The News Tribune Business Team will keep you updated on what's happening in the South Sound and beyond. Check here for news about economic development, aerospace, shopping and much more.
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Contributors
Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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The University of Washington Business School today published its inagural Washington Minority Small Business Survey – chronicling the characteristics, growth prospects and challenges of minority-owned busiensses in the state. Focusing on companies owned by African Americans, Asian/Pacific Islanders and Latinos/Hispanics, the survey found there are 561,300 small businesses in Washington – of which Asians own 5.7 percent; Hispanics own 2 percent; and Blacks own 1.4 percent. Among minority-owned businesses, 71.5 percent are owned by men and 28.5 percent by women.
Among trends identified by the survey, researchers found:
• 48 percent of the firms recently made capital investments.
• Nearly 50 percent have recently purchased new technology.
• More than 43 percent funded worker training in the last quarter of 2006.
• Between 20 percent and 30 percent were hiring new employees in the fist quarter of 2007.
Challenges outlined in Friday’s report included:
• 14 percent to 17 percent of the firms report they cannot get required financing.
• State businesses said competition with bigger companies is their greatest concern, whereas taxes present the greatest concern nationally.
• Among 40 percent of minority business owners who felt the business climate would be OK to poor this year, 50 percent identified sales prospects as the greatest worry.
For a full look at the survey, visit http://bschool.washington.edu/bedc/msbs-may07.pdf.
It took consumers longer than expected to latch on to online grocery shopping. But more of them seem to be buying milk and tomatoes through store Web sites.
The once-maligned online grocery business is helping supermarkets stave off competition, boost margins and gain customer loyalty, thestreet.com reports today.
Much has changed since dot-com excess poster child Webvan went out of business in 2001. Large chains such as Safeway and Albertson's have online service available in various markets – and surprisingly, these businesses actually add to the bottom line.
Rich Tarrant, CEO of MyWebGrocer, which builds infrastructure for online grocers, says that data from shoppers using loyalty cards show that online customers spend 21% more with the supermarket because they're using the online services for their big weekly purchases but still going to the store to replenish items such as milk and eggs. The convenience factor of the online business builds loyalty to that particular store, Tarrant says.
A delegation of more than 50 government and business leaders from China are making Washington their first stop today. The group is here looking for investment opportunities.
They meet this afternoon with Puget Sound business leaders, including representatives from the port of Tacoma and Seattle and the state's Community, Trade and Economic Development department.
The seminar-style event will run from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Sheraton on Sixth Avenue in Seattle.
Senior Airbus executives are warning that aircraft deliveries could be delayed if wildcat strikes at some of its plants don't end soon.
The company has been able to maintain its planned production rate until now, but the strikes could begin to take their toll soon because the production lines could be running out of critical assemblies.
European aerospace workers have been holding work stoppages to protest Airbus' planned layoffs of some 10,000 workers in a plan to stem the company's losses from the Airbus A380 production foul-ups.
The big pieces of Boeing's first 787 Dreamliner are beginning to arrive at the company's Everett assembly plant.
Today a modified 747 Dreamlifter will deliver two rear sections and the forward nose section of the composite plane to Everett from South Carolina and Kansas.
Those three pieces are the latest parts of the first plane to arrive in Everett. When the Dreamliner production line is running at full pace, the company's assembly teams are supposed to be able to pop the pieces, gathered from Japan, Italy, South Carolina, Kansas and Frederickson and other places around the globe in just three days. But since this is the first time they've put all these parts together it's likely to take a little longer.
The first 787 is scheduled to debut on July 8 (7/8/07) and make its first flight late in August with delivery of the first aircraft in the spring of 2008.
Much is riding on the timely assembly of the plane after Airbus' embarrassing debacle with the failure to deliver its A380 superjumbo jetliner on time.
