Grocer Hy-Vee has awarded $50,000 to six Minnesota businesses owned by members of underrepresented groups following a pitch competition at its OpportUNITY Inclusive Business Summit. The grand prize of $30,000 went to a female-owned company that created a warming and massaging bra to complement a breast-milk pump.

Walmart is pushing back against proposed supplier rate hikes following multiple increases over the past year even as the cost of cardboard, raw materials and transportation declined. "Because the consumer is now under more pressure, and Walmart is under pressure, that sets up a dynamic where there's probably not a lot of pricing going forward," said Rod Little, CEO of Edgewell Personal Care, which makes Schick razors and counts Walmart as its largest customer.

In this Q&A, SupplyPro CEO Floyd Miller discusses the company's UStockit system for product vending, which offers machines on a subscription basis, eliminating capital costs for distributors. "As smaller distributors are pressured to evaluate digital productivity tools to remain competitive, they recognize that adopting these technologies can be complex, expensive and disruptive to their business," Miller says. "Our goal is to make it easy for them and lower their risk."

Radio frequency identification tags and real-time locating systems are gaining favor as viable tools for warehouse data collection, with the former predicted to grow 25.7% between 2021 and 2030, according to Allied Market Research. These newer systems offer unique perks but still have some limitations and are expected to supplement but not replace popular bar codes for the foreseeable future, say experts.

Schneider CEO Mark Rourke said the company is first deploying electric trucks at ports and intermodal facilities before the EVs hit the open road. "We're going to be operating those in and out of railheads for intermodal customers, and so we'll start with five taking this month and will be up to about that hundred number by the time we get through the calendar year," Rourke said.

Business-to-business marketers can drive growth by analyzing data to find their most valuable customers and using that information to "clone" them, advises Shift7 Digital's Iris Kelley. Artificial intelligence can speed up the process by crunching data and creating predictive audience models to help marketers and salespeople target messaging, Kelley explains.

If your "first line of code" is broken -- meaning if your mindset is negative -- you'll struggle as a leader because you'll keep sabotaging yourself before you reach success, says professor and consultant Jamie Turner. "So manage the input to make sure what you put in your brain is appropriate, good, healthy, positive, optimistic ... then ultimately over the course of time you'll see your life getting better and better on both the personal side and the business side," Turner says.

You can exude confidence in meetings -- even if you're not -- by choosing a position in the room that puts you in the middle of the action, leaning in during conversations and speaking up when appropriate, writes executive coach Joel Garfinkle. "You're an expert in your area and the best means you have to get your point across is in your own voice, and with conviction," Garfinkle writes.