• Payroll outsourcing is also a key area for consideration among small and midsize businesses that are often underserved by larger, more-strategic forms of BPO.
• Benefits administration, payroll and basic HR call center functions are good candidates for process standardization in internal-shared service centers.
• The internal staff is the biggest competitor to external HR BPO providers. Fear of losing control is a major obstacle to BPO adoption.

• Private wage and salary disbursements increased $33.9 billion in July, compared with an increase of $32.8 billion in June.
• Supplements to wages and salaries increased $8.1 billion in July, compared with an increase of $6.9 billion in June.
• Rental income of persons increased $2.5 billion in July, in contrast to a decrease of $5.7 billion in June.
• Personal outlays -- PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments increased $79.7 billion in July, compared with an increase of $41.0 billion in June. 
• Personal saving -- DPI less personal outlays -- was a negative $83.5 billion in July, compared with a negative $67.6 billion in June. 
• Real DPI -- DPI adjusted to remove price changes -- increased 0.3 percent in July, compared with an increase of 0.4 percent in June.
• PCE price index -- The PCE price index increased 0.3 percent in July, compared with an increase of 0.1 percent in June. The PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 0.1 percent, compared with an increase of 0.2 percent.

August's performance compares to a 3.5 percent increase in July and a revised 3.0 percent gain in June.

• Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said its same-store sales rose 2.7% in August
• Target reported a 2.8% increase, falling short of the 3.1% gain expected by analysts
• J.C. Penney said its same-store sales declined 0.5%
• Kohl's reported 5.2% same-store sales increase, surpassing the 3.1% gain analysts had expected
• Luxury retailers Neiman Marcus Group Inc. delivered a solid 4.4% same-store sales gain, and Nordstrom Inc. reported a 7.1% gain 
• Back-to-school sales sizzled at a few hot teen chains. Abercrombie & Fitch posted a 6% same-store sales increase. American Eagle Outfitters notched an 11% gain, while Bebe Stores saw a 12.5% increase. (WSJ)

• Nationally, 2005 marked the first year since 1999 in which real median household income showed an annual increase.
• The Northeast had the highest household income of all four regions ($50,882) in 2005, followed by the West ($50,002) and the Midwest ($45,950). Households in the South had the lowest median income ($42,138).
• Real median income rose by 3.3 percent to $42,040 in 2005 for foreign-born households and remained statistically unchanged for native households ($46,897).
• There were 37 million people in poverty (12.6 percent) in 2005. Both the number and rate were statistically unchanged from 2004 and marked the end of four consecutive years of increases in the poverty rate (2001-2004).

Quarterly US corporate profits increased for the third consecutive quarter, resulting in year-over-year growth of 20.5%, according to the "preliminary" estimates released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The growth rate reflected a 27.8% rise in profits of financial corporations and a 15.6% increase in profits of nonfinancial corporations. Corporate profits (with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments) stood at a seasonally adjsuted annual rate of $1,618.6 billion in the second quarter, an increases of $49.5 billion from Q1'06. 

Dividends increased $15.4 billion, compared with an increase of $14.7 billion in the first quarter; current- production undistributed profits increased $7.6 billion, compared with an increase of $128.5 billion.

Domestic profits of financial corporations increased $34.7 billion in the second quarter, compared with an increase of $51.4 billion in the first. Domestic profits of nonfinancial corporations increased $5.6 billion in the second quarter, compared with an increase of $94.5 billion in the first.

The rest-of-the-world component of profits increased $9.1 billion in the second quarter, compared with an increase of $29.8 billion in the first.

The economy grew at an annual rate of 2.9% in the second quarter of 2006, compared with 5.6% in the first quarter, according to the "preliminary" estimates released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The growth rate was revised up 0.4 percentage point from the "advance" estimates released in July. BEA also released its first estimate of second-quarter corporate profits, which increased 20.5% from the same quarter a year ago.

The deceleration in second-quarter GDP growth primarily reflected a deceleration in consumer spending on durable goods, a downturn in investment in equipment and software, and a downturn in Federal government spending. The upward revision from the advance estimates reflected revisions to exports of goods, investment in nonresidential structures, and inventory investment.

Excluding food and energy prices, the price index for gross domestic purchases increased 2.9% in the second quarter, compared with an increase of 3.0% in the first.

Current-dollar GDP -- the market value of the nation's output of goods and services -- increased 6.3%, or $201.3 billion, in the second quarter to a level of $13,209.7 billion. In the first quarter, current-dollar GDP increased 9.0%, or $277.9 billion.

According to a new report from Trust for America's Health (TFAH), adult obesity rates continued to rise in 31 states over the past year.

In nationwide rankings, Mississippi was the heaviest state, with an adult obesity rate of 29.5%, followed by Alabama and West Virginia. Colorado was the least heavy state, with an adult obesity rate of 16.9%. Obesity rates remained the same in 18 states and Washington, D.C. All states fail to meet the national goal of reducing adult obesity levels to 15% or less by the year 2010.

Regionally, the South was found to be the "Biggest Belt" and is home to nine out of the 10 states with the highest obesity rates. The southern region is also home to nine of the 10 states with the highest rates of diabetes and hypertension, two major health problems often associated with obesity.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly two-thirds of adult Americans are either overweight or obese. Childhood overweight rates have more than tripled from 1980 to 2004, from 5 to 17%.

Chapter 11 filings totaled 6,224 as of June 30, 2006, down 7.1 from the 6,703 filings for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2005.

