In the fierce competition to perfect self-driving cars, almost no one wants to go it alone.

Uber Technologies inched closer to becoming a logistics company last week with the launch of Uber Freight, an on-demand freight service for trucking carriers.

It's becoming clear that digital technologies like IoT, big data analytics, AI, advanced robotics and 3D printing are helping manufacturers to increase not only efficiency and productivity - but revenues, too.

In January, Rodrigo Paolucci sold his 50-person video distribution startup in São Paulo, planning to go to business school overseas. Although he'd long dreamed of getting an MBA in Silicon Valley or New York, he applied only to the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. The reason: The Trump administration's anti-immigration rhetoric "makes it harder for foreigners," says Paolucci, who got a scholarship from Rotman that covers 40 percent of tuition.

Three years ago if a customer walked onto Dan Reel's used car lot seeking a late-model off-lease Ford Escape, his answer was short: tough luck.

There was a time when contract manufacturers performed one specific task: making products, usually of a high-tech nature, while staying well behind the scenes. But that time is long gone.

Location is everything in the real-estate biz, so it's not entirely surprising that a map changed former developer Donald Trump's mind.