Site Selectors Guild: Recent Episodes
Site Selectors Guild
Site Selection Matters is a podcast that takes a close look at the art and science of site selection decision making with Rick Weddle, executive director of the Site Selectors Guild. Every two weeks we plan to bring you a new episode that introduces you to different members of the Site Selectors Guild and offers insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
Rick Weddle: Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild or economic development partners and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest, Larry Gigerich, executive managing director with Ginovus, one of the nation’s leading site selection and location advisory firms. Today, Larry will talk with us about the importance of water resources in economic growth and development. Join me as we welcome Larry Gigerich to Site Selection Matters.
Larry, arguably, water has become the most important natural resource for communities and states. And the impact on economic development is significant. Take a minute if you will and unpack this a bit for our listeners. Why is it so important and why is it becoming so important now?
Larry Gigerich: Yeah, I think as you look at it, Rick, and you think about economic and community development in the U.S., and for that matter globally, you know, water and the ability to access water has become critically important, even more so than in the past. And I think maybe the best way to frame this issue up is to really divide it into two pieces. The first being water that is specifically required to support a company’s operations and the second part being water availability to support people living and working in the geographic area. They’re different, but yet connected. And I think as you think about it, you know, water is required for certain types of industrial primarily projects, as you think about it. So, things like food and beverage manufacturing, data centers, chemical productions, some steel and metal products, things like that where you have to have water as a part of your process.
And, you know, if you have an area that can’t meet those availability statistics or numbers, in particular, that’s an issue. And then the second piece is, and I think this is maybe one of the really interesting things that we’ve seen develop over the past couple of years is, the corporate decision-makers are really emphasizing ensuring that water is in available in those communities and states where they look to allocate tower. Where they’re going to put those resources of people because they want to make sure people living in that area are in a position, you know, whether it’s from a quality of place or just general everyday life, that they’re in a place where there’s water that’s available. Because I think that’s going to become even more important as we go forward and decision-makers are starting to look at that.
Rick: Two big reasons and we’ll jump into that. So, we get it now, really that water’s important. Obviously, without water we can’t exist and, of course, it’s important for, as you noted, many industrial processes. But now you’re suggesting the second point that corporate decision-makers are really beginning to look at it differently and considering the availability of water when looking at potential facility locations on a broader basis. Explain this if you will.
Larry: Absolutely. So, now, you know, with that second focus that has emerged, you know, again ensuring that when they put talent resources in different geographic areas, that water is available not only to meet the needs of that area today, bu
Rick Weddle (Site Selectors Guild): Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a closer look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president in the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest, Dennis Donovan, a principal with Wadley Donovan Gutshaw Consulting, one of the nation’s leading site selection and location advisory firms. Today, Dennis will talk with us about how EDOs or economic developers can work to position their communities in the post-pandemic era. Join me as we welcome Dennis Donovan to Site Selection Matters.
Dennis, in this post-pandemic era, it seems like communities, just like companies, should be reassessing their competitive situation and their target industry focus to make sure they’re positioned correctly going forward. Is this correct? Do you see it that way?
Dennis Donovan (Wadley Donovan Gutshaw Consulting): Yes, I do. You know, this is really a continuation. I mean, it’s what I call continuous product improvement. Continuous business improvement should always be looking at the assets and liabilities that the community has to offer, and what that holds for the future, and how you rank vis-a-vis the competition. So I think that’s key. And one of…you know, in terms of competitive positioning, coming out of the pandemic, without any question, the number one consideration in terms of how successful a community will be from a retention expansion and a recruitment standpoint is the talent pool. I have never seen, even in the heydays, before the Great Recession, a tighter labor market that we’ve had today. Now, there’s change, there are differences around the country. It’s not uniform. But there are significant challenges. And they stretch from qualified entry-level through semi-skilled through skilled and certain professional positions as well.
So documenting in areas labor market resources, especially as they relate to the target industries, is going to be vitally important. And let me tell you, Rick, one of the challenges that I see not being adequately met, I do not see enough workforce assessment that is demand-driven, that we’re just taking stock of what the demand for certain skills are now and in the future. And I see too much in terms of communities and workforce development focusing on jobs. We need to be focusing on skills, the skills required, and then that leads into certain occupations or jobs. So this is gonna be really important, the demand-based, skills-based within your target industries and overall, and then I would say, you know, we hear all about upskilling and so forth. And that is true. But believe me, because of technology, there are going to be portion of the workforce that may not be able to participate fully in the post-COVID recovery. So we need to have a training aimed at not only the marginalized but at those at greatest risk of being displaced. And they can be upskilled to form bottom of the foundation for companies that are gonna require entry-level labor.
