Features

Highlights from Site Selection ? October/November 1997 C O V E R      S T O R Y Hong Kong: Business Still Dances Inside the Dragon’s Jaws by Jack Lyne Forget the hype and hysteria. Hong Kong’s turnover hasn’t dulled its legendary business buzz. Hong Kong is awash with conviction a month after becoming a […]

Highlights from October/November 1997 Hong Kong: Business Still Dances Inside the Dragon’s Jaws, pg. 900 Plumbing China’s Real Estate Puzzle Box, pg. 902 Case Study: Nortel Builds a New HQ — and a ‘New City’, pg. 852 Legislatures On a Roll: Third Straight Tax Cut Adds $2.6 Billion Shine To Already-Bright State Business Climates, pg. […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? October/November 1997 Plumbing China’s Real Estate Puzzle Box Fast-changing China presents an intricate puzzle box of real estate challenges. Here are some of the big issues, derived from Site Selection research and interviews: Corruption: Hong Kong scorns it. C.Y. Leung, the No. 2 man in Hong Kong’s provisional government, pointedly […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? October/November 1997 Flash Points:Hot Business Climates Ignite Worldwide Blaze of Location Moves by Tim Venable Want to know where the world’s hottest business climates are? Just take a look at where companies are placing the most offices, factories and other facilities. According to Conway Data’s exclusive New Plant database, the […]

China’s Site Selection Challenges: How One Company Hopped the Wall, pg. 679 When Disaster Strikes . . . How to Manage a Successful Comeback , pg. 684 Global Logistics Boosts Competitive Advantage , pg. 695 Whither Plastics? Plant Location Criteria as Diverse as Products , pg. 784 Links to Information Referenced in August Site Selection […]

by Robert Gaudreau, Regus Frankly, people thought we were crazy when we began considering going to China. It was 1990, only a short time after the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Fears of political backlash and international trade sanctions against China certainly weren’t unwarranted. In addition, there were China’s sky-high real estate prices, labyrinthine bureaucracy and Third […]

by Douglas G. Karpiloff, CPP When a deadly car bomb exploded beneath the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, Douglas Karpiloff was General Manager of Tenant Services. His experiences during the disaster recovery offer valuable lessons for facility managers everywhere. The commercial real estate world changed forever on Feb. 26, 1993, with the […]

Logistics management is giving companies new ways to improve customer service, control costs and make the most of opportunities in emerging markets. As a result, the global expansion equation is being revised as companies employ world-class logistics based on advanced information technologies. Once upon a time, location was the word that companies invoked to ensure […]

Like the products they produce, plastics firms are a multifarious lot. Little wonder, then, that the industry’s site selection patterns are no less diverse. U.S. manufacturers serving the Midwest-dominated automotive market cite different site selection priorities than do producers of foam or fiberglass insulation or PVC pipe for the construction industry. Plastics manufacturers whose customers […]

Toyota?s Turbocharged U.S. Drive: Life in the Car Wars? Fast Lane, pgs. 492-499 Help Wanted: Work Force With the Right Stuff, pgs. 500-503 Manufacturing?s New Deal Demands ?Lean Portfolios?, pgs. 504-507 Need Skilled Workers? Tap the Global Training Gold Mine, pgs. 508-510 Best Practices Award: Bank of America, Real Estate Workplace, pgs. 511-512 The U.S. […]

Today may well be the king of today?s worldwide Car Wars. But its surge to becoming a true global powerhouse began more cautiously in the 1980s. The globalization was a nervy — and nervous– drive down a road paved with billion-dollar bumps. Despite its potent global clout, Toyota at the time had almost no experience […]

by Audrey Pennington Many expanding companies are finding themselves stranded in labor pool?s shallow end, unable to hire enough workers with the right stuff. What?s the single thorniest issue facing corporate site locators currently? Hands down, agree consultants and corporate pros, the single biggest obstacle is finding an adequate supply of workers with the right […]

?Any color is fine as long as it?s black.? That was Henry Ford?s take on how consumer demands affected model T manufacturing: They didn?t. A relic of the long-gone days of total market control, Ford?s one-size-fits-all standard is now a prescription for disaster — and so are the real estate strategies that supported it. Consider […]

What?s your key to productive, profitable manufacturing, office or distribution facilities? Chances are, it?s skilled workers. Without top-notch, skilled employees out on the factory floor or in front of a computer, the best-run business topples like a house of cards. That?s made evaluating pre-employment worker training a crucial consideration in choosing new facility locations. Quality […]

by Audrey Pennington When BankAmerica decided to drive down construction costs and give its business units a leg up on the competition, BAC?s corporate real estate group radically revamped its approach to designing work environments. The result: a set of award-winning, real estate workplace best practices There?s a new mantra among the corporate real estate […]

If there?s one thing a company needs, it?s people. People to work, run and operate the business — and people who?ll buy its products and services. That simple fact is one of the big reasons facilities are flocking to the U.S. South. Strong population growth across much of the region translates into an abundant work […]

The stories are rampant. The Boeing Co. plans to double production, pushing an aircraft a day out of a Boeing hangar. The market for business jets is exploding. Product liability reform has re-opened the door for small aircraft production. But while the aerospace industry is enjoying an unprecedented rebirth, it comes after a decade of […]

Let’s Make a Strategic Deal: 1996’s Top 10, pgs. 220-238 Strategic Expansion’s Consummate Collaborators: 1996’s Top 10 Development Groups, pgs. 240-255 Strategic Alliances: Shaky, but Steady Steps Up the Value-Added Staircase, pgs. 256-261 The High Tech Edge: Whether Bleeding or Leading, It’s Transforming Business Expansion Best Practices Award: CLW Realty Group, Real Estate Service Delivery, […]

The deal. For expansion-minded firms, it?s the alpha and omega of economic enterprise, the rocket fuel of business growth. Good deals deliver: capacity, jobs, profits and prosperity. Every day, development projects evolve into good deals for both the company and the community, and thousands are sealed every year. Some of the best, though, are object […]

Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov and other international chess champions usually don?t ask for advice on their next move. Veritable lone wolves, they stand or fall on their own wits, skill and strategy. Companies, though, needn?t operate that way in crafting real estate strategies involving multimillion-dollar facilities. In fact, more and more firms are relying on […]

To outsource or not to outsource — that is not the question. You can never be too thin, it seems, in these downsized days. ?Doing it all? has become tantamount to not doing it all effectively. Scattershot diversification is as obsolete as O.J. Simpson?s viability as a corporate spokesperson. Instead, the big business question is […]

No longer do you necessarily have to physically be there in location searches? early stages to still be there. Leading-edge technologies are shaving precious time from sometimes lengthy business site searches, as well as facilitating more informed decisions. Here are a few examples of today?s high-tech tools: Woe unto the Web-less? It?s no surprise that […]

IDRC?s Best Practices Research Award recognizes excellence in the practice of corporate real estate in selected areas identified by the International Development Research Council. The objective? To identify and promote best-in-class examples of how firms are meeting the major challenges facing corporate real estate practitioners today. Best Practices Award CLW Realty Group Real Estate Service […]

Eastman Kodak?s Corporate Real Estate strategy focuses on maximizing shareholder value through continuous, financially oriented, business process improvements, which are designed to optimally align the company?s existing and future investments in real estate with business strategies. Best Practices: Eastman Kodak An army of innovative strategies relentlessly links Eastman Kodak?s corporate real estate program with its […]