Blogs

American truckers have, for too long, had to handle crumbling infrastructure while working tirelessly to complete their routes. In November, the White House and Congress finally took action to rectify these conditions by signing the mega-bill Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) into law. The new bill, which could represent the largest investment in US infrastructure since the 1970s, may prove to be just what the industry needs. The Covid-19 pandemic sidelined many industries—but some, like the trucking industry, simply didn’t have the option to take a break. Traveling hundreds of...

The recently passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) has brought a sigh of relief to anyone involved in the construction industry. Over the last two year, this industry has been plagued by Covid strains, labor shortages, and a turbulent geopolitical landscape—all of which leave their mark and marring growth within the sector. Read more here as we discuss in detail the outlook for this industry. The world-changing events between 2020 and 2022 left their mark on every industry, construction included. Emerging Covid strains stunted new projects, labor shortages hindered ongoing ones...

Protecting your business from increasingly sophisticated fraud tactics is a challenge, especially in the continuing remote and hybrid working environment. As businesses have evolved their payment strategies and operational controls in this “new normal”, fraudsters are adapting to take advantage of vulnerabilities created in this changing landscape. Our bank experts share shifting fraud trends in the payment environment, fraudsters’ evolving sophisticated tactics, common types of fraud that may impact your business as well as best practices and steps you can take to mitigate risk and protect...

Managing a restaurant franchise in 2022 is like a high-wire juggling act. There are so many pieces to keep an eye on, and one wrong step can send an entire service crashing. As eating out resurges, one of the smartest moves you can make is to alleviate staffing concerns. Quick-service restaurants (QSRs) fell prone to any number of difficulties over the past several years, on account of the havoc brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. Perhaps the most challenging of these problems has been that, since services could resume at normal levels, QSRs have not been able to find employees! As consumers...

Is just-in-time manufacturing entirely to blame for the shipping crisis and ongoing supply chain issues? Experts seem torn on the matter. Ailing after World War II, Japan set its sights on rebuilding its industry sector with some help from its friends in the West. For the next 30 years, they experimented with different ways to utilize cash flow, real estate, labor, and resources to maximize profits. Then, Toyota pioneered the first iteration of just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing: the practice of making products to order, instead of managing an unwieldy inventory. Also sometimes referred to as a...