So this is a new paradigm here. And we don’t have a lot of time to do a lot of redesigning, we do it very quickly. So holistic collaborations of educators, government, business really needs to be business-led. It’s going to be key in terms of making sure that we have a workforce that can sustain
Rick Weddle (Site Selectors Guild): Welcome to Site Selection Matters where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you a deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest, Bob Hess, vice chairman, Newmark Global Corporate Services and practice lead for its global site selection platform. Today, Bob will talk with us about diversity and inclusion as a business imperative in corporate site selection. Join me today as we welcome Bob Hess to Site Selection Matters. Bob, we hear a lot today about the evolving importance of diversity and inclusion to business. Take a minute or two if you will to describe exactly what’s meant by that when we referenced diversity and inclusion as a corporate concern, and maybe how this issue has evolved over time.
Bob Hess (Newmark): Thanks, Rick. I’ve been looking forward to the podcast today. It’s a topic that’s been part of my business life and my personal life for many, many years, and it has evolved over time. I mean, there’s a really interesting temporal time component to diversity, and it was awareness back in the, I’ll call it ’70s and ’80s more from a business perspective, obviously, the ’60s, you had social moments, you know, to a concern. And then it moved into a business imperative and then action, various levels of action I think that are starting, and, of course, it’s always been about talent, right?
So this evolution diversity has been about talent attraction, development, and retention, but we’ve come at this talent issue from a diversity perspective, you know, many different ways. And one of the issues that I think that’s impacted diversity is, you know, boardroom directors and how important it is there. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, it wasn’t prevalent in the boardroom. It was left to the boards to interpret this, but there really wasn’t a lot of understanding of it in terms of how you measure it. And, of course, fast forward to the ’80s and the ’90s, I was actually part of a diversity initiative, which more than diversity initiatives came into play in the ’90s, when I was at a Big Four firm.
I was actually a new partner and I was asked to lead the diversity initiative for about 2,500 people in a region of the country. It was one of the more wonderful honors of my life to be involved with that. And at that time, it was about, okay, the business case and making people understand the dimensions of diversity, which are beyond, you know, age and race and ethnicity. They get into class and values and even thinking styles and working styles. You know, that was the discussion, and it may be more accelerated for tech firms and other types of firms, public firms, but then the accelerators happened. These speaking of this timeline, these accelerators and catalysts for the last couple of years and recently, you know, the human experience, social justice, obviously Black Lives Matter and other external stakeholders, climate change, politics, and the labor market again, the war for talent.
The war for talent has always been central to diversity and inclusion and even ESG these days. And the last thing I’ll say about, you know, this evolution, even the word diversity has evolved. It was diversity, right, for a while, then it w
Rick Weddle (Site Selectors Guild): Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders of the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest, Andrew Deye, vice president of Strategy for JobsOhio, the lead statewide agency for economic development and job growth in Ohio. Today, Andrew will talk with us about the role talent plays in fueling business opportunities and innovation across the state of Ohio. Please join me as we welcome Andrew Deye to Site Selection Matters.
Andrew, your title is vice president of Strategy for JobsOhio. What an interesting role that describes. Take a minute or two if you will, tell our listeners a little bit about exactly what JobsOhio is, maybe what it does.
Andrew Deye (JobsOhio): Well, Rick, thank you for the opportunity. JobsOhio is Ohio’s private economic development corporation, and like the Site Selectors Guild, we’re celebrating our tenth anniversary this year. Relative to other state economic development organizations, we’re unique in a number of ways, but let me highlight three. First, our private structure, we’re a private non-profit with a team of industry experts that support businesses with their growth projects that allows us to keep information confidential until the point of announcement. Second, we have a stable funding source. Back in 2013, a 25-year franchise of the state’s liquor enterprise was executed that provides us stable funding through ups and downs. And third, we have statewide coverage, JobsOhio operates with six regional partners, a team in Northeast Ohio, one Columbus, REDI Cincinnati, the Dayton Development Coalition, Regional Growth Partnership Northwest Ohio and Ohio Southeast. We were proud that Cincinnati was the host of the Site Selectors Guild Annual Conference in 2018, and hope you’ll continue to keep an eye on the exciting developments in Ohio.
Rick: Well, thank you, Andrew. Thanks for sharing that background on JobsOhio. I think you got my attention when you said stable funding source. I think that speaks to the leadership of the state of Ohio to have an understanding that economic development works best when you can kind of find a line and work it and stay on top of it. So, congratulations to you and the leadership of the state of Ohio for hanging there for 10 years with that stable funding source. I’m sure your partners really appreciate that too?
