Forefront

The 2023 Mid-Year Middle Market Indicator (MMI) revealed that middle market companies continue to report consistent and strong year-over-year revenue growth at 11.8%.

The Risk Institute's Noah Jellison and Isil Erel explain why enterprise resiliency has emerged as a critical priority for organizations aiming to thrive in the face of adversity and uncertainty.

Companies that want to avoid the harms of AI, such as bias or privacy violations, lack clear-cut guidelines on how to act responsibly.

Noah Jellison, executive director of the Risk Institute, provides some guidance for companies interested in mitigating or minimizing their exposure to cyberattacks.

A new study by Ohio State's National Center for the Middle Market and Google Cloud explores how midsize companies use cloud technology.

While the scale of technology investment can vary greatly across middle market companies, common challenges exist for mid-market leaders considering making a move toward an increasingly digital future, including capital, people and time. Doug Farren, managing director of the National Center for the Middle Market shares five keys for mid-market companies to achieve a successful digital transformation.

As the emergence and popularity of AI begins to pick up momentum, organizations are starting to reflect on and question who ultimately bears the responsibility for managing these new sources of risk from an enterprise risk management perspective. The Risk Institute provides some valuable insight into this new frontier.

How did risk factor in the recent failure of two national banks? Isil Erel, the academic director of the Risk Institute, and Noah Jellison, the institute's executive director, share their insights and what other organizations can learn from these failures.

Meet Noah Jellison (BSBA ’07) and learn how his experience will help the Risk Institute advance enterprise risk management practice and research.

Doug Farren, the managing director of the National Center for the Middle Market, provides insights into the middle market outlook for 2023 following the release of the Middle Market Indicator in January.

With confidence rebounding, middle market companies aim to grow their workforce in 2023, according to research conducted by the National Center for the Middle Market.

Will hybrid work, where employees work remotely part-time, become standard? Or will the five-day commute make a comeback? Data from the National Center for the Middle Market helps provide a glimpse into what the future of work could look like.

A new study from the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies and  the Risk Institute at Fisher College of Business finds fire remediation efforts are lacking in vulnerable states.

Meet the newest leader of the Ohio State Center for Real Estate and learn about his experience as an industry practitioner and as someone who has created educational real estate programming.

Seventy-eight percent of U.S. homeowners believe extreme weather is increasing where they live, and 71% fear their homes will be damaged, according to a national survey of homeowners, conducted by The Risk Institute at The Ohio State University Max M. Fisher College of Business in late August, well before Hurricane Ian.

The National Center for the Middle Market, in partnership with Fifth Third Private Bank’s Business Transition Advisory Team, surveyed a group of 300 middle market executives to learn more about the process of selling middle market, sometimes family-owned, businesses. The report examined factors including the length and the activities involved in the preparation phase, the challenges faced, advisors consulted and the range of emotions experienced. 

As a result of The Great Wealth Transfer, younger generations will have more money and more assets to protect as they inherit them from their boomer generation parents and grandparents. Logically, they may use some of that money to buy insurance policies to protect some of their newfound assets. As the insurance industry welcomes a new pool of potential clients, it's also losing a large number of seasoned employees, according to research from the Risk Institute.

The National Center for the Middle Market's 2022 Mid-Year Middle Market Indicator shows robust growth in the middle market even as economic confidence has faltered.

According to research from the National Center for the Middle Market, 90% of middle-market companies that sell or merge have “little or no previous experience” in mergers and acquisition. In contrast, private equity players are, by their very nature, M&A experts. Why does this matter? Because doing business successfully starts with building mutual trust and respect, especially for private equity leaders.

Many middle market companies are returning to pre-pandemic performance levels and predicting continued growth as the ongoing recovery of the middle market becomes more extensive. However, new challenges, such as supply chain disruption and finding skilled workers, have emerged as companies continue to evolve and respond to the pandemic, according to the 2021 Year End Middle Market Indicator.

Multi-year agreement will further advance and elevate the understanding of the U.S. middle market.

How can mid-sized companies embrace, adopt and keep pace with digital transformation and emerging technologies? As part of a collaboration with Harvard Business Review, Anil Makhija, dean and John W. Berry, Sr.

Phil Renaud, executive director of The Risk Institute, discusses how the persistent drought in the western U.S. is forcing food supply chains to rethink their sourcing strategies, as well as pursue longer-term initiatives for coping with the effects of climate change.

Management and human resources experts Larry Inks and Ray Noe, the Robert and Anne Hoyt Designated Professor of Management and Human Resources at Fisher, add context to a survey conducted by the National Center for the Middle Market. They look at the importance and prevalence of various talent planning activities among middle market firms and assess overall talent planning performance and identifies challenge areas for middle market companies.

Among the trends in entrepreneurship discussed in a new report from the Kenan Institute was the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on small businesses: minority- and women-owned firms did not have access to funds available through the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL). Research by Isil Erel, the David A. Rismiller Chair in Finance and the academic director of the Risk Institute, also showed how the use of fintech and online banking can improve access, "especially to underserved areas with lower incomes and a larger share of the minority population."