Professional & Business Services

Chicago – September 23, 2026 -- Fishman Public Relations has been named the No. 1 franchise PR firm in Entrepreneur magazine's Top Franchise Suppliers ranking for the ninth consecutive year, based on a survey of more than 1,000 franchise brands.

Entrepreneur's survey scores suppliers on quality, cost and value across the franchise industry

The annual ranking draws on responses from franchisors and franchisees who rate the suppliers they work with, covering both emerging brands and long-established chains. Each supplier receives a composite score, with top performers ranked within their category.

Dallas – September 23, 2026 -- HudsonLake, the strategic communications firm acquired by MikeWorldWide (MWW) in May 2026, has elevated Quinton Crenshaw to president, giving him full executive oversight of the firm's Dallas-based operations.

Crenshaw takes the helm after a decade as executive vice president

Crenshaw, who has spent ten years in leadership roles at HudsonLake, will now direct strategy across the firm's 25-year-old organizational transformation and labor communications practice. He previously advised Fortune 500 executives across North Texas on corporate communications, internal change and brand transformation. "By combining our specialized workforce expertise with MWW's scale and multi-channel reach, we are unlocking extraordinary new opportunities for our clients, our culture and our people," Crenshaw said.

Arlington, Va. – September 23, 2026 -- Eagle Hill Consulting's new HR Technology and Service Delivery Survey finds that 51% of HR professionals spend at least half their workweek on routine, repetitive, or low-value administrative tasks, even as 86% say automation or AI improves the service they deliver to the business.

Fragmented systems undercut technology investment across HR functions

Ninety-one percent of surveyed HR professionals use two or more systems to complete a single task, and 43% rely on three or more. Seventy-eight percent regularly re-enter the same information across multiple platforms, while 68% turn to workarounds such as spreadsheets, shared drives, or manual tracking to get work done.

Delray Beach – – September 23, 2026 -- The global Workforce Management (WFM) market is projected to grow from $10.6 billion in 2026 to $17.2 billion by 2031, a compound annual growth rate of 10.1%, according to a new report from MarketsandMarkets. The market stood at $9.6 billion in 2025, with North America alone accounting for $3.4 billion of that total.

Analytics and optimization tools post the fastest segment growth

Within the market, workforce optimization and analytics is expected to expand at a 13.2% CAGR, the highest of any solution category, as enterprises push to use data for staffing decisions and labor planning. The broader solutions segment held the largest share of the market in 2025, while services are forecast to register the fastest growth rate as organizations outsource implementation, integration, and managed support for increasingly complex scheduling, timekeeping, and compliance systems.

Redmond, Wash. – September 23, 2026 -- Halfpricesoft.com has updated its ezACH Direct Deposit Software with a one-time $199 flat fee, removing recurring subscription costs for accounting firms processing vendor payments, payroll, and government tax remittances.

Flat $199 fee replaces per-transaction and subscription charges

The desktop application allows unlimited transactions across unlimited bank accounts and entities for a single installation price, with no monthly fees or hidden maintenance costs. Users are advised to check separately for any bank-side ACH processing fees their financial institution may apply.

Peterborough, England – September 23, 2026 -- Approximately 1.8 million households moved home in England in 2024-25, according to the English Housing Survey 2024 to 2025, yet no single government process updates a resident's address across all public records, a new analysis from Sloth Move shows.

Driving records carry a £1,000 penalty risk for unreported address changes

Current GOV.UK DVLA guidance, checked August 2026, states that motorists can be fined up to £1,000 for failing to notify the agency of an address change. Drivers must update their driving licence separately from the V5C vehicle log book, and depending on circumstances may also need to amend vehicle tax Direct Debit details and personalised registration documentation tied to the same household move.

Portland, Ore. – September 23, 2026 -- Nearly half of all calls to US businesses -- 47% -- occur outside traditional Monday-to-Friday working hours, according to new call data from AnswerConnect covering 5,906,476 minutes of call logs between April and June 2026.

The finding indicates a widening gap between when companies operate and when customers actually try to reach them, with businesses that limit availability to standard hours risking missed leads, sales, and referrals to competitors who answer around the clock.

One customer converted four after-hours calls into roughly $200,000 in business

AnswerConnect reported that a single client generated approximately $200,000 in return from just four calls, illustrating how a small number of captured after-hours conversations can carry outsized commercial value.

Washington – September 23, 2026 -- Blue Star Families will host its 2026 Welcome Week from September 26 through October 4, mobilizing hundreds of events nationwide to support the more than 600,000 military-connected families who relocate annually. Presenting sponsor Target will anchor the effort alongside corporate partners including Macy's, Starbucks, CSX, Chobani, Mondelez International, Leonardo DRS, Morgan Stanley, T-Mobile and Amazon.

Target volunteers to assemble 1,000 pantry kits at each of two marquee events

The campaign will open aboard the USS Midway Museum in San Diego on September 28 and close at the Virginia Air & Space Science Center in Hampton, Virginia, on October 5. At both sites, hundreds of Target employee volunteers will assemble and distribute 1,000 pantry kits containing Target-owned brand food essentials for families who recently completed a permanent change of station move to the San Diego and Hampton Roads regions.

Calgary – September 22, 2026 -- Forty-one percent of adults under 45 in the U.S. and Canada now pay for services that family and friends once provided, more than double the 18% reported by adults aged 62-80, according to a new study from Cashew Research.

The survey of 2,002 adults, titled The Capacity Gap, found that social support networks remain intact but are failing to convert into practical help. Seventy percent of respondents said they have a good emotional support system and 67% feel connected to a community, yet a widening share are turning to paid services to fill the gap between having support and having the time to use it.

Dallas – September 22, 2026 -- Captello has launched Event Revenue Intelligence, a platform capability that traces closed B2B revenue back to individual badge scans rather than program-wide averages, aiming to close a measurement gap that has left event budgets undefended for decades.

Trade shows drive 33% of new business but 79% of leads get no follow-up

Trade shows generate 33% of new business annually, according to research cited in the Lead Capture Playbook, yet 79% of event leads never receive follow-up, per CEIR data via 391 Advantage. An EMS25 white paper found 58% of event marketers report losing leads to inefficient capture and 47% struggle to integrate event data into CRM systems, while 73% now rank analytics and reporting as the top lead-capture priority.