New Partnership To Supply Benchmarking Data The CB Richard Ellis Call Center Solutions Group (www.cbre.com), Phoenix, has formed a partnership with Dr. John Anton, an e-business expert at the Purdue University Center for Customer-Driven Quality and BenchmarkPortal, Inc., a call center benchmarking firm (www.BenchmarkPortal.com). “As our two groups join forces, we will analyze and evaluate […]

I n this 21st century world of virtual reality, virtual learning, virtual tourism — virtual everything, it’s entirely logical that site selection should have been transformed into a virtual activity. The hard-pressed corporate executive seeking new international facilities in far-flung overseas destinations need surely look no further than a mouse button and modem.     […]

L ONDON — The United Kingdom retained its title in 2000 as the continental leader in inward investment for new and expanded corporate facilities in Europe, according to data supplied by Ernst & Young’s European Investment Monitor.         The London-based EIM, a product of E&Y’s International Advisory Services’ database, reports that the […]

S uch headlines abound in the current news media, and for many the outlook is dreary. But is it really as bad as it seems? In a market that saw company growth rates skyrocket and labor wages creep higher due to increased demand on a short supply of knowledge workers, maybe it’s just what the […]

W hen the average age of a company’s employees is just 31, it’s a safe bet that its parking lots are full of Jeeps and the interior workspace is downright hip. While popular taste in cars may change from year to year, at least one such company’s commitment to maximizing the value corporate real estate […]

S EATTLE — Operating in the “post-New Economy” era of corporate downsizing and declining profits, real estate executives face a huge challenge — maximizing real estate’s value while contributing to next quarter’s bottom line.         And, oh, by the way, their bosses declare by edict, do this while keeping space commitments at […]

A stute architects today bring more to the table than a set of drawings. Corporate and industrial real estate owners are asking — and more often than not expecting — design professionals to add value to the project team, new value measured in terms of staffing and strategy, savings and speed.         […]

M ONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. — Can the building blocks of life become the foundation of a new economy? They can if the companies mapping the human genome happen to be in your own backyard.         In Rockville, Md., Celera Genomics Group captivated the attention of the scientific world on Feb. 12 when […]

D espite the prolonged shakeout among occupants of commercial real estate Internet “space,” not all Web services catering to the industry are floundering. Indeed, observers of the market at its height all predicted the shakeout, and the economic slowdown has underscored its impact. It’s not that there isn’t a role for the Internet in the […]

G en. Colin Powell once said, “Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard. Learn from the pros, observe them, seek them out as mentors and partners. But remember that even the pros may have leveled out in terms of their learning and skills. Sometimes even the pros can become complacent […]

“O ur government is very proud of the international trade success stories we have here in our own backyard,” says Ted Chudleigh, parliamentary assistant to the Ontario minister of economic development and trade.         Ontario has a great deal to boast about. The Canadian province is the powerful engine behind Canada’s trade […]

“W e really haven’t started to see the entire impact from the NAFTA agreement,” says Jim Bruce, a consultant with Flur Daniel in Atlanta.         The NAFTA agreement is eight years old, but there are new components of the trade agreement equation that have business on all sides of the U.S. and […]

I f they look alike, smell alike, sound alike, then they must be the same, right? Not exactly. Though Canada and the United States are similar in many ways, they are not identical, especially when it comes to labor laws. Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart found that out the hard way.         After entering […]

C annes, FRANCE — Europe is sprouting a daisy chain of real estate Web sites likely to move much of the corporate real estate sector online continentwide in a bare few years. Typical of the fragmented linguistic patchwork of markets, each country is developing its own national approach. But from Viking “full-market access” to Gallic […]

San Jose, Calif., took first place in Yahoo! Internet Life magazine’s annual ranking of the most wired cities, knocking San Francisco to the No. 2 spot. D espite all of the hullabaloo about the energy scare and lack of labor, U.S. DataPort chose to locate a US$1.2 billion, 1,100-job Internet campus in Silicon Valley — […]

T ACOMA, Wash. — Labor Ready, the global temporary staffing firm that finds jobs for blue-collar workers where they live, may be a model for employers that need to fill work-force vacancies quickly.     With 770 offices in the United States, 35 in Canada and 20 in the United Kingdom, Labor Ready is the world’s […]

W ASHINGTON — Can corporate real estate executives benefit from a stronger, more unified voice among economic development professionals? The answer, according to Council for Urban Economic Development (CUED) Chairman Kurt Chilcott, is “yes.”     In a letter to members of both CUED and the American Economic Development Council (AEDC) — two organizations of economic […]

Abstracts of major presentations of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent corporate real estate association. “Building New Economy Towns,” Florida World Congress, Nov. 7, 2000:     If your company is still building class A office space in remote suburban locations that force workers to spend two hours a day trapped in traffic, […]