Of the total number of bankruptcy filings in the 12-month period ending June 30, 2006, there were 1,164,815 Chapter 7 filings. Chapter 13 filings, the next largest group of filings, totaled 313,085 in 2006. Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings totaled 360.

VC Deal Flow

What makes domain names so valuable is the boom in Internet advertising. Part of the appeal of generic, easy-to-remember names is that people often search the Web by typing website addresses directly into browsers, a phenomenon that's referred to as direct navigation. Site owners then turn that traffic into cash by filling their sites with relevant ads provided by Google, Yahoo, and other online-advertising networks.

Some recent sales have been include: Diamond.com sold for $7.5 million. Misspelled morgage.com (notice missing "t") sold for $242,400. Hangover.us sold for $9,500. Hotels.eu sold for $330,000 and Shopping.eu fetched $200,000.

Consumer confidence has been volatile this year, with rising interest rates, high energy prices and fighting in the Middle East. 

The expectations index, which gauges consumers' outlook over the next six months, dropped to 83.8 in August from 88.9 a month earlier.

Consumers saying jobs are "plentiful" decreased to 24.4 percent from 28.6 percent, while those claiming jobs are "hard to get" increased to 21.1 percent from 19.6 in July.

There will be over 50 million portable media players in use worldwide by 2008.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• It is not clear if users will prefer an all-purpose multimedia cellular phone or separate voice and multimedia devices.
  
• Mobile video subscribers stand to represent over 10% of US wireless subscribers by 2009.
  
• Roughly one out of eight respondents in an In-Stat survey of mobile users expressed interest in mobile video for the cellular market.

In related research, In-Stat found that several factors point to rapidly increasing consumer acceptance of mobile video and music multimedia services from wireless carriers. Interest in mobile video has inched up during the past three years but streaming music still leads the way. 

Nokia and Motorola both grew their market share and accounted for more than half of the worldwide mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2006. Nokia maintained its No. 1 position with a 33.6% market share, gaining 2 percentage points compared to the same period last year. 

• Motorola is the big winner this quarter as the company achieved a market share of 21.9%, growing its market share by 4.2 percent year on year, the highest growth this quarter. Motorola maintained its lead in North America and Latin America and its No.2 position in other markets. 
• Samsung retained its No. 3 position but lost market share compared to the top two players. Sales reached 25.5 million units in the second quarter, approximately half of Motorola’s total sales this quarter.
• Sony Ericsson regained the No.4 position with sales reaching 15.3 million units. 
• LG lost 0.4 percent market share year on year and slipped into fifth place, despite the success of the KG800 Chocolate phone.

Hewitt's survey of 1,028 large organizations representing almost 500 million employees reveals that salaried exempt employees can expect base salary increases of 3.7% next year, the highest increase in five years but only a modest increase from this year's 3.6%.  Executive employees are projected to receive 2007 increases of 3.8%, compared with 3.6% for salaried non-exempt and non-union hourly, and 3.3% for union employees.

More companies are relying on variable pay – performance-related awards that must be re-earned each year – to attract, motivate and retain employees.  Skyrocketing energy costs, rising medical costs and interest rate-related expenses continue to have the potential to offset salary gains for workers, but many could make it up with variable pay bonuses, according to Hewitt Associates, a global human resources services company.

Other key survey findings:

• Companies reported a 15.7 percent average turnover rate in the past 12 months.
• Attraction and retention continue to be a sore spot for a number of companies with 37 percent reporting problems.
• Less than 2 percent reported a salary freeze for 2006, and less than 1 percent expect a salary freeze in 2007.

DisplaySearch revealed in its latest Quarterly Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report that wide-aspect ratio notebook PC shipments in Q2'06 exceeded 60% share of the worldwide notebook PC market. NPD's POS sell-though data from major US retailers selling to consumers clearly shows the consumer market for notebook PCs is increasingly dominated by widescreen models with penetration rates now as high as 98%. However, NPD's tracking of POS shipments through US commercial channels shows that large corporations (the largest market for notebook PC shipments) have been slower to adopt this newer technology. 

Forbes own ads proclaim that “more people get their business news from Forbes.com than any other source in the world,” saying that its sites drew about 15 million unique visitors in a single month earlier this year. It was a well-heeled crowd, according to Forbes.com, which says that the average household income of its users is $149,601. 

Since February, comScore said, Forbes.com’s traffic has tumbled. In July, Forbes Web sites drew 7.3 million unique visitors worldwide. That put Forbes.com slightly below Dow Jones (whose online properties include The Wall Street Journal’s Web site and MarketWatch), CNNMoney.com (which includes the sites of Fortune and Business 2.0 magazines) and sites affiliated with Reuters, each of which comScore says had some 7.6 million visitors that month.

Boeing plans to double its long-term forecast for sales in India to 856 planes worth $72 billion by 2026.

Last year, the company had estimated that India would purchase 470 airplanes worth $35 billion by 2025. Airbus Industries last year predicted that Indian carriers would buy 800-1,000 planes through 2025.

Boeing has confirmed orders valued at around $19 billion for 106 aircraft of various configuration, including smaller and large wide-bodied planes, to be executed by 2011.

The Boeing Company will invest $280 million in India for setting up an airplane maintenance facility and a pilot training center.

In its India 2006 Market Outlook, Boeing said it expected the Indian market to generate demand for 676 single-aisle and 120 twin-aisle airplanes. Last year, Boeing received orders worth $15 billion from Indian carriers, including an order for 68 airplanes worth $11.4 billion from the state-run Air-India, the largest order in the country’s civil aviation history. (story at Business Standard)