Keep up with Region 5

The upcoming Small Business Saturday, November 28th, has taken on even more importance this year. This year, the stakes are high for success. The sustainability of our local business community depends upon a vibrant core of small business owners. We encourage you to be intentional about purchases and shop loca...Continue Reading

It’s a pretty safe bet that most of us don’t remember our first wobbly steps as a toddler, but when it comes to riding a bike, pretty much everyone remembers the thrill of the first perilous time when they let go of the training wheels and stayed upright, even i...Continue Reading

Few implications of the COVID-19 pandemic are as consequential to global manufacturers as disruptions to their supply chains. For many, this is the most consequential by far. Supply chains are always a work in progress as such market variables as transportation costs, tariffs and trade agreements force logistics managers t...Continue Reading

AD: Will more companies be re-shoring or near-shoring as a result of the global pandemic? Jensen: For certain, most companies are closely examining the options available to them to avoid future supply chain interruptions. Part of the challenge of making a decision on a future sourcing direction is that this story isn’t over...Continue Reading

In times of economic struggle — such as the recession that abruptly arrived with the COVID-19 pandemic — analysts and advocates promote an array of options as effective tools for stimulating the economy. One of the most frequently suggested options is infrastructure spending. Proponents of infrastructure spending during dire economi...Continue Reading

Somewhere between your umpteenth Zoom meeting of the month and the latest webinar on the economic impacts of COVID-19, this thought probably crossed your mind: “How long will I be working from home?” While an exact answer to that question still eludes most companies, the effects of remote working are startin...Continue Reading

As the coronavirus pandemic disrupted global supply chains, a new report released in April by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) urged the U.S. government to develop a national industrial strategy to strengthen the competitive position of advanced, traded-sector industries that are “too critical to fail.” “Even before this pandemic...Continue Reading

The Brookings Institution hosted a webinar on June 10 titled “Mitigating the Economic Impacts of COVID-19 in Rural Areas.” Moderator Tracy Hadden Loh, a Brookings Institution Fellow, engaged three experts on rural economies in looking back at the pandemic’s effect on two small towns and across rural America, and ho...Continue Reading

Beset by the COVID-19 pandemic and its recessionary shocks, companies across the globe are paring workforces at alarming rates. In the United States alone, some 40 million workers had filed jobless claims by the end of May, with the biggest losses occurring in the leisure and hospitality, professional business services...Continue Reading

The Covid-19 Black Swan has completely disrupted the U.S. and global infrastructure market, magnifying the cracks in the global infrastructure investment model. The magnitude of the problem is significant, but so is the opportunity. The International Finance Corporation sees emerging market domestic private investment declining by $700 billion this year ove...Continue Reading

While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to create an environment of unpredictability, the one certainty is that the way in which people previously commuted to their jobs — and the way in which goods and services were traditionally delivered — is likely changed forever. It is still too early to predict th...Continue Reading

Throughout August and September, Twin Cities Business is hosting online conversations with executives from each of the 10 companies that received our 2020 Minnesota Manufacturing Excellence Awards. You can register here for free to join us live at noon every Tuesday and Thursday through Sept. 15. And if you missed one, catch up now: Protolabs Protolabs presiden...Continue Reading

As part of a new series Comparably has in partnership with Entrepreneur, entitled “If I Knew Then: Leadership Lessons,” I have the privilege of hosting virtual fireside chats with high-profile CEOs of major brands, from Waze and Blue Apron to NerdWallet and the Dallas Mavericks. During our one-hour sit-downs, I ask these incredible leaders to share invaluable lessons that the...Continue Reading

The city of Little Falls recently welcomed 20 new ice cream flavors to town with the grand opening of the Lindy Scoop Ice Cream Shoppe, Aug. 28. Featuring flavors from a standard vanilla or a sweet maple nut to more unique flavors like caramel collision, coconut explosion, pirate’s bounty and jumpin...Continue Reading

Women’s entrepreneurship has been dramatically on the rise in America during the past decade. There are now 12.3 million women-owned businesses in in the U.S., according to a report by American Express and SCORE. The average annual revenues of women-owned companies rose 68% in 2019, to $384,359 from $228,578 i...Continue Reading

Effective hiring and retention practices are key to effective leadership. The reality is that managers that hire well and that are able to keep talented employees produce better results. Replacing employees is time-consuming, expensive, and disruptive. Plus, when an employee leaves, it can impact the entire team and cause a rippl...Continue Reading

With 700 million users, LinkedIn provides a massive opportunity for businesses to increase sales leads and revenue. In this video, the creator and host of “The Startup Story” shares tips for leveraging LinkedIn to start conversations with cold contacts, namely: Research, learning more about the contact you’re reaching out to from their profile as well as other socia...Continue Reading

As discussed in the first article of our series on Hidden Biases in the Workplace, we all have biases. It is critical that you are aware of your biases, especially when recruiting for your company. Humans make decisions every 2.5 seconds: Should I get out of bed or hit snooze one more time...Continue Reading

When Hennepin County Commissioner Jan Callison thinks of the long saga known as the Southwest Light Rail Project, she said she thinks of the movie “The Princess Bride.” The Princess Bride? Specifically, the scene when Westley’s friends think he is dead and bring him to see the character Miracle Max, played b...Continue Reading

It’s almost as if the Minnesota State Fair is actually happening. The Fine Arts Exhibition will open in its usual place on the fairgrounds – with limited capacity (of audience, not art), but still. You’ll have to reserve a time slot and buy a ticket ($10). The first five nights (Thursday, Aug...Continue Reading

If you or your clients have incentives contracts, now is the time to examine your incentive agreements to understand the potential risks if your company is unable to perform key obligations. The first step in any crisis is to determine exactly what the problem is. Review your incentive agreements to confir...Continue Reading

Indemnification provisions are an important part of the fine print of many contracts. These clauses generally operate to protect one party against the other party’s actions or failures to act that lead to a loss claimed by a third party (not a party to the contract). A common example i...Continue Reading

The last several years of corporate site selection have been influenced by many trends. Among these are corporate tax cuts, a red-hot industrial real estate market, the explosion of e-commerce, increasing trade protectionism, record economic growth and, in a stunning reversal, a global health pandemic and recession. It seems th...Continue Reading

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the risks inherent in the global supply chain, particularly the worldwide reliance on China for medical supplies. The supply chain turbulence experienced during the pandemic undoubtedly will impact future business decisions, extending beyond medicine to other industries, including electronics, aerospace, automobiles, defense, consumer products, and technology. Incentivizin...Continue Reading