The High-Tech Edge Whether Bleeding or Leading, It?s Transforming Business Expansion

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 real estate-related Web sites are proliferating like hyperactive bunnies. ?Physical space — real estate — is being replaced by virtual space — technology — as a medium for doing business,? says an Arthur Andersen white paper (available, naturally, on the Web at www.arthurandersen.com).

Today?s speed imperative makes the Web an economic development natural. For example, business needs for WaferTech?s US$1.2 billion semiconductor plant squeezed the entire location search, from onset to groundbreaking, to a mere nine months.

Such lightning-quick location moves demand almost instant data. But Web searches can be terribly time-consuming if numerous Web sites must be individually accessed. That lends substantial value to ?one-stop clearinghouses? that consolidate Web links to multiple sites.

One such helpful gateway is (blush) Site Selection?s Web home, SiteNet (www.conway.com), recently lauded by The New York Times as ?a comprehensive site that allows corporate relocation planers to learn more about regions. The site also features a useful ?tool kit? that provides a checklist for picking an optimum site, along with in-depth lease information.?

SiteNet also contains the Web site (www.sitenet.com/idrcnet) for the prestigious International Development Research Council, the preeminent association of corporate real estate executives.

Iowa?s Online Dream Fields

Iowa?s Dept. of Economic Development in (IDED) has created one of the Web?s stronger sites (www.smart.state.ia.us).

Originally a laptop system, the award-winning site has an edge in its homegrown I-MEDIA software, which links interactive technology with the nationally recognized economic development databases Iowa has maintained for more than two decades. That linkage ensures ongoing data updates, winningly unlike many sites? very stale information.

IDED?s databases are searchable. Location parameters for, say, Iowa buildings quickly produce listings accompanied by individual color site photos and building floor plans.

?Companies need extensive site information, and they expect it fast,? says Bob Henningsen, IDED marketing and development administrator. ?The states that succeed will manage information best and present it to best advantage.?

The Interactive Granddaddy

Interactivity, though, is no location newcomer. Consider Georgia Power?s Georgia Resource Center (GRC), opened in 1986 and now in its third-generation incarnation. Utilizing multimedia and geographic information systems, the GRC is intensely interactive, allowing users ?driving? down a virtual road to turn right, left or go straight ahead. That in-depth user involvement has touched off a wave of admiring imitation.

?Development officials from all over the world come here, and want to do the same thing,? says Roy Plott, GRC manager. ?And there are increasing numbers of these systems internationally: in Cote D?Azur, France; Cape Town, South Africa; Sydney, Australia; Canada and a couple in Japan.?

GRC has added a Web location (www.oip.gatech.edu:80/GRC), bringing many of the center?s advantages to cyberspace. As telecommunications bandwidth increases, GRC will be able to ship television-quality video.

CD or Not CD?

Faster-loading, less technologically challenging CD-ROMs remain useful location assistance tools. Here are some of the more interesting:

CDs with Sizzle: Arizona Public Service?s ?Exploring Arizona? (www.apsc.com) has enough spiffy wipes, fades and dissolves to make Cecil B. Demille jealous. The text-heavy ?factbook? is informative, but the sizzle?s in other segments that use music, voice, video, computer animation and often breathtaking photography. The information?s good to boot. Pointing to selected U.S. cities, for instance, provides instant rail and motor transportation data, including costs and delivery time.

?Auto Wales? is another visual feast. Highlighting parts of a spinning red auto adds ghostly illumination. A click takes you to numerous profiles of Wales-based firms in that sector, including major customers, quality approvals and key equipment. It?s a strong endorsement for Wale?s auto industry.

And the virtual tour of Wales is pure pleasure. As the impossibly green Welsh countryside whizzes by, you feel like you?re sitting in a Lamborghini driven by the ghost of legendary Welsh wild man Richard Burton.
Tales of topographic maps: A site selection perennial, paper topographical maps have long guided U.S. site searches. Now, though, Greenland, N.H.-based Earthvisions (www.earthvisions.com) offers the digital topographic CD-ROM maps it?s creating of all U.S. states.

Earthvisions? ?G-REF? offers five zoom levels, and a click calculates precise distances between selected points or exact latitude/longitude. Symbols, paths and text can be added to customize maps, printable for later use. On-screen maps can be positioned side-by-side, and G-REF also works on-site with hand-held geographic positioning information systems.

KGB CD fantasies: Mapping innovations of a very high order are falling from Wheatridge, Colo.-based Image Scans (IS). Its digital aerial/satellite imagery is priced as low as $5 per square mile, well below the average $800-$1,000 per square mile. (Prices are higher and the wait longer for areas IS hasn?t yet covered.)
IS?s densely detailed images are the stuff of Secret Service/KGB fantasies: ?50 percent of our orders are for resolutions so high that types of cars in a parking lot can be distinguished,? says IS President Michael O?Connell.

Fine detail adds an edge in purchasing property, where boundary definitions can be maddeningly imprecise. Parcels? legal descriptions can be overlaid on IS?s high-definition images.