Market Watch

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) is now accepting proposals for funding from its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The SBIR Program awards contracts to small businesses across the country to spur research and commercialization of innovative transportation technologies in select research areas. The current SBIR Solicitation provides funding ranging from $150,000 to $200,000 for ten Phase I research topics. “Small businesses are essential to our economy, and this program plays an important role in advancing America’s economic competitiveness by supporting domestic small businesses while stimulating technological innovation that can improve our transportation systems and lead to further economic growth,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology Dr. Robert C. Hampshire. The SBIR program supports investments in transportation that improve the safety, sustainability, and resilience of the Nation’s transportation assets, and provides opportunities for small businesses to explore innovative technologies. The research topics selected for this year’s SBIR Solicitation address a variety of needs regarding advanced materials and structures; behavioral safety; and the safe transport of materials. Awards will be funded for projects in the following research areas: Federal Highway Administration Addressing Stormwater Runoff with a Self-Contained Portable Treatment System Traffic Monitoring and In Situ […]

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In the first quarter of a new business year, companies set sky-high goals, but most fall flat. Executives looking to take their businesses in a new direction should follow a proven formula to hit attainable milestones. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Business leaders are constantly setting lofty, impressive-looking goals for themselves and their companies. But what good are those goals if they’ve been thrown out the window within a couple of weeks? It’s time for business leaders to take charge and set intentions that can actually be achieved — not just high-minded ambitions that will fade away soon after. Instead of settling for vague directions, they should strive to make their objectives actionable and attainable with the right activities. Now more than ever, it’s essential for businesses to have tangible outcomes rather than empty promises. Let your managers manage Sitting in the C-suite brings its perks, but it also removes you from many of the day-to-day operations your company executes. Your team leaders, however, are in the trenches. While executives set the direction, they should require their team leaders to set the milestones. These critical front-line players have an intimate understanding of how their team performs […]

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Voice search is growing, and your business can utilize this important functionality to get more customers. Here’s how. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Voice search use is on the rise globally. Back in 2019, there were 2.45 billion voice assistants in the world. This number is expected to reach 8 billion by the end of 2023, which will be roughly equivalent to the global population. This rapid global increase in the number of voice assistants has created a new ecosystem that businesses can leverage to reach and connect with their ideal customers. And don’t forget the alarming number of smartphone users, search engine users and IoT devices — we are already living in the voice search era. But what does it mean for your business? How can your business leverage voice search for growth? What is voice search? Voice search lets users do a search via voice instead of text. Major search engines like Google and Bing allow users to run a search query through a voice command. This feature is available across devices and isn’t limited to smartphones. Search engines use automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology that converts voice signals into text, and then search […]

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How to Successfully Use Social Media: A Small Business Guide for Beginners Are you a small business owner or marketing manager, just getting started on building your social media strategy? Need to learn the basics before launching your first social media campaign? Who uses social media? What does social media do for you? Define your goals Targeting your audience Choosing a platform Social media metrics Check out the infographic below to learn more. How to Successfully Use Social Media: A Small Business Guide for Beginners

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J.B. Hunt corporate offices Executives with J.B. Hunt Transport, Simmons Foods, Tyson Foods and Walmart on Tuesday (Feb. 7) spoke about expansion plans at the winter meeting of the Northwest Arkansas Council held at the new Ledger building in downtown Bentonville. Walmart’s new home office campus has been under construction for roughly two years. Cindi Marsiglio, senior vice president of real estate at Walmart, is overseeing the massive campus build that encompasses roughly 9 city blocks, 12 office buildings and 10 community buildings with outdoor and indoor areas of recreation. She said there are as many as 800 people working on the building site daily at what she calls the “peak of nuisance stage” because of the lane and road closures around the mega block. “Please be patient with us through this time. We are on track to move into the building in 2025, two years from now, but it will take some time to bring everyone back on campus,” Marsiglio said. The first public building to open will be the Walton Whole Health & Fitness Center, a 360,000-square-foot facility that also intends to offer memberships to the public. She said the health & fitness center was originally a […]

