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August 1, 2000

Deregulation Drives Spate of Pilot Programs

Plenty of brainpower is being applied to the merits of electric utility industry deregulation, or restructuring to be more accurate. But the jury is still out in most US states that have deregulation plans in place as to whether the effort was worth it to consumers of electricity. After all, the airline industry — certainly […]

August 1, 2000

Site Selection’s Three ‘Awards for Publications Excellence’ Span Print, Cyberspace

Site Selection‘s editorial quality — on both the printed page and in cyberspace — has bagged three more awards in the 12th annual global “Awards for Publications Excellence” (APEX) competition. The three APEX Awards were for Site Selection‘s excellence in the categories of: Feature writing, for the January 2000 cover story, “U.S. Car Wars: Toyota […]

August 1, 2000

European Industry Clusters Form in 1999’s Top 10

Editor’s note: This feature is a follow-up report on “Europe’s 1999 Facility Race,” which appeared in the July 2000 Site Selection. This article goes beyond the ranking and looks at which industries are hot and which are not in the top European markets. To be or not to be — in the European Monetary Union […]

June 1, 2000

Cap One/JLL Strategy Tames Hyper

Frankly, most companies would die for problems like Capital One Financial’s (www.capital1.com): five straight years of 20 percent-plus earnings growth and a spot in Fortune‘s “100 Best Places to Work.” But Capital One’s blistering growth had burned a gaping hole in its corporate real estate (CRE) strategy. Like some steroid-fueled bullfrog, the Signet Bank spin-off […]

June 1, 2000

Project Management In the 21st Century

“Many already use the Internet, yet I doubt many are using it for construction management. The speed of connectivity and the range of companies committed to working on the Internet are growing so fast that this will cease to be a business obstacle within a very short time frame. Your entire team will build the […]

June 1, 2000

Design Experts Shed Light On Workplace Performance Measures

Ever since Michael Hammer, the guru of Business Process Re-engineering, made the observation years ago that the business world has not adequately considered the effect re-engineering has on the notion of workplace, work space design experts have struggled to understand the relationship between the two concepts. What role does workspace really play in productivity? Can […]

June 1, 2000

Execs Rank California, Texas Tops for Labor

Polled corporate executives pinpoint today’s top 10 U.S. labor markets Today’s drum-tight U.S. labor evokes James Marshall’s 1848 wisdom. Building a sawmill near Coloma, Calif, Marshall spied glittering flecks. He dipped his hand into the icy American River and then roared, “By God, boys, I believe I’ve found a gold mine!” The California Gold Rush […]

June 1, 2000

Looking for Mr. (and Ms.) Goodhire: How Expanding Firms Are Finding Human Capital

Labor may be spare, but it’s out there. And broad-ranging corporate strategies are finding it. What would you ask for if you could get just about any expansion incentive imaginable? That was the situation for United Parcel Service (UPS) in 1998. Its new cargo-sorting hub would employ 6,000-plus with a US$250 million annual payroll. Clearly, […]

June 1, 2000

Higher Ed Players Boost Supply of Quality Hires

Universities and proactive businesses are crafting ever-more-relevant job training programs designed to give employers in their area an edge in the labor pool. Work-force training programs are seeing substantial inflows of capital as state and local economic development agencies seek to make their available workers more competitive. This is among the findings of a recent […]

June 1, 2000

Sprint PCS: Locating to Beat the Labor Pinch Blues

Opening nine major U.S. customer service centers in a mere three years, Sprint PCS has fine-tuned a system for rapidly adding the labor others can’t even find. b y     J A C K     L Y N E “Finding a place with higher unemployment is ideal. But you’re not going to find a U.S. […]

June 1, 2000

Site Selection Awards Salute Eight Executives

“Leadership,” says Warren Benis, “can’t be taught; it must be learned, grown through experiences.” The industry’s experience grew a bit on Apr. 30, as Site Selection presented its Corporate Real Estate Leadership Awards to eight executives, chosen by SS’s editorial board from industry-wide nominations. (Two other winners were tapped as “Editors’ Picks.”) Appropriately, the Leadership […]

June 1, 2000

U.K. Manager Seeks to Slay the Lack

Site Selection: HQ’s real estate holdings are growing by leaps and bounds, thanks to the merger of Frontline Capital’s serviced office unit, VANTAS, with HQ’s properties. What is your role in managing this growth? Ron Adam (right): Completion of the deal is a little ways off, but we’re now in an interim period, which is […]

