treasury including operations, cash flow, and staffing schedules.

Lots of cash and unlimited amounts of time aren't always needed to make money, according to Tina Seeling, executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. She's found that her students can develop a value-adding venture when given as few as four hours and 10 paper clips. Seeling says, "There are always opportunities that you often don't pay attention to. This demonstrates that without very much, you can do incredible things."

Contingent fees, which are paid to a broker based on selected criteria such as the number of policies sold in a certain year, can raise a firm's insurance expenses and prompt brokers to steer clients to policies that aren't in their best interests. The regulations surrounding them have been changing -- and not for the benefit of insurance buyers.

You thought the credit squeeze was easing? Nope. New numbers show why treasurers are still lying awake at night.

While conventional wisdom holds that captains of industry and finance almost reflexively oppose government regulation, that's not always so. A recent survey of 450-some institutional investors, corporate financial heads, pension fund managers, and other execs conducted by Greenwich Associates, LLC found "strong -- in some cases, surprisingly strong -- support for regulatory proposals."

Does the idea of taking on a performance management project intimidate you? Never fear. Read Ventana Research's white paper "The Right View of Performance Management: Reasonable scope, incremental change and dashboards provide tangible benefits" in the BPM Resource Center to alleviate your worry.

The 6th Annual BPM Summit brought together some of the business world's foremost practitioners to explore the transformational role of finance in the enterprise. If you missed the live event, you can still enjoy access to the audio and slide shows from the keynote presentations at our on-demand archive.