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Welcome Business Retention: Helping Companies Compete in a Global Economy Predicting Corporate Behavior: Why Companies Relocate or Expand Economic Development Targeting: Laying a Foundation for Your Strategy Plan A City’s Tools for Downtown Development: Much More Than Money Building the Ideal Financing Toolbox Clawbacks in Economic Development: Policies and Practices Community Colleges: The Economic Developer’s Workforce Partner Using a Balanced Scorecard to Measure Your Economic Development Strategy Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS) Summary of Requirements In Memoriam  Subscribe
About Economic Development America
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Predicting Corporate Behavior: Why Companies Relocate or Expand (cont.)
Privately held companies are a little more problematic. A Google Financial search on privately held firms often produces a brief company profile extracted from hoovers.com and includes the company’s address and officers. Interestingly, it also includes any mention of the company in blogs. Google Alerts also can be used to monitor events taking place in these companies. A Google search of the officers’ names and one or two keyword business descriptions can provide additional insight. A number of proprietary, fee-based databases also can be accessed. Dunn and Bradstreet is one well-known source of company profiles. (Dunn and Bradstreet recently acquired Hoovers.) The Nexis portion of Lexis/Nexis provides access to a wide range of publications. The goal is to compile a database of companies undergoing changes that are likely to precipitate a need for them to relocate or expand. By anticipating this behavior, economic developers can begin a dialogue with these companies to determine their level of interest in expanding locally or relocating to another region.
What are these companies looking for when they consider relocating or expanding within a region? Paramount on their list of site selection factors is an overall question: Can this area meet my current and future needs to sustain and grow my business? There was a day when the factors of production were land, labor, and capital. Today, those factors have been augmented with talent, technology, transportation and communication. In a knowledge-based economy in which innovation is the only sustainable competitive advantage, attracting and keeping talented workers is critical. Companies frequently look for talent pools from which they can draw to staff their firms with the best and brightest people.What does your talent pool look like? How deep, how broad, and who does it contain? What does your place know how to do? Inventorying your talent pool and marketing it to the world is as important, if not more important, than knowing what sites or buildings your area has to offer. In addition to your talent pool, companies want to know what the technology base of your area has to offer. Many rural areas have a surprisingly high level of technological expertise arising from their agricultural base. Farming today is as advanced as the most technological industries, with the use of complex financial models, sophisticated machinery and genetically engineered crops. Transportation is another important factor to consider due to the global nature of business today. How easy is it for me to get to and from my customers and suppliers? Can I get the raw materials I need and ship my finished goods economically and efficiently? It has been amazing to watch the reshaping of the global supply chain and the restructuring of the logistics associated with it. The new intermodal facilities in the middle of the corn and bean fields of the Midwest are just one example. Communication, the movement of thoughts and ideas, has never been more important. Access to information, the development of new knowledge, and the application of this knowledge all depend upon our ability to communicate. How good is your area’s communication infrastructure? Will my crucial cell phone calls be interrupted by poor coverage? Do I have the high-speed Internet services on which my finished database product can go out as an email attachment? Can my knowledge workers maintain their knowledge through distance learning? Can I collaborate with other firms around the world? These and other communication questions will be on the minds of prospective companies that consider relocating or expanding in your area. The process by which you can inventory your area’s strengths and compile a list of companies likely to relocate or expand is a complex one. But with leadership, vision, and action, you too can make a difference in your community, just as others are doing in theirs.
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