Andrew: Well, ultimately all projects are local, and so we think the three parts, you know, JobsOhio, our regional partner, and our local communities, and ultimately this is always about solving a client opportunity or problem, talent solutions, real estate solutions, and we look forward to continuing to serve clients this year and beyond.
Rick: Let me follow up on that, you mentioned talent. One of the most important elements of business investment and site selection decisions really is talent or talent-related. How does Ohio stand or compare today on the issue of talent? What are you doing or going to do specifically to build on your talent ba
Rick: Welcome to Site Selection Matters where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest, Jay Garner, president and founder of Garner Economics and chair of the Site Selectors Guild. Today, Jay will talk with us about the state of site selection and the Guild. More specifically, Jay joins us to share his unique insights regarding the major top-of-mind questions impacting our economy as we come out of the pandemic and head into what we hope to be a strong and significant economic recovery. Join me as we welcome Jay Garner to Site Selection Matters.
Jay, to kick us off today, why don’t you take a minute and give our listeners a brief update on the state of the Site Selectors Guild? One of the Guild’s founding members and its current chair in this important 10th year anniversary year. I think you have a unique perspective and one that would be of great interest to our listeners. So, where are we today?
Jay: Hey, Rick, thanks so much for having me. And I’m always thrilled to talk about the Guild. I’m passionate about the Guild since I was blessed to be one of the founders. So, you know, we’re having our annual conference coming up in June and I’m calling that just informally, you know, not with any fanfare but I’m calling it the 11, 10 celebration. So, what does that mean? Well, the Guild will be 11 years old this July. We were founded in July of 2010. We had our first annual conference in Orlando 10 years ago. So, we’re basically having the 10th anniversary of our first conference. So, that’s why I’m, you know, just to put a little spin on it and I’m calling it the 11, 10 celebration.
Rick: That’s really interesting. I mean, that has a nice little alliteration. The Guild’s in great shape coming out of this pandemic.
Jay: It is. A lot of people have helped make it that way. You being one of them as our president and CEO. When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, we did what any well-managed, well-led organization would do to sustain itself and we did a pivot. The Guild was basically an organization that relied primarily on our two conferences to sustain itself. Our annual conference and another conference, a smaller one that we call the Fall Forum. And those were good, and they still are good, but we needed to diversify our services and our products.
And so we created a business plan that we called Guild Forward and it was a multi-year business plan that did just that. It diversified our product services and even took it a little step further and then allowed us to focus on other issues regarding our thought content, thought leadership, and then more of an internal focus on what we call executed effectively. So, we added a number of products and services. We added webinars that have been exceptionally well attended. At our in-person conferences, we had a little tool that we called Table Talk, where we got to network with all of the economic development friends that came to our conferences.
We started doing that virtually
Rick Weddle (Site Selectors Guild): Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild or economic development partners and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest, Chris Lloyd, senior vice president and director of infrastructure and economic development with McGuireWoods Consulting, a leader in the practice of location advisory services and economic development. Today, Chris will talk with us about the American Rescue Plan, where specifically Chris will discuss just what the plan means for the economic development community going forward. Join me as we welcome Chris Lloyd to Site Selection Matters.
Chris, as we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re starting to see some of the real impacts of the various federal stimulus plans adopted to help restart the economy. Now we even have a new one, the recently approved American Rescue Plan. To get us started if you will, take a minute or two, help our listeners understand what all is really included in the American Rescue Plan.
Chris Lloyd (McGuireWoods Consulting): Sure, Rick. And again, thanks for hosting us and inviting me to be a part of this today. You know, as you outlined, Rick, you know, this is not the first and nor will it probably be the last federal stimulus plan to come out of Congress. And I know we’re going to talk later about the potential American jobs plan, the infrastructure plan that the Biden administration has floated, but you know what we’ve got here in the American Rescue Plan, which was passed, you know, within the first month of the new administration is $1.9 trillion. Yes, that’s trillion with a T dollars that’s going to flow from Washington to the states and through various federal agencies for a variety of purposes.
What makes this program a little bit different from the CARES Act or some of the earlier stimulus plans adopted by Congress is that while there’s certainly an overlay and a theme that runs through this money that links it to the COVID pandemic and recovery from it, there’s a little bit more flexibility with regards to how this money is used by the states and the federal agencies in that, a lot of those earlier packages were exclusively tied to reimbursing expenses incurred by impacted small businesses, by local and state governments related to PPE expenses, related to overtime for personnel for running vaccination clinics, for running COVID testing.