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Executives will continue to grapple with a host of challenges during the 2020s, but from the maelstrom that was their first few years, new business opportunities will arise. “As we entered the 2020s, economies were already on the edge,” says Mark Raskino, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “A decade-long boom, generated substantially from inexpensive finance and lower-cost energy, led to structural stresses such as highly leveraged debt, crumbling international alliances and bubble-like asset prices. We were overdue for a reckoning.” Although COVID-19 was the visible impetus for the economic volatility we’ve seen the last several years, the reality is that the markets were already fragile and precarious. What we’ve found, though, is that actions you take now are critical to your success during a downturn and beyond. The most important? Decisions around the way you allocate resources and invest in growth. Success requires early, decisive action by every function in the organization to manage spend, secure talent and accelerate digital. Even before the events of 2020, global consumer and citizen trust was at an all-time low. Now, the ripple effects, such as supply chain and talent shortages , and overall brand mistrust demand a relentless focus on customer value […]

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MADRID, Feb 7 (Reuters) – Sabadell (SABE.MC) has picked Italian payments group Nexi (NEXII.MI) as the preferred bidder to acquire the Spanish bank’s retailers’ payments business, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. Nexi prevailed over rival Worldline (WLN.PA) after it submitted an offer worth around 400 million euros, one of the sources said. The business that handles shopowners’ payments is a source of stable income for banks, but technology advances and tight competition in the sector require hefty investments, prompting an increasing number of banks to dispose of all or part of it. Under the deal, Sabadell would retain an exclusive right to commercialize loans or execute financial transactions with the customers whose payments are set to be handled externally. Spun-off banking assets such as the point of sale (POS) business are attractive for investors because they carry lucrative long-term contracts with buyers that will continue to provide the externalised service. In Spain, Sabadell has a strong presence in payments, accounting for nearly 16.9% of the country’s overall POS revenue generated as of September. Its retailers payments business recorded sales of 47.5 billion euros in 2022 compared to 35.7 billion euros in 2021.

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Amazon Small Business Accelerator is helping European entrepreneurs, and is aligned with EU policy initiatives for SMEs. It’s been two years since we launched our free online educational program, the Amazon Small Business Accelerator. What began as a direct response to help European start-ups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) mitigate the impacts of the pandemic, has strengthened into an education tool to support any entrepreneur in building their business and developing digital skills to start selling both offline and online (on- or off-Amazon). It’s time to measure the impact of the program in the EU. We’re pleased to announce that the program has trained over 130,000 entrepreneurs over the last two years in Germany , France , Italy and Spain . To make this happen, we have invested over €7 million and worked with around 70 local partners to deliver not only e-learning content, but also dedicated events on key topics such as multi-channel commerce and building business resilience. The purpose of this program is in line with the policy objectives of the 2023 European Year of Skills , including helping SMEs to digitally transition by providing them with the relevant skills (the Digital Economy and Society Index […]

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Beyond popping up as talking heads on cable news, Wall Street analysts and economists serve an important purpose helping to guide the financial decisions of a wide array of investors — from average Americans worried about retirement to large institutions deciding where to put billions of dollars. At its best, Wall Street’s coterie of experts is supposed to translate the shifting sands of the economy into a cogent, useful investment view. I’ve been a sell-side economist for over 15 years, helping clients and the public understand the shape of the economy and what it means for the markets. I’ve always tried to be clear and allow the data to shape my thoughts , rather than fit it into my preconceived notions. But over the past few years, and especially since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, I’ve noticed that more and more analysts are relying on low-quality, prepackaged narratives to drum up fear about the direction of the economy and stock market. Admittedly, stocks haven’t done well over the last year , but instead of providing clients and the general public with clear-eyed views, a new ecosystem of hackneyed, alarmist analysts is relying on low-quality data to push people […]

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What Business Owners Need To Know To Get Rich getty Have you ever dreamed of becoming a business owner and achieving wealth? It’s not an impossible dream. In fact, the right strategies and determination can help you become financially successful as a business owner. As a business owner, you have been gifted with an opportunity that can change you and your family’s lives. With the right approach and knowledge, you can use your business to build wealth by properly using available tools and resources from government governing bodies, professional advisors, or even online tools. The best thing about this position is that it offers tremendous freedom and flexibility to choose your way to succeed. You need to stay informed about the current market trends and keep up with the changing regulations to take advantage of all the lucrative opportunities. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme, but with hard work, dedication and some fresh ideas, there’s no limit to what kind of wealth you can generate as a business owner. But what exactly does it take to get rich as a business owner? A plan for financial success The first step to building wealth as a business owner is having a […]

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