June 1, 2000

Shared Services: A Business Strategy For Increasing Shareholder Value

An increasing number of companies are turning to the concept of “shared services” to lower operating expenses and gain competitive advantage. Briefly defined, shared services consolidates accounting, human resources (HR), real estate and other transactional operations to reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction. As a management technique, shared services falls into the process-oriented family of […]

June 1, 2000

IDRC Abstracts

Abstracts of recent major presentations of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent corporate real estate (CCE) association. “Transforming the Workplace through Value-Based Management,” IDRC Tennessee World Congress Opening General Session, Oct. 18, 1999: Successful value-based CRE management requires understanding corporate goals and how CRE can add value, said Stern Stewart & Co.’s […]

June 1, 2000

The New Science of Space Demand Forecasting

Of all the management skills required of today’s corporate real estate manager, none is more elusive than the requirement that he have soothsaying skills. After all, predicting real estate space requirements is central to an organization’s ability to manage physical assets wisely and, as importantly, strategically. Real estate clairvoyance is known in professional circles as […]

June 1, 2000

Beijing Congress Signals China’s Economic Coming Out

China’s challenges were center stage at IDRC’s record-breaking March 27-28 Beijing World Congress, “Asia and Corporate Real Estate: Global Infrastructure Rises to the Next Level,” which drew an Asian record turnout of 172. “This Congress was a marker in China’s future development,” said presenter Marcel De Meirleir of Ernst & Young. RIGHT: Lois Dougan Tretiak […]

June 1, 2000

Europe’s 1999 Facilities Race: How Important Is Monetary Union?

The United Kingdom attracted more new and expanded corporate facilities in 1999 than any other European country. France took the runner-up position, while Germany ranked third. Those results are essentially a photocopy of 1998’s facilities race, in which the same three countries took the top three spots, based on Ernst & Young’s European Investment Monitor […]

June 1, 2000

Decision Data: Watching Where Your Money Goes

Start Me Up: Phoenix, Las Vegas Rated No. 1 Cities Startups are costly, risky business. But Phoenix and Las Vegas are the U.S. locations most conducive to startups’ health, according to new research from Cambridge, Mass.-based Cognetics (www.cogonline.com) (headed by David Birch, considered “the granddaddy of gazelles”). Those two cities are the respective two top […]

June 1, 2000

Asian Stars Shine Again: Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand

What’s upbeat, on the rise and ranges between 4 and 6.3 percent? Answer: current gross domestic product forecasts for four of Southeast Asia’s biggest economies. Indeed, the 2000 economic outlook for Malaysia (where growth over 1999 is expected to hit 6.3 percent), Singapore (6 percent), Thailand (5 percent) and the Philippines (4.5 percent) is decidedly […]

June 1, 2000

Peter Beattie: Queensland’s Persistent Premier Lands Virgin, Red Hat HQs

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie is on intimate terms with persistence. Just ask Richard Branson. Branson recently announced that he was shopping for an Australian headquarters site. But the Virgin Atlantic chairman already had a location short list that was truly short: It included only Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s two largest, best known cities. Faced with […]

June 1, 2000

The E

Traditional businesses can rest easier: NASDAQ’s recent violent nature is a symptom of the impending collapse of dozens of former online darlings. As it turns, out solid business plans, management-team depth, effective business models (however boring), customer service, competitive advantages, and (duh) profits really do matter. The dot-com’s e-retail strategy — spending millions of dollars […]

June 1, 2000

MIPIM: Watch Out, Europe, The Americans Coming

Cannes, France: It looks like a second Normandy landing here in the south of France: As Europe’s recovery settles into a long upward leg, U.S. investors are invading, grabbing buildings and real estate securities like they’re going out of style. And that surge will likely multiply the shares of real estate investment companies beginning to […]

June 1, 2000

Labor Lures Call Centers to Newfoundland & Labrador

Newfoundland & Labrador’s call center industry, though small in comparison to larger provinces, is growing. In fact, it’s grown by 20 percent since January 1999. The Atlantic province’s cost-competitive operating environment is one of the major lures attracting that growth, but another is equally important: labor. Newfoundland & Labrador’s per-capita labor pool, for instance, is […]

May 1, 2000

eCities Reduce Legwork in Comparing Cost

A business cost survey is the centerpiece of a Web-based service that lets “eCities” get the word out concerning local business development opportunities. Corporate site seekers now have yet another way to access key cost-of-doing-business data in markets around the USA via the Internet. The Kosmont Cost of Doing Business Survey tm, published by Kosmont […]