Business Trends

Do B&Bs Help or Hurt Your Business?

Most business say neither, but there’s a shift over time among those who see an effect The BOSS survey asked 402 local business leaders about the impact on their companies of visitors who use B&Bs and other nonhotel accommodations outside…

What Are Your Biggest Problems?

The BOSS survey examines what’s holding back your business   Government Regulations The BOSS survey presented 402 local business leaders with five regulatory issues. They were asked if each one presented an individual challenge to their companies. Afterward, those who…

Hawaii’s People Stay True

Brand loyalty is strong in the Islands, but give a customer a bad experience and they may never forget or forgive.  “From right here, I can see one, two, three, four, five banks outside my window,” says Dennis Christianson, partner/CEO…

To App or Not To App

Many local organizations have created mobile phone apps to connect with customers, students, patients and others, but apps are not useful to every business At any time, students at Hawaii Pacific University can look at their assignments, view their grades,…

Death by Amazon? Not in Hawaii

If national news reports are any indication, retailers should all hunker down for the impending Mall Armageddon. Myriad online headlines foretell the imminent doomsday: "The Great Retail Apocalypse of 2017," "Malls Are Doomed," and "The Retail Bubble Has Now Burst"…

A Better Way

Going to court is stressful, costly and all too public. Many say that mediation offers a better way that is faster, cheaper, more private and less likely to create lifelong enemies. Tracey Wiltgen remembers the friend who was building his…

21 Century Internships

Mericris Neyra knew she wanted to be a nurse  back when she was at Farrington High School, so she enrolled in nursing at UH Manoa. But as she neared graduation in December 2014, the 22-year-old faced a saturated nursing-job market…

Mary Ann Barnes

Since April, Barnes has led Kaiser in Hawaii, which has 231,000 member clients, a hospital in Moanalua, 22 clinics and 4,400 employees, including 500 doctors. Barnes started her health-care career 40 years ago as an intensive- care-unit nurse. “It’s easy…