Next year promises to be an exciting (and, possibly, very critical) year for many

companies. Interest rates may finally head higher, workers may be tougher to find,
valuations pricier, and consumer spending more robust. Or, as CFOs know all too
well, none of that may happen. Unforeseeable events and market conditions will
intervene, as they always do. Excessive leverage may finally get the better of the
credit markets. An asset bubble could pop. Or populist politics could cause a
Western nation�s economy to seize.

But,
overall, despite the risks, it is a good time to be a chief financial officer. A
potential corporate tax cut in the United States could boost many companies� bottom
lines. Technology will continue to slowly enable greater productivity in the
finance department. And federal regulators may loosen some of the red tape that
businesses think is choking growth.

Overall, it looks like, finance chiefs will have an abundance of �levers� they can
pull to influence business outcomes next year. But which ones will they use? The
choice is highly dependent, of course, on the businesses they run. But it is also
dependent, in part, on the swirl of macroeconomic factors mentioned above. In 2008,
for example, hardly any CFO of a financial institution would have stated �market
share growth through aggressive M&A� as their number one goal for that year