Smith Research

Barring an unusually high bill, most of us pay our utility bills and don’t think much else of it. What many of us don’t know is utility companies, already low margin businesses, need to be highly efficient in reading our utility meters every billing cycle in order to avoid unnecessary costs.

Feeling comfortable enough to speak up and share your ideas and opinions at work is usually a good thing – that’s the environment most organizations should want to encourage. But some managers who solicit input might not give employees who do so enough credit, finds new research from Maryland…

When companies make decisions, it’s not just shareholders they must consider – employees, suppliers, communities and governments are affected too. And new research is showing that firms that don’t factor all stakeholders into the equation are missing out.

What’s the difference between prime institutional money market funds sponsored by bank holding companies (BHCs) and those funds that aren’t? Money market funds backed by these holding companies have an inherent safety net, according to research from Maryland Smith.

Imagine a future where 3-D printing is done in the back of a truck instead of a factory or a lab. The same truck is driverless, eliminating the risk of drivers getting tired and causing delays or accidents en route.

Running into a one-way or no-left-turn street can be pretty frustrating as a driver. It’s an even bigger problem for vehicles responsible for mapping streets as well. But new research from Maryland Smith has a solution.

Imagine a world where your deliveries are always on time and your food is never cold. Restaurants are able to coordinate when to cook orders and apps are able to efficiently assign drivers multiple orders or even ask customers picking up an order if they would be willing to drop off an order with…

In the workplace, success sometimes comes down to how competitive you are. And sometimes it comes down to how competitive the people are who are advocating on your behalf.

Firms are more likely to face accounting-related lawsuits for overstating their earnings or assets than for understating them because it’s easier to demonstrate investor harm with overstatements. So erring on the conservative side can reduce a firm’s legal costs.

“People analytics” – traceable to 1911’s The Principles of Scientific Management, which sought to apply engineering methods to managing people – has exploded with advances in computer power, statistical methods and artificial intelligence (AI).