Chief financial officer wear a lot of hats. They oversee the treasury, monitor our markets and position our companies for the future. Here's another hat they should be wearing: that of the champion of supply chain resilience.

When the much-anticipated expansion of the Panama Canal is completed late next year, cargo ships the size of aircraft carriers will ferry goods from Latin America and Asia directly to East Coast ports and back. These ships - up to two-and-a-half times bigger than those currently allowed - will uproot trade patterns developed over the last century and will affect nearly every sector of the U.S. economy.

From self-driving cars, to intelligent assistants on smart phones, to IBM's Watson beating humans at Jeopardy, to potentially autonomous military weapons, the effects of increasingly sophisticated automation are undeniable. With leading companies like Google spending millions to acquire artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics start-ups, financial markets are also betting that AI will become a bigger part of our lives and society.

Bellwether retailers eBay and Wal-Mart have reduced their expectations of sales growth for the current fiscal year, blaming the lower outlooks, in part, on the stronger dollar.

For many companies, 2015 is looking rosy. The overall economy is finally accelerating out of the worst recession since the 1930s, helped in no small part by construction as the Construction Backlog Indicator (published by Associated Builders and Contractors) reached an all-time high in June.

The World Trade Organization has slashed its forecast for world trade growth in 2014 to 3.1 percent, citing weaker-than-expected gross domestic product growth and muted import demand in the first half of the year.

Emerging markets such as China and India offer the best trade prospects for U.S. businesses, with U.S. export growth to those countries expected to average 9 percent a year through 2030, according to a report from HSBC.

Is it wise to take advantage of early-payment discounts offered by suppliers? Or should you make other use of your cash until payment is due? There are lots of things to consider.

Thirty-seven percent of more than 5,000 respondents reported economic crime in their organizations, with the categories of bribery and corruption and cybercrime experiencing notable growth, according to PwC in its latest Global Economic Crime Survey.