Business Surveys

​Apprenticeships play a crucial role in supporting the development of business-ready skills for youth and in realizing goals of inclusive economic growth and an equitable transition to a more sustainable world. As U.S. policy makers’ attention increasingly turns to apprenticeships as an important tool in addressing the challenges of matching skills with jobs, many companies are already exploring initiatives to create apprenticeship programs to support the development of business-ready skills for youth.

Distributed energy resources (DER) continue to drive change within the electric industry as both energy consumers and electric service providers are diversifying how electricity is generated and delivered. Spawned by the public embrace of clean energy, falling prices, and regulatory subsidies, solar photovoltaics, battery energy storage, and microgrids are being deployed in more places across the electric system.

As today’s workforce continues to evolve, professionals across generations cite inclusion as a key factor in determining whether they join, stay, or leave an organization.

Points of Light, the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service, has released a new report, “Inspiring and Leading in Times of Change: Insights and Best Practices from The 2017 Civic 50.” The Civic 50 provides a national standard for superior corporate citizenship and showcases how companies can use their time, skills and other resources to improve the quality of life in the communities where they do business.

Amid interwoven and oft-cited concerns about reliability, cybersecurity, funding and aging infrastructure, this year’s survey results again reveal that electric industry leaders view risk-based planning, long-term budgeting and preventive maintenance as key to ensuring that asset health and reliability are sustained.

Data analytics has changed the way we view operations, performance, and student outcomes. As Southern New Hampshire University President Paul L. LeBlanc, mentions in the latest chapter of President to President, “Engineering a 21st Century Higher Educational Model: Guidelines for Leading the Work,” understanding data can be an important step in meeting the needs and expectations of today’s students.

The federal government has long played a central role in shaping U.S. energy independence and security. Today, however, we stand at an inflection point where states, municipal governments and even corporations are stepping up to become the primary drivers of the future of clean energy.

While the White House’s plans for a $1 trillion federal infrastructure program continue to coalesce, one recent estimate puts the depreciated value of the American electric infrastructure—including power plants, transmission lines, distribution lines, substations and transformers—at around $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, with a replacement value of $4.8 trillion.

For water utilities, information is power. View expert insights on on data analytics, water infrastructure and customer engagement and more from 2017 Strategic Directions: Water Industry Report.

A new administration has vowed to roll back numerous environmental regulations aimed at reducing the nation’s carbon footprint. Does this give power providers new impetus to rewrite their long-term planning? This year’s Strategic Directions: Electric Industry Report finds this isn’t necessarily the case.