Features

Highlights from February/March 1998 COVER STORY Michigan, Midwest Set Fast-Track Pace in 1997’s Record U.S. Race for Corporate Facilities 1997’s annual Site Selection scoreboard tallied a record 10,571 U.S. facility and expansion announcements. pg. 24 European Union: How Europe Is Rewriting Its Site Location Rules pg. 22 IDRC’s Service Delivery Best Practices Award: Ford Motor […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? February/March 1998 Machinery, Chemical Sectors Claim Most Facilities in ’97 by Mark Arend If new plant announcements are any indication, 1997 was a banner year indeed. More than 7,100 new or expanding plant projects were reported to Site Selection’s New Plant database in 1997, a 22 percent increase over the […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? February/March 1998 Pharmaceutical/Biotech Siting: The Search for Space, Workers, ‘Community’ and Creative Financing by Steve Usdin Today’s pharmaceutical/biotech site selection decisions are driven by factors both old and new. On one hand, the industry is searching for skilled labor and room to expand, traditional location concerns, but increasingly scarce resources […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? December 1997/January 1998 Real Estate’s Cream of the Crop: IDRC Best Practices Excellence. It’s something all firms strive for — to be the best. Many companies today are working hard to make their real estate operations the best they can be. The International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? December 1997/January 1998 Managing Cultural Differences: Challenges for Americans Doing Business in Europe by Gary M. Wederspahn With the powerful lure of the European Union’s 374 million-strong market and the continued opening of Eastern Europe to commerce with the West, the number of American business travelers going to Europe has […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? December 1997/January 1998 Globalizing: Real Estate Payoffs and Perils by Jack Lyne Globalization: Clearly, it’s transformed 20th century business life. Far less clear, though, is how to optimally globalize business operations, particularly when it comes to real estate. “Globalization has been a long evolutionary process,” says Marvin Manheim of Northwestern […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? December 1997/January 1998 The Drive to Globalize: Profit Motive Rules as Foreign Direct Investment Soars by Tim Venable How global is your company? If you’re committed to making your firm as profitable as it can be, it must be increasingly worldwide in scope. Your headquarters might be in Peoria, but […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? December 1997/January 1998 Nokia Wirelessly Takes on the World by Jack Lyne Helsinki-based Nokia has achieved a remarkable business turnaround. After losing US$213 million in 1991-92, the old-line Finnish conglomerate, founded in 1865 as a forest-industry operation, has totally transformed itself. Now, Nokia is the No. 2 world player in […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? December 1997/January 1998 Contract, Expand, Adapt: The Auto World’s All-at-Once Imperative by Karen E. Thuermer Today’s auto industry is getting a very mixed message: Contract and expand and adapt . . . quickly. On one hand, sluggish North American and European sales have made retooling and streamlining imperative. Simultaneously, emerging […]

Highlights from December 1997/January 1998 COVER STORY Nokia Wirelessly Takes On The World Now, Nokia is the No. 2 world player in the burgeoning mobile phone market, breathing down mighty Motorola’s neck. pg. 1124 Real Estate’s Cream of the Crop: 1997 IDRC Best Practices pg. 1101 Managing Cultural Differences: Challenges For Americans Doing Business In […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? October/November 1997 Case Study: Nortel Builds a New HQ — and a ‘New City’ Global power Nortel shattered the mold with its new headquarters, moving 3,000 key knowledge workers from Class A high-rises to a reconverted, one-story, 1960s’ factory in Brampton, a Toronto suburb. What’s more, it created a workplace […]

Highlights from Site Selection ? October/November 1997 Legislatures on a RollThird Straight Tax Cut Adds $2.6 Billion Shine To Already-Bright State Business Climates by Audrey Pennington State governments found themselves awash with surplus funds in 1997, relatively speaking, more than they’ve seen since 1980. As a result, lawmakers spent much of their legislative sessions figuring […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

?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 […]