And while there’s certainly money in the new America’s rescue plan for those expenses as well, there are a number of programs here that really do have an economic development nexus that I think that, you know, many of the listeners of this podcast will be interested in and thinking about how we can use that money for an economic development purpose. You know, starting at the high level of the $1.9 trillion, you first and foremost, you’ve got $219 billion is going directly to states, $130 million goes directly to localities for allocation. There’s $10 billion allocated in a Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund, which is for each state gets at least $100 million for capital projects that are related to work or education or health monitoring related to COVID-19. You’ve got money set aside for travel assistance. You’ve got $4 billion going to USDA.
You’
Rick Weddle: Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision making. I’m your host Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild.
In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest, Larry Gigerich, executive managing director of Ginovus, one of the nation’s leading location advisory firms. Today, Larry will talk with us about infrastructure. More specifically, Larry will discuss how a national infrastructure plan can position the U.S. for long-term economic development growth. Join me as we welcome Larry Gigerich to Site Selection Matters.
Rick: Larry, today we’re going to be talking about infrastructure, and more specifically, a national plan for infrastructure. But before we jump into the details, why don’t you take a minute, if you will, explain to our listeners exactly what is meant by this word infrastructure?
Larry Gigerich: Well, absolutely, Rick, and great to be with you as always. In my mind, infrastructure is really a physical asset as you think about. It’s something that’s required to support residential, commercial, and industrial development. So I think about things like roads, rail lines, water, sewer, natural gas, electric, broadband. Those kinds of issues are really key underpinnings to economic development and are physical in nature. You know, without it, businesses can’t operate, individuals can’t live their lives. They’re all things that are important to what we all do day-to-day, and we really need certainly a national plan to help us enhance our infrastructure in our country. It’s something that is important. Again, serves as a key underpinning for economic development over the long-term, and it’s something, honestly, we’ve neglected for a few decades as a country in the U.S. and something needs to be addressed.
Rick: You know, Larry with that definition as a baseline, physical infrastructure, you’ve explained that very well kind of what it is. Take a minute, if you can, help us understand why infrastructure development as a process is so important to economic development, and as a follow-up, why a national plan seems to be the right way to go.
Larry: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, again, as I think about infrastructure and those physical assets, it’s really important for economic development as it relates to being able to either develop or redevelop sites or buildings, you know, having the things in place that you need to. You know, as I always say, it’s kind of like when you think about infrastructure, you know, when you throw on the light switch and your lights come on, you turn on a faucet, water comes out, you don’t necessarily think about that infrastructure and what it takes to get it to your business, to your home every day until you don’t have access to, until you turn the light switch and the lights don’t come on or turn on the faucet, no water comes out, then it becomes a crisis. So I think that the importance of a national plan, especially one that ends up being focused on physical infrastructure is really important. Again, we’ve not seen anything concentrated, probably close to 30 years now, and we’ve seen a lot of aging of our existing infrastructure, let alone the technological adva
Rick Weddle (Site Selectors Guild): Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest Courtney Fingar, editor-in-chief of Investment Monitor, a part of New Statesman Media Group, with a mission of explaining how the world is changing for decision-makers in need of data-driven answers. Today, Courtney will talk with us about foreign direct investment or FDI. More specifically, Courtney will share with us about FDI trends and the macro factors driving them. What an interesting and relevant topic for today’s discussion. Join me as we welcome Courtney Fingar to “Site Selection Matters.” Courtney, before we get into the weeds of foreign direct investment or FDI as a topic, take a minute, if you will, and tell us about the “Investment Monitor.”
Courtney Fingar (Investment Monitor): Well, first of all, thanks very much for having me. “Investment Monitor” is a new publication that was launched in September 2020. It’s digital-only, and it’s free to read and access. So, I hope all the listeners will check it out. Our audience that we’re targeting would be senior decision-makers at multinational companies and those who influence their decisions, so that, of course, would include site selection advisors. But, of course, it could be interesting for anyone in the broader FDI ecosystem. We consider ourselves to be data-led. So, we are trying to sort through all the vast amounts of data out there that relate to FDI and help our readers make sense of them. I come to the publication from a relatively long career at Financial Times, formerly running fDi Magazine there, and I’ve been joined at Investment Monitor by about 10 other colleagues from there. And we’re just looking to build something new, and we felt there was a gap in the market that we’re trying to serve.
Rick: Well, that’s great. It sounds like a great opportunity at a really interesting time. You know, 2020 was wow, quite a year as we faced the first global pandemic in at least our lifetimes. One area that was impacted by the pandemic was global investment or FDI hugely. By some estimates, the total of foreign investment fell by over 40% maybe in 2020. Take a minute if you will and help us unpack that fact or data, as you would say, and explain why our listeners should be concerned with it.
