Adaptive Planning, the fast-growing finance software vendor, introduced earlier this month the latest version of its offerings, which means that CEO Bill Soward is back speaking to members of the press corps.

To help keep the discussion focused on trends impacting the finance department, Soward stopped by and reviewed with us, as he frequently does, the results of a recent survey of finance professionals conducted by Adaptive Planning and an “impartial” partner known until fairly recently as BPM Forum.

The forum appears to be run by Global Fluency, the same public relations outfit that scheduled Adaptive’s CEO to speak with us, which means that the survey questions may not be as impartial as we like. But Soward is always candid. more

Like most top insurance executives, Edward J. Bonach, CFO of CNO Financial Group, has lately spent a good deal of time trying to discern the business impact of President Obama’s healthcare reform law. However, unlike many other senior executives, Bonach has identified what he believes to be an upside to the Obama reforms – a silver lining from which CNO’s market focus on middle-income families and seniors could benefit. Here’s what CNO’s finance leader told us:

Bonach: First of all, we believe that the reforms are neutral to positive for our business. The main reason I say that is that our market focus is 65-year-olds and older, and it’s our opinion that due to the healthcare reforms, Medicare is going to be cut back. This means that there will be more of a gap that needs to be supplemented. The Medicare supplement products that we offer will be even more needed and on average be a larger policy because of the gap growing. more