Features

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

In 1994, the number was 5,193. A year later, it reached 6,522. In 1996, it broke 8,000. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, you ask? No. But reflective of the U.S. stock market?s bullish expansion during the past three years, corporate facility-location activity across the United States is on an equally torrid pace. In fact, Site […]

1997 will be earmarked by go-go global corporate facility growth, perhaps on a gargantuan scale. Site Selection?s New Facilities Index clearly indicates 1997?s strong expansionist drift, projecting a substantial 10 percent increase in the number of worldwide new facilities and expansions. Based on a global survey of expansion plans at some of the world?s business […]

1996 was a year of very rapid change in global business location. To underscore how fast things are changing, consider one of the centaurs among 1996?s announced new facilities and expansions: South Korean multinational LG Electronics? US$2.5 billion, 6,100-employee semiconductor/TV monitor manufacturing facility, which will sit on a sprawling 250-acre (100-hectare) site in Cardiff, Wales. […]

In 1994, the number was 5,193. A year later, it reached 6,522. In 1996, it broke 8,000. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, you ask? No. But reflective of the U.S. stock market?s bullish expansion during the past three years, corporate facility-location activity across the United States is on an equally torrid pace. In fact, Site […]

Flexibility. What?s it worth to your firm? Try US$5 billion. That?s what General Motors? (GM) originally wanted from Volkswagen (VW), alleging that Jose Ignacio Lopez stole file cabinets full of flexible designs before joining VW. The GM-VW brouhaha marks the most manifest sign of flexibility?s very high market value. ?There is no alternative for becoming […]

North Carolina Races Past Ohio to Win 1996 Facility-Location Gold Medal VIEW TOP FACILITIES CHARTS AND GRAPHS The Corporate Agility Revolution: Get Loose or Lose 1997 Expansion Forecast: More Go-Go Global Growth Go East, Big Boys: Asia, Autos and High Tech Rule 1996?s Location Leviathans Eastman Kodak?s Strategic Best Practices Machinery, Electronics Sizzle in ?96 […]

Manufacturing execs looking to boost capacity were never busier than last year: The number of new and expanding plants reported in Conway Data?s New Plant database soared by 22 percent. ?Where to grow?? was the big question facing a reengineered, ?rightsized? industrial sector in 1996. For many industry chiefs planning billion-dollar investments, locations outside the […]

It?s enough to make your accountant cry — now it?s the landlords who?re smiling. Particularly in the USA, long gone are the days of the late ?80s and early ?90s, when many markets were awash in surplus office and other space, and landlords were practically begging corporate tenants to sign on the dotted line. In […]

Site Selection presents the Best Practices Award winners selected by the International Development Research Council Pssssst! Wanna fix some problems in your company?s real estate program? Once upon a time, you might have told someone from finance or operations to come up with a plan, or hired an outside consultant, and then imposed a solution […]

Ask economists, technology pundits and futurists to name a short list of industrial superstars for the coming years. Site Selection did, and it seems chips invariably float to the top of the pool. Computers, with a projected annual growth rate of 7.3 percent, dominate the highest-growth sectors for the near term. In fact, computer manufacturing […]

Dreaming of areas where consumer buying power is on the rise? Where markets aren?t saturated? Where people are eager to buy your company?s products and services? Then turn your eyes to the developing economies of Asia: China, India, the Philippines and others. Those countries, plus South American stars like Brazil, Argentina and Chile are where […]