Courtney: Yes, it was a highly disruptive year, and the data charts are pretty ugly when we start to look around what happened last year. And it’s arguably the most difficult situation for FDI in decades. And that would even include the big collapses that we saw after the global financial crisis more than a decade ago. Now, the collapse is not uniform. There were some sectors that have continued to perform relatively well, and they are not surprising ones like healthcare and ICT. And a few countries are outliers. We saw increases in China and India, for example. But apart from those few bright spots, we saw declines in every mode of FDI. So, we saw declines
Rick Weddle (Site Selectors Guild): Welcome to "Site Selection Matters" where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I'm your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest, Didi Caldwell, principal with Global Location Strategies, one of the world's leading site selection consultancies for manufacturing and industrial companies. Today Didi will talk with us about how community or state action to combat climate change is emerging as an increasingly important site location factor. Join me as we welcome Didi Caldwell to "Site Selection Matters."
Didi, the interest in sustainability is clearly escalating. The new administration's push for climate change programs, renewable energy jobs, plus the recent announcement by BlackRock chief, Laurence Fink, calling for companies to actually disclose plans on how they'll support a net-zero economy all seem to reinforce this point. Take a minute, if you will, to help our listeners understand why this is important, specifically to site location, and what a net-zero economy actually means.
Didi Caldwell (Global Location Strategies): Thank you, Rick. It's great to be here with you. We've seen an increasing interest from our clients in net-zero and other sustainability goals over the last, I would say decade. Net-zero essentially means achieving a balance between the greenhouse gases that we put into the atmosphere and those that are taken out so that we can achieve a net-zero emissions. It differs from gross zero, in that gross zero would mean that we're trying to take out all carbon dioxide emissions, which is, I think most people would agree, is not achievable with today's technology. But net-zero accounts for our ability to take out greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere through nature or through other technologies.
Rick: So that would mean we're not making it worse, right? If you're at net zero, it's do no harm, kind of.
Didi: Exactly. And the widely accepted increase in temperature that we can achieve... We have to get to net-zero in order to achieve an overall warming of 2 degrees Celsius or less. That's what the scientists are telling us, that we need to in order to avoid major environmental damage and beyond social and all kinds of other things that scientists are telling us that degrees Celsius is about where that threshold is. And in order to achieve that, we really need to get to net-zero and as quickly as possible.
Rick: You know, there's a lot of details and a lot of substance to be understood and learned in this. But, you know, we've been talking about global warming and climate change for a long time now, some more intensely, some less intensely, but some of us actually remember back when Al Gore first raised the conscious level with the release of the movie, "Inconvenient Truth." Why do you think it's coming to the forefront now, after all these years?
Didi: Well, there's a couple of reasons. I mean, one thing is that was sort of a call-to-action, but we really didn't have the technologies, at least not at a price point where we could implement those technologies back when "I
Rick Weddle (Site Selectors Guild): Welcome to "Site Selection Matters," where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I'm your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest Larry Moretti, principal with LFM Corporate Solutions. With over 30 years of professional experience, Larry focuses on global location strategies and site selection across all industry platforms, corporate real estate advisory services, economic development, and program management. Today, Larry will talk with us about the location strategy decision chain. More specifically, Larry will help us unpack and understand what goes into the decision process? Who was involved in the decision and how it works in practice? Join me as we welcome Larry Moretti to "Site Selection Matters."
Rick: Larry, thanks for joining us today and helping us understand the location decision process from the inside out. Why don't you start by giving our listeners your perspective on the strategy decision chain and what's required for a successful decision path?
Larry Moretti (LFM Corporate Solutions): Well, thanks, Rick. I really appreciate the opportunity to chat with you today. It's interesting having done projects like that, site selection projects for many years, I have seen a pattern I'm sure my colleagues do as well. I mean, the bottom line is the successful project for expanding, consolidating a relocating a company's geographic footprint, they all share a common grounding. They're guided by a logical defendable process to build a business case and to guide that decision. And this is often based on, or always I would say based on underlying business need and the project success factors.
So, you know, really important dimension there, in addition to all of the value developments of a citing selection, it's having a clear project management communications and decision structure. And this structure constitutes what I would call a supply and demand decision chain of corporate site selection and economic development. And, you know, this decision involves a couple of categories, I would say three categories in total. One I would call the demand side, then there's a supply side, kind of makes sense, and then the third is a group in between that that evaluates or otherwise influences the decision.
