New York SBDC Research Network

Excerpt of an article by Kristin Manganello, To read more visit Thomasnet Sustainability initiatives — which focus on promoting and expanding healthy business systems by addressing various environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors — have become a key focus for consumers and businesses alike. The ultimate goal of implementing sustainable practices is to ensure that the global business community is eco-friendly, socially responsible, inclusive, easier to predict, and financially successful for all involved parties. Because sustainability is often associated with high implementation costs, there is a common misconception that the expenses outweigh the benefits. For this reason, many companies are still resistant to introduce these practices into their business models. But working toward more sustainable processes offers more than just environmental benefits and a boosted company reputation; opportunities abound for fiscal savings and increased profit margins as well. A Pe...

Excerpt from an article by Krista Garcia To read more, visit eMarketer Despite persistent gloom and doom surrounding the retail industry, the first half of the year has been positive for most product categories. According to the newly released monthly retail sales report from the US Census Bureau, for H1 2018, retail sales (excluding auto parts and gasoline) totaled $2.06 billion, up 4.9% year over year. With the exception of sporting goods, which shrunk 1.7%, and department stores that stayed flat, all other segments experienced growth in H1 2018. Furniture and home goods (5.3%) and apparel (5.1%) saw the biggest gains. Now par for the course, ecommerce outperformed total retail with 10.0% gains during H1 2018 compared with the same time last year.

Written by Tim Berry Read more at Bplans It happens all the time. You take your team away from the routine for a few hours, brainstorm, and develop a brilliant new strategy for your business. And when you all get back into the routine, the routine wins and strategy loses. Nothing changes. The plan was brilliant on the whiteboard but never got to the real world. What happened? Your business strategy is useless without execution. Don’t leave that whiteboard without developing key tactics. Make sure the execution tactics you choose are directly in service of your strategic goal. For every action you take, you should be able to say how it relates to your overall business strategy.

Written by Krista Garcia For more, go to eMarketer : It's logical to assume consumers might lose trust in a company after a data breach or misuse of personal information. But many businesses vastly underestimate the severity of these security mishaps in the eyes of their consumers. An April 2018 CA Technologies and Frost & Sullivan study demonstrates this perception gap. They aggregated variables like consumer willingness to share personal information online and the belief that companies protect their information to come up with a digital trust score ranked on a scale of 0 to 100. US internet users gave businesses a trust score of 61, the same as the global average. But businesses gave themselves an average score of 75 when asked if consumers trusted them. This is important because levels of trust correlate to spending. Consumers across all levels of trust—low, moderate and high—increased spending in the past 12 months, but low-trust consumers decreased spending by large...

Excerpt from an article by Krista Garcia To read more, visit  eMarketer "Amazon Go got a lot of attention, but it could be downplayed since there was only one small store near the company’s headquarters in Seattle. Could it even scale? That looks like a tentative "yes" as Amazon appears to be expanding the convenience store concept to Chicago and San Francisco. Walmart's answer, Scan & Go, debuted in August 2017 and worked with in-store devices or an app on a shopper's smartphone. However, it was reported that the retailer had shelved this trial. According to CBC News, after rolling out this service to about 120 US locations over eight months ago, the adoption rates were still low. The goal was to provide convenience, but it appears customers didn’t like scanning and bagging their own items. There has always been a degree of skepticism about self-checkout, whether because it’s too complicated, shopper preference for human interaction or resistance to ...

From the Census Bureau Women-owned employer firms in the United States increased by approximately 2.8 percent in 2016 to 1,118,863 from 1,088,466 in 2015, according to findings from the U.S. Census Bureau’s  2016 Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs . The data also shows that women-owned approximately 20.0 percent (1,118,863) of all employer businesses (5,601,758) nationwide. Additionally, about one-quarter (289,326 or 25.9 percent) of all women-owned employer firms were minority owned. More than half (approximately 153,177 or 52.9 percent) of these minority women-owned firms were Asian -owned.  The  Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs  provides a demographic portrait of the nation’s employer businesses by gender, ethnicity, race and veteran status. Tables released today provide estimates on the number of firms, receipts, payroll and employment for the nation, the states and the District of Columbia, and the 50 most populous metropolitan statistical areas. The Annual Survey o...

Excerpt from an article by Jackie Dana To read more, visit  NameCheap "Every business needs happy customers and clients to be successful. From repeat business to word of mouth, satisfied customers sustain your business and help it to grow. But not every customer or client is going to be happy all the time. Your quest, should you choose to accept it, is to view each complaint you receive as an opportunity to build your business and improve your customer relationships. Let’s take a look at how you can transform your angry customers into your biggest fans and become their hero."