Business Insights

The City of Chicago is the largest city in the state of Illinois, with an estimated population of 2.7 million people and is the third largest city in the United States behind New York City and Los Angeles. Chicago also employs the second-largest police force in the US:  the city counts more than 13,000 officers across 24 different districts throughout the city.[i]

In an effort to improve how vendors do business with the federal government, the General Service Administration (GSA) announced it will be consolidating ten federal websites into one single site. The sites that will be merged include:

When New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo started his new term, one of his goals was to improve the condition of the state’s infrastructure. In 2019 he proposed $150 billion to fund infrastructure projects for the next five years that would help create 675,000 jobs.[i]

The state of Minnesota is considered a leader in the U.S. healthcare industry. Home to 143 hospitals and employing more than 121,000 healthcare workers (and also a hub for the medical device industry), Minnesota is renowned for quality healthcare and breakthrough medical innovations. The state is home to the Mayo-Clinic, ranked as the best hospital in the United States by US News and World Report and which has a state economic impact of roughly $9.6 billion. The hospital also welcomes more than one million domestic and international patients every year. [i]

The U.S. Interstate Highway System was created 60 years ago. Today, many experts agree that the nation’s highways are in deplorable condition and in dire need of repairs. The U.S. has not undertaken any major infrastructure projects since the days of the Eisenhower administration.[i]

In today’s world, it seems that cyberattacks are just a part of everyday life. Often we hear about various data breaches affecting financial institutions, social media accounts and even consumer products that connect to Wi-Fi. However cyberattacks aren’t something new, they have been happening for a long time. The very first cyberattack happened in 1988 by a Cornell University student named Robert Tappan Morris; Morris was curious to know how large the internet was so he created a program that moved from computer to computer sending back information on each. The program, known as a “worm” affected about ten percent of all the computers connected to the internet [i] and caused millions of dollars in damages. Although Morris’ intentions weren’t malicious, his actions did create a major problem that was expensive to fix.

The financial and professional services sector is one of the top industries in the United States. In 2017 the industry had a “GDP value added of $1.159 trillion which is equivalent to 8% of the total GDP.”[i] The industry encompasses multiple sectors which include: finance, insurance, law and accounting.

The Lone Star state is probably best known for petroleum, natural gas and farming, but the telecommunications industry has enjoyed rapid growth within the state of Texas in recent years. Telecommunications is an industry that is expected to continue to grow due to high demand for products and services that support the development wireless internet and high speed fiber-optic networks. Texas has become a hot spot for companies operating in these sectors, especially in the city of Dallas. Dallas is “known as a center for telecommunications manufacturing employment in the United States,”[i]  and counts more than 600 telecom-related companies operating in the area.[ii]

Did you know that Oklahoma is the sixth largest oil-producing state in the US? In fact, some of the nation’s largest gas and oil fields are located within the “Sooner state” and more than 8 percent of the United States’ proven natural gas reserves are in Oklahoma.[i]

Known as the “Sunshine State”, Florida is a preferred destination for those who are looking for fun in the sun. Not everyone knows, however, that Florida has become a leading state in the field of medical device and equipment manufacturing and distribution. Florida has the second-highest number of FDA-registered medical device manufacturers in the US and over 1,000 biotech, pharmaceutical and medical device companies currently operate in the state. More than$1 billion is invested in life sciences research and development every year by Florida universities and nearly 19,000 residents work in the medical device manufacturing industry.[i]