So the views and motivations of each of these groups towards alternatives solutions and factors of importance is going to vary, but the underlying process needs to be grounded in project objectives, but it also has to be flexible enough to anticipate actions and reactions to each of these parties. So, it's really, really important for the roles of these key groups to be established and how they fit into the process upfront early in the process. So truly a classic exercise in project management, and we'll go into some of the details.
Rick: Very, very interesting. Larry, moving or changing a corporate location, a facility if you will, is clearly a big decision impacting the whole company most likely. As such, I would expect that a lot of different people or stakeholders inside the company would want to have a say or do have a say in that process. Who do you consider to be the key parties in that decision chain from the company or the demand side?
Larry: Stepping back a
Rick Weddle (Site Selectors Guild): Welcome to "Site Selection Matters," where we take a closer look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I'm your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest, Jay Garner, president and founder of Garner Economics and chairman of the Site Selectors Guild. Today Jay will talk with us about the impact COVID-19 has had on food and beverage processing. Jay will also share his unique perspective and insight on the role the Site Selectors Guild has played in professionalizing the location advisory business. Join me as we welcome Jay Garner to "Site Selection Matters."
Rick: Jay, I read with interest your recent article on the impact COVID-19 has had on the food and beverage processing industry. You suggest the impact has been both positive and negative. Take a minute, if you will, and tell our listeners how you see this industry in a post-COVID world.
Jay (Garner Economics): Hey, Rick, thanks very much for having me. And I love talking about the food and beverage sector, it's our wheelhouse, and so we are engaged in that sector extensively. Boy, let me tell you something, this pandemic really has impacted all of us, many of us negatively, especially economically, health-wise. But some of us, some corporations, have made profits like no other. And the food and beverage sector and all of the downstream companies associated with it, like grocery stores, have done the best they have ever done in the history of their business.
So, let me tell you a little bit reason why. Well, obviously, there is no such thing as a recession-proof industry sector, but the food and beverage sector is the closest thing to it because everyone still needs to eat. So, what happens is, because of consumer preference, you have an evolution and always evolving demand of what these products should be. In the case of food and beverage, a number of things were happening before the pandemic, they got exasperated during the pandemic. And what we're seeing, coming out of it, is profound. Protein plants, for example, during the month of May. You know, between 40% and 60% of all protein plants, those are meat-processing facilities went offline. So, not only did you have a shortage in the grocery store and a lot of meat products, but, obviously, you had an escalation in prices as a result of that. And then we all know about paper products associated, in your grocery stores. Those don't typically classify in the food and beverage sector, but you kind of get the idea, get the drift, you know.
At the same time, you have sectors like those that have alcohol-infusion that have really grown exponentially. Alcohol sales were on the decline, in the U.S., pre-pandemic. And then during the pandemic, alcohol sales grew significantly because of lockdowns, job losses. You know, there's some inherent psychological challenges that people have faced and continue to face during the pandemic. So, anything...alcohol is classified as food and beverage. And you have alcohol-infusion waters, like these hard seltzer waters, that's the rage now, everyone wants to buy these hard seltzer waters.
So, you know, in South Carolina, last month, you had one of these seltzer companies, that's associated with White Claw, doi
Rick Weddle: Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, President of Site Selectors Guild.
In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and key corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest, Bob Hess, Vice Chairman for Global Consulting with Newmark. Today, Bob will talk with us about the daunting task of stay versus go location decisions for companies. More specifically, we’ll talk with Bob about the dynamics of such important corporate decisions, their relevance to communities, and the challenge of responding correctly when facility retention is on the table. Join me as we welcome Bob Hess to Site Selection Matters.
Bob, the premise behind today’s discussion is the challenge that a single facility stay versus go decision presents for both companies and their location communities. Take a minute, if you will, to explain exactly what you’re talking about and what you mean by a stay versus go decision.
Bob Hess: Well, thanks, Rick, for the opportunity to talk about this. In my career, which is 30 years plus, this has probably been the most common form of researchable problem that I’ve been involved with and I would bet many people in the location consulting business would say the same.
Often, they’re very, very confidential, so I guess the best way to talk about what we mean by stay versus go would be an example. Many, many decades ago, remember the UPS headquarters, they were in Connecticut. And at some point the UPS had to decide whether it needed to stay in Connecticut or go somewhere else for lots of reasons, customer issues, access issues, changing issues already regarding talent.
The community’s changing, the markets are changing, so companies are always looking at the issue of, in a single facility with inside of a footprint, though, a footprint or a portfolio of facilities, lots of triggers there, push and pull factors, obsolete facility, leases that expire, it could be capacity issues, even image issues, companies are always looking at, is this facility aligned with my business? Is it meeting, you know, our cost and quality objectives? And there’s border wars, there’s plenty of issues around, you know, people that are…you have a facility at one side of the border of one state or the other and there’s a lower cost structure there.
