"Information-technology is allowing the city's economy to speak to us in lots of different ways," Mr. Egan said. "We just need to find new ways of listening."

Source: "New Way to Read Economy" WSJ_ARTICLE  April 8th, Carli Tuna, Blog by ARC's Steve Banker Apr 12, 2010

Alan Greenspan used cardboard box purchases and other 'source-commodity' indicators. The Carli Tuna WSJ article said that truck diesel fuel sales are a reliable indicator. What factor do you and your company use as future forward indicators? .. is it quotes, perhaps calls into the call center or sales activity?  Is your business moving to the internet and your supply chain driven by your iStore?  How do your distributors, retailers and supply chain partners provide the 'side-line' signals to you to either ramp up or contract production?

With competition being only one click away, organizations need to know with higher degrees of certainty, what the econmic 'tea-leaves' are telling us and how firms need to react with production and shipping forecasts.  Firms using the latest forecasting and supply chain analytical (Bus.Intelligence) tools and technologies appear to be leading their markets

"Had we been aware of that data in 2008," Mr. Leamer said, "we would have made a different call."

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