Famous for its 72-ounce steak challenge (eat it all in one hour and it’s
free), Big Texan Steak Ranch, located along historic Route 66 in Amarillo,
is one of 3 million small and medium-sized businesses thriving in Texas.
Photo by Jaime Hudson courtesy of Travel
Texas
How do small business location patterns compare to overall facility
investment trends among all businesses? Using a set of nine criteria,
small business financial solutions company Lendio (itself based in Lehi,
Utah) earlier this month unveiled its list of Best States to Start a Small Business. Like Site
Selection’s Governor’s Cups overall rankings, Lendio’s list
begins with No. 1 Texas. The Top 10:
Texas
Florida
Ohio
Massachusetts
North Carolina
Colorado
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Georgia
Utah
The only other states in Lendio’s list to also qualify for Top 10
Governor’s Cup states by number of projects are Ohio (No. 3 in Site
Selection’s ranking), Georgia (No. 5) and North Carolina (No. 7). In our
per-capita ranking, Ohio and Texas also make the list, joined by
Lendio’s No. 8 state South Carolina at No. 6 in corporate facility
projects per capita.
Factors examined by Lendio for its ranking include tax rates, startup
survival rates, cost of living, educated worker migration, loans,
funding, consumer spending and incentive programs.
“According to data from the White House and the U.S. Small Business
Administration (SBA), small businesses in the U.S. employ 61 million
people, nearly 50% of all private-sector workers,” Lendio said this
month in another release noting the stability of small business lending
in the wake of the FDIC’s takeover of two large banks. “Domestically,
gross revenue from small businesses totals $13.3 trillion.”
Lendio’s online chart allows for sorting by any of the nine variables
examined for its ranking. The top states for five-year survival rate of
a small business are Oregon at 58.4%, South Dakota (55.7%) and
Mississippi and California tied at 55.2%. Maryland tops the list by
number of incentive programs (97), while Massachusetts leads the way in
venture capital disbursed per $1 million of GDP. The hottest relocation
markets? Florida and Texas lead by a long shot, followed by the
knitted-together states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and
Georgia. — Adam Bruns
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear is determined to see the commonwealth
outperform the record-breaking levels of economic activity it has
enjoyed for the past two years.
July 2020 photo of planes on the tarmac near Runway No. 1 at LaGuardia
Airport, courtesy of Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Business research from Harvard Business School released this
month looks at a study by Prithwiraj Choudhury that
traces flight patterns among 5,000 airports around the world
to show how business travel propels innovation. Among the
conclusions: If firms are in the same time zone and
culturally similar, Teams or Zoom will do. If not, then like
Ben said in the classic 1990 United Airlines TV commercial,
it’s time to buy a ticket and “visit that old friend who
fired us this morning.”
The study found that a 10% increase in nonstop flights
between two locations led to a 1.4% increase in new patents
between firms in those places. “Even in a hybrid world, even
in a world of work-from-anywhere, we still need to
occasionally meet colleagues in person for social
purposes,” said Choudhury, whose work has concentrated on the work-from-anywhere
economy for a number of years.
This week in Brisbane, Queensland, Northrop Grumman Australia opened its
newly modernized Brisbane Maintenance and Modification Centre (BMMC), a
major facility for the sustainment of the Royal Australian Air Force’s
(RAAF) aviation capability. “Queensland has cemented itself as a
powerhouse for Australia’s defense industry and our capabilities are
quickly growing,” said Queensland Deputy Premier Hon. Steven Miles.
“Two-thirds of the Australian Army operates out of Queensland and this
is just another feather in our cap.” “Northrop Grumman’s growing
sustainment work at the BMMC has enabled us to establish an
apprenticeship program providing a pipeline of skilled Queensland
engineers underpinning the company’s ability to deliver Advanced
Technology programs in the coming years,” said Christine Zeitz, general
manager, Asia Pacific region, Northrop Grumman. “A world class skilled
local workforce with genuine and attractive career options, in
partnership with the Queensland Government, is a critical driver of
future joint mission success.”
Contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Samsung
Biologics announced last Friday it will begin construction of a fifth
plant as part of its strategic expansion in response to increased market
demand. The company will break ground in the first half of this year
with the aim to commence operations in 2025. “Located near its current
Songdo site, Plant 5 will be the first facility of the company’s second
Bio Campus,” the company said, holding a capacity of 180,000 liters.
“Upon Plant 5’s full completion, Samsung Biologics will maintain its
global biomanufacturing capacity leadership with a total of 784,000
liters.” Samsung Biologics purchased 360,000 sq. m. (nearly 3.9 million
sq. ft.) of land in July 2022 for its second Bio Campus, which will
house additional large-scale plants and an open innovation center.
Overall, the company will be investing KRW 7.5 trillion (more than $5.8
billion) in its second Bio Campus. On the same day as this announcement,
the company also announced the opening of a new office in Ridgefield
Park, New Jersey, where an opening ceremony was held this week. The
company said the new office “will provide streamlined communication and
support to clients based in the U.S. and Europe.”
Finland this week was named the happiest country in the world by the World
Happiness Report published three days ago by the Sustainable
Development Solutions Network, a global initiative of the United
Nations. (No. 2 Denmark was followed by Iceland, Israel and Netherlands
in that order.) This striking image shows Vaasa, a port city on the
country’s western coast located on the Sea of Bothnia. Among other
things, the Vaasa region is known for the unique Korsnäs sweater, the
Meteoria Söderfjärden meteorite crater site and the Kvarken Archipelago,
Finland’s only Natural World Heritage Site on the UNESCO World Heritage
List.
