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Food delivery technology is evolving quickly
Bambi Majumdar Food & BeverageA new development at the George Mason University campus in Fairfax, Virginia, heralds an interesting turn for the food delivery industry. Students, staff, and faculty on campus can now order food and drinks with the help of robots. A strategic partnership between robotics firm Starship Technologies and food service giant Sodexo has created the Starship Deliveries app, which promises to change the future of food delivery, especially on college campuses. But George Mason is not the only campus to make news in this regard.
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CVS Health to give $100 million to take on the social determinants of health
Scott E. Rupp Medical & Allied HealthcareSocial determinants of health are conditions in the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. According to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, conditions in these various environments and settings have been referred to as "place." In addition to the more material attributes of "place," the patterns of social engagement and sense of security and well-being are also affected by where people live. Following on this impact, and CVS Health's $69 billion acquisition of Aetna, the company announced that it will give $100 million over the next five years to improve community health.
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Evidence continues to show that youth e-cigarette use is growing
Dr. Denise A. Valenti Medical & Allied HealthcareYet another survey is demonstrating that teenagers are adopting the use of electronic cigarettes at an alarming rate. One of the latest, released in December 2018, is called "Monitoring the Future." It was administered by the University of Michigan and was given to 14,000 eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders across the United States. Other risk behaviors monitored in the survey, such as opioid use, binge drinking, and conventional cigarette use, either remained level or declined. The use of nicotine vaping products showed the largest and most significant increase in any category since the survey began in 1975.
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3 steps to monetizing your data through customer intelligence
Andrew Wells and Kathy Chiang MarketingHow intelligent is your company about your customer? Do you know enough about them in order to create a personalized customer experience? Understanding your customer through deep intelligence enables you to drive the right actions and experiences that can make the difference in your ability to compete in the marketplace and win with the customer. In today’s world, competing on price alone cannot win at checkout. To achieve a better yield on your marketing spend, we recommend creating customer intelligence analytical solutions that provide your company with a variety of ways to monetize your customer. Here is a three-step approach to building a customer intelligence analytical solution.
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Clean-beverage sector to grow in 2019
Bambi Majumdar Food & BeverageWhen it comes to beverages, clean is the new choice for consumers everywhere. Savvy, label-reading consumers take time to choose food products with cleaner labels and ingredients and are quick to shift loyalties if the products do not meet their criteria. Beverage makers have rightly read this changing consumer mindset and risen to the challenge of crafting cleaner and more organic formulations in future. For example, almost 50 percent of consumers prefer no artificial ingredients in their choice of beverage, and 71 percent of consumers are willing to pay more for beverages made with ingredients they know and trust.
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U.S. economy adds 304,000 jobs in January as unemployment climbs to 4 percent
Seth Sandronsky Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementThe widely watched U.S. employment report for January is positive in spite of the partial federal government shutdown that spanned most of the month. Nonfarm employers added 304,000 jobs in January versus 312,000 new hires in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The January rate of unemployment rose to 4.0 percent from December’s 3.9 percent "potentially because furloughed government workers and contractors were counted as jobless in the household survey," according to Elise Gould, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
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Study: Oral-B Glide dental floss may contain harmful chemical
Scott E. Rupp Oral & Dental HealthcarePotentially harmful chemicals often used for their water and grease resistance, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), may be harmful to our health and in common household items, including Oral-B Glide dental floss, according to a peer-reviewed study. The floss might lead to higher levels of toxic PFAS chemicals in people’s bodies. Perhaps somewhat shockingly, the researchers say they found higher levels of PFHxS (perfluorohexanesulfonic acid), a type of PFAS, in women who flossed with Oral-B Glide compared to those who didn't. The study was designed to explain how these chemicals enter the human body.
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Negotiating commercial leases: Reduce your square footage
Dale Willerton and Jeff Grandfield RetailFor many commercial tenants, negotiating a good lease or lease renewal against an experienced agent or landlord can be a challenge. While an entrepreneur focuses on marketing and managing, savvy real estate agents and brokers are specialized salespeople. Their job is to sell tenants on leasing their location at the highest possible rental rate. Whether you are leasing a new location for the first time or negotiating a lease renewal for your business, here are two money-saving tips.
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3 ways to better manage retail sales staffing
Catherine Iste RetailThe best business schools have always praised two things: efficiency and numbers. So, in retail, when sales go down, it makes sense to cut staff and hours, right? And from this "cut" mindset, we look for minimums: how few people do we need to stay open? What other costs can we cut to save money? Then, when we look at the bottom line, we see results from doing this and continue the same behaviors. However, this approach is not sustainable, and it excludes consideration of critical data that is less easy to measure but just as impactful on the bottom line.
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Fire fast, even in an employee market
Catherine Iste Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementPay is up. Jobs are increasing. And the opportunities of the gig economy continue to unsettle traditional job paths. None of this changes the fact that it is better for culture, retention and the bottom line to fire fast. But how do we balance the imperative to fire fast with the more basic need to have staff? Here are a few tips on how to fire fast, even in an employee market.
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