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Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

Groundwork, Homework, Site Work, Clockwork

There is a lot of work involved. A deliberate analysis and a solid road map will lead you to a welcoming community, well suited to the new operation.

Nov 09
For most executives, picking a location for a business is a task that appears only a few times over a career. The job of choosing the right community for an important operation is exciting, but also daunting. This checklist focuses on keeping the process as efficient as possible while keeping focused on a successful location.

Laying the Groundwork
Before you search actual markets and locations, look inward to understand your goals, geography, and project requirements. Invest the time to build consensus, assemble the right team, and gather pertinent data and projections.  

Build the selection team. Be sure to include a cross-section of expertise, including financial, human resources, operations, and real estate.

• Designate one person as project lead with time to devote to that role. This person should be adept at managing large amounts of data. This needn't be the most senior person on the team, but the project will need senior-level attention.

• Decide on and engage outside professional assistance as required. Depending on the complexity of the business location decision and the availability of internal expertise, hiring outside assistance may ultimately result in a quicker, more effective, and less expensive process.

• Accountant

• Business location/site selection consultant

• Real estate broker

• Lawyer

• Architect

• Construction manager

• Engineer

Talk to peers from other companies who have recently chosen new locations.

Establish a timeframe for the process. Make sure it builds toward the desired "doors open" date.

Identify success drivers for the proposed location. Is labor availability the critical factor? Electric rates? (See Example 1 for more information.)

Define your project. You'll need this information as you move forward.

• Real estate options - lease, build, retrofit, purchase, co-locate, etc. Consider how coming Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) changes relative to operating leases might affect your selection.

• Job creation - How many jobs will your project create and/or retain? What does your ramp-up schedule look like?

• Investment - What do you plan to invest in real and personal property? What does your ramp-up schedule look like?

• Wages - What will you pay for key positions, and what do you estimate as your average wage?

• Externalities - Pollutants, environmental assessments

• Utilities - Water and electric usage, and telecommunications requirements

Determine the geographic scope of your search. Defining factors include:

• Supplier and customer locations

• Transportation requirements for people and/or cargo

• Time zones

• Weather patterns and risk of natural disaster

• Proximity to other internal functions

• International trade agreements

• Population/demographic constraints

• Language skills

Get ready to pitch your project - Build a compelling story. You want your ultimate host community to feel good about your project. Identify the positives you bring, be they good-paying jobs, cutting-edge technology, increased tax base, etc. Be honest about the negatives involved such as traffic congestion and environmental impact, and be willing to look for creative solutions to offset them.

Doing Your Homework
The goal of this first phase - location assessment - is a list of communities that fit the project. The ideal starting point for assembling the list of location-specific factors is the information gathered in the groundwork phase. Next, look at a broad list of possible communities and apply these criteria. The search could be as broad as an entire country, or it could be a comparison of 10 nearby markets.

Assemble information about each location that measures your ability to succeed there.

• Demographics - How does your industry fit into current demographic trends? Will the age of the population affect your business? Is the area growing or declining? Is the population base large enough to sustain your operation?

• Wages for your key positions

• Risk of natural disaster

• Existing industry base - Are there potential synergies with existing companies? Does the industry base create competition for a specific labor pool?

• Transportation infrastructure - Does the community have ample highway infrastructure for people and cargo movement? Is there access to alternate forms of transportation such as rail? What is the airport's domestic and international reach?

• Utility rate and availability

• Tax rates (income, property, sales, etc.)

• Government transparency (most applicable for multinational searches)

• Payroll costs (workers' comp, unemployment insurance)

•Occupation and skills assessment - Balance an ample labor force with necessary skills while controlling for cost.

• Language skills

• Client-specific needs - Keep perspective on how these factors weigh on the business location decision. Too much emphasis can eliminate stronger overall locations. 

Analyze the data

• Compare location ranking for multiple weighting scenarios

• Test for sensitivity - When data changes, how much does it matter? For example, our call center clients ask that we analyze what happens to labor availability if a competing call center moves into the same market.

Once you've gathered data, weigh the importance of each attribute. The weighting should incorporate the thinking of the entire company, based on interviews with every affected department. In some cases, multiple versions of the weighting exercise are needed to address suitability for all parts of a company. Weightings that emphasize specific factors - such as utility cost or labor pool depth - allow for more objective decision-making. This method can uncover communities that rank high regardless of weighting and also identify locations that can best meet the needs of a specific situation. 

Off-the shelf community rankings and canned analyses don't reflect the specifics of your company - so your analysis should be customized. Yet for each type of business, key variables appear, e.g., labor cost and accessibility for a manufacturing operation. The accompanying matrix (Exhibit 1) assesses six common project types against frequently used decision-making variables.
 

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