E |
ven a cursory look at the best-performing states in the Governor’s Cup competition — our annual ranking of states based on their business-expansion success — reveals a new competitive landscape. Relatively sparsely populated states, such as South Dakota and Mississippi, are finalists in the overall ranking, for instance. And the perennial favorites in the competition find they have to do more than merely have the most new and expanded facilities within their borders to win the Governor’s Cup. That’s because several new, per-capita-based measures now factor into the equation, reveals the cover story in this issue.
These procedural changes point to another truth, which is that Site Selection is refining the benchmarks for which we are known. How we cover area economic development, corporate real estate management and industry directory content all are being updated to deliver the most relevant and applicable message available.
Feedback from the industry to changes relative to the Governor’s Cup has been overwhelmingly positive. We expect these revisions to prompt state development executives to marshal even more resources than they already do in the preparation of the data they compile and we collect each year for this exercise. State and regional spotlights are focusing more on emerging industry clusters, state efforts to foster them and corporate end-user experiences of benefiting from them. Corporate real estate management articles are increasingly focused on tangible ways for professionals in the field to demonstrate and deliver value. A multi-disciplinary editorial advisory board is in the formation stage, and readers will soon be benefiting from their expertise. All of which points to a formidable future for Site Selection. But there’s more.
The May issue of Site Selection will carry an article detailing the commercial real estate industry’s most comprehensive research to date on performance ratios — more accurate even than benchmarks in their ability to plot the effectiveness of cost-control measures. This research, funded by Site Selection, is a product of the International Development Research Council (IDRC) Member Research Department and the Member Information Services program under the direction of the IDRC Strategic Planning Policy Board. It’s the 61st in a series of IDRC research reports. (IDRC’s merger with NACORE and the emergence of the new association, CoreNet Global, was well under way at press time.)
Which brings me to the point of these updates: The more things change, the more they remain the same. Quality brand names and products don’t just fade away when times change — just ask the Coca-Cola company historians — unless their purveyors get complacent and fail to meet customer expectations. When that happens, all bets are off.
So, keep an eye on our ability to deliver the information site seekers and managers of property assets need to be effective in their pursuits. And please take advantage of our new Letters to the Editor page as a forum for reacting to the news and views you read about here in Site Selection.
Till next time,