So whether it’s different asset types, all these companies are looking at, should they stay or should they go? Is the grass greener on the go side? And by the way, is there enough compelling evidence for the company to see in a new location, to manage all the business disruption that typically would result from a relocation or a go decision?
Rick: Looking forward to unpacking that whole set of questions you laid out there, Bob, but let’s start out by saying, sharing or discussing the types of facilities that you might see most often impacted by such a decision.
Bob: Great question. So let’s start with the ones that are really visible in the marketplace. I mentioned the UPS back in the ’90s. What about Boeing? I remember the Boeing headquarters project, that was very, very visible. They decided to make that pretty well known in the marketplace what they’re doing. Should they stay in Seattle or should they go somewhere else?
Rick Weddle (Site Selectors Guild): Welcome to "Site Selection Matters," where we take a closer look at the art and science of site selection decision making. I'm your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest, René Buck, CEO of BCI Global, one of the world's leading independent footprint optimization, location strategy, site selection, and supply chain consulting companies. BCI has offices in the U.S., in Europe, and in Asia.
Today, René will talk with us about increasing chances for reshoring or production from Asia to the U.S. More specifically, we'll also talk with René about what's driving this movement, and the U.S. states that are the best positioned to capture future reshoring investments. Join me as we welcome René Buck to "Site Selection Matters." René, before we get into a deep dive on this important topic, take a minute, if you will, to explain to our listeners what you mean by decentralization of production, or also called reshoring. And maybe also, a little bit about what the current drivers are of this process.
René Buck (BCI Global): Yeah, sure. We hear a lot about reshoring. And reshoring is like something which went out of the U.S. or out of Europe to China/Asia and is now supposed to come back. But let's say we prefer and, I mean, with we also our corporate clients prefer the word decentralization of manufacturing. And decentralization of manufacturing means that is the opposite of having all your eggs in one basket. You can imagine that you have a certain product, or a certain product line and you say, "Well, there's only one place on earth where I produce that." So, it's a global manufacturing plant. Then you will have regional manufacturing plants saying, "Okay. Well, this product, I produce it in a plant for Asia pack, I have a plant for North America, and I have a plant for Europe." And decentralization means even having more plants than just opposite to having one global plant.
So, we came for economies of scale reasons. A number of companies chose the last decades to say, "Well, I have one global plant who produces that product." But on the one hand, the U.S.-China trade dispute and on the other hand COVID-19 have made clear that that can be a risky and bumpy road. So, what we see is that companies are looking now into—should we not decentralize our manufacturing, so not having this product produced only in one or two plants, but the more closer to the market so that we are not that vulnerable for business disruption risk? And the reasons, the drivers behind that are there are a couple of drivers. One is from a supply chain risk perspective. You want to reduce the sourcing risk. You want to reduce the risk that you are too dependent of critical suppliers in only one single region. And let's be honest, COVID-19, certainly in February and Marc, and April made clear that supply chains all over the world were disturbed by the fact that the critical suppliers in China could not deliver anymore.
So, you have supply chain drivers in terms of mitigating sourcing risk. We have also external disruptions. We talk about pandemic. We talk about trade barrier risk. Let's not forget that for a lot of American companies, this decentralization challenge, where should we produce? What products? With what technologies? For what markets? Where? I repeat, what products do we produce? With what technologies? For what markets? Where? That's a question which for many companies, U.S.-based companies already from e
In this week's episode of Site Selection Matters, Rick Weddle speaks with Larry Gigerich, Executive Managing Director of Ginovus, about incentive compliance management issues in the COVID-19 impacted economic environment.
Rick Weddle: Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest, Greg Burkart, managing director and practice leader for Site Selection and Incentives Advisory Services with Duff & Phelps. Today, Greg will talk with us about manufacturing reshoring. More specifically, we’ll talk with Greg about how the COVID pandemic is changing the dynamics of manufacturing location activity around the world. Join me as we welcome Greg Burkart to Site Selection Matters.
Greg, a lot has changed and continues to change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Global supply chains are being reexamined as we speak. I’ve even heard you suggest that companies are maybe nearing a tipping point to bring manufacturing operations back to the U.S. Take a minute or two, if you will, to help our listeners understand your views on reshoring and what you mean by companies reaching a tipping point.
