Project management offices fail to help most companies reduce IT cost or improve performance, according to new research from The Hackett Group Inc. In fact, companies with high utilization of PMOs see materially higher IT costs while also failing to deliver projects with higher ROI or better on-time and on-budget performance. The research also found that companies have significantly reduced their use of PMOs over the past three years, in part due to their inability to positively impact performance.

A Chinese vocational school sent five 15-year-old boys to assemble Sony PlayStations at a Foxconn manufacturing plant in China, where the legal age to do such work is 16.

Currently, most global companies are operating in a two-speed world, yet this scenario was not on the drawing board when today's leaders were rising through the ranks. The length of the economic malaise in mature markets and the sustained growth of emerging markets have jumbled the deck for them.

Don't give up on China, despite its short-term political and economic difficulties. So says Ted Fishman, author of "China, Inc., How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World" and former Chicago Mercantile Exchange trader.

Ireland was one of the fastest-growing European economies (though briefly it was also one of the most expensive), but suffered a major collapse starting in 2008. However, today its costs are rapidly coming back into line and Irish manufacturing companies are again becoming competitive.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency announced that it has "formalized and expanded" its Air Cargo Advance Screening pilot program, which enables cargo executives to send and receive advance security filing data for their consignments.

The impact of Wal-Mart's commitment to sustainability "will be global and make a difference with products sold around the globe," says company president and CEO Mike Duke.

U.S. companies borrowed more in September than a year ago to finance new equipment, the most in any month since December, but global economic and policy uncertainties curbed spending, the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association said.

In the United States, the concept of supplier diversity is becoming more embedded in corporate culture each year. Supply management professionals seek out small- and midsized businesses owned and operated by women, African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities to round out their supply chains, and they are increasingly developing relationships and partnerships built on the foundation of mutual benefit to both parties. Such initiatives outside the U.S. often aren't quite as developed.

Consumer confidence in the overall economy increased in October to the highest level since 2008, according to the October Index from the Consumer Electronics Association. Consumer confidence in technology fell slightly from the Index released in September.