Northwest Indiana Business Magazine

Northwest Indiana’s Leading Regional Business Magazine Since 1991

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Borrowing Online

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Choose carefully when deciding on a lending source. In today’s world, small business owners have increasing demands put on their time from customers, employees and suppliers. Because of this, they are constantly in search of ways to be efficient with their time to accomplish more each workday. One way that business owners save time and […]

Managing Digital Assets

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Business owners need to safeguard access to commercially valuable data. The late twentieth century composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein wrote his much anticipated memoir “Blue Ink,” leaving it hidden behind various levels of passwords. In the 26 years since his death, no one has been able to decrypt the manuscript. This is an example, albeit […]

Legal Liability Checklist

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A checklist for reducing the risk of liability. The New Year presents a great opportunity for small business owners to review their operations and implement procedures to reduce the risk of liability for the coming year. Business owners face the risk of liability on many fronts, whether from transactions with customers, government regulation, or claims […]

Buzz Points

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Loyalty program benefits financial institutions, merchants, members. by Phil Britt Financial institutions and local retailers and restaurants alike find themselves competing with much larger national companies for customers. For the local financial institutions, the need to attract and retain customers has never been more critical. The largest banks in the country control half of the […]

Death and Taxes

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There’s no reason that odd couple has to stay together. Benjamin Franklin reminded us that nothing is certain except death and taxes, and history proves him right. However, there is no rational reason the two should be linked and in fact much progress has been made in taking the tax sting out of death. Dead […]

Keying Into Customer Needs

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High-touch meets high-tech–personalization with less human interaction is keying into customer needs. by Phil Britt Over the past few years, banks have added mobile banking, enabling customers to deposit checks by taking pictures of them with smartphones. Banks have also extended their online banking offerings, so that customers can have more convenience to bank when […]

Rising Interest Rates

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The Fed is expected to make a move soon; what will the impact be? by Phil Britt The Federal Reserve is expected by many economic experts to hike interest rates as soon as September and perhaps again in December. The Fed took a pass on increasing the Federal funds rate at its June meeting, with […]

Black and Blue Over Purple

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NLRB’s decision related to email systems may trouble employers. by Jerry Lutkus Many employers have email policies that prohibit employees from using the company’s email for non-work purposes. If you have a no-tolerance policy, a recent decision of the National Labor Relations Board should cause you to take another look at it. The new decision […]

New Ways to Pay

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Mobile payment technologies nearly ready for prime time. by Phil Britt Consumers enter 2015 with a new payment option at some retailers–a mobile wallet that enables users to pay with their phone rather than swiping a credit or debit card, writing a check or using cash–but this alternate payment method is still in its very […]