Greg Burkart: Thanks, Rick. So, since the passage of NAFTA in ’93, the trend for companies has been to shift the manufacturing of goods from the U.S. to low labor costs. And in 1992, the U.S. trade deficit for goods production was about $85 billion. Last year, the trade deficit had multiplied 10 fold to $854 billion. So over this time period, what we were also seeing what all the shifts of production to China, the labor costs in China rose about 2,000% and that caused companies to start analyzing their manufacturing operations because the U.S.-China labor deferential shrunk from about 31X to about 4X.
Initially, companies as these labor costs started to rise, what they did is they moved from the coastline in China to the further interior parts of China. Once the pandemic hit, companies realized that, you know, they couldn’t reliably get their goods out of the Western Province. And so, as a result of that, the goods just stopped flowing almost overnight. And what was kind of this slowly simmering pot really started to boil over in April. The C-suite was also facing the possibility that the current administration would designate their company as a critical business. And for them, that was the tipping point where they would be forced to relocate operations back to the U.S. So instead of having this, you know, far-flung supply chain, companies started looking more closely at manufacturing for the U.S. market in the U.S. or asking some of their critical suppliers to relocate back in the U.S. So that’s what we mean by the tipping point. The pandemic caused companies to kind of reach that tipping point.
Rick: So, Greg, let me ask a question, the critical business designation that the federal government could make would actually be a regulatory matter where they might say to industry A or industry B or company A, or company B your business is critical, therefore you have to realign your supply chain. So, they were actually faced with possibly having to do it for non-business reasons. Is that right?
Greg: Correct. So, Department of Homeland Security has identified, I think there’s 13 or 14 industry segments that they view as being critical to national security. So, it’s a designation that could come from Department of Homeland Securi
Rick: Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where each week we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development to provide you with key insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
This year, we’ve been on a bit of a roller coaster with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the wide range of corporate and government responses. While much remains uncertain, one thing seems clear, how we assess corporate risk related to economic vulnerability and location resilience will likely be forever changed. As we work our way through this pandemic, important questions are being asked, how will companies assess risk? How will a given country, state, region, or city response impact the company’s view of them for future projects? Is this a situation that will eventually settle down and return to business as usual, or will we see an entirely new dimension of risk assessment? That’s the premise or question that will guide today’s discussion with our distinguished panel of professional site selectors and location advisers.
In this episode of Site Selection Matters, we have as our guest, Mark Williams, president of the Strategic Development Group, Angelos Angelou, founder and principal executive officer of AngelouEconomics, Von Hatley, managing director of Jones Walker Consulting, Jerry Szatan, owner of Szatan & Associates, Ken Maly, senior managing director for location strategy with Newmark, and Seth Martindale, senior managing director of CBRE. Together, this group of thought leaders will share their informed insights on how resilience will impact location projects in the future. Join me as we welcome this distinguished panel to Site Selection Matters.
Well, let’s get started with a question to Mark Williams. Mark, what are your initial thoughts on corporate risk assessment of economic vulnerability and resilience in today’s COVID-19 or post-pandemic environment?
Mark: Hey, Rick. You know, corporate risk assessment has been a critical part of site location analysis since the beginning of time. And part of any legitimate selection project involves analysis of all kinds of risks, general business risk, geotechnical risk, labor risks, weather risks. There have been so many over the years and some clients are more concerned about certain risks than others based on their operation. And COVID-19, from my perspective, really lays out two new layers of consideration in terms of corporate risk. And really, the first is I think is going to be a tendency to more capital intensity and automation. As we know, there’s a great deal of concern about employees, the proximity of employees working next to each other. And I really think that’s going to be a permanent risk, an ongoing risk, something that’s going to be considered. So in the midst of automation, it was occurring. I think it’s going to accelerate because that’s an element of the COVID-19 risk.
The second thing is the community risk. And I think the Tesla example you
Rick Weddle: Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a closer look at the art and science of site selection decision making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, President and CEO of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners and corporate decision makers to provide you with deep insight into the next and best practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest, Tom Stringer, managing director and service leader for site selection and incentives with BDO. Today, Tom will talk with us about the site location industry in the post-COVID 19 era. Join me as we welcome Tom Stringer to Site Selection Matters. Tom, before we get into how the pandemic has really changed your business, take a minute if you will, to give our listeners an overview of your portfolio or book of business and the site selection and location advisory world. Tell us a little bit about what you do.
Tom Stringer: Hey, Rick, and thanks for the time today, certainly appreciate it. Yep, our practice here at BDO really is multidisciplinary in the site collection and incentives world we work with various companies on things like corporate headquarters, where we represent companies like Northrop Grumman and other well known brands with their corporate headquarters site searches to major manufacturing facilities. We had the honor again of working with Northrop years ago for the long range strike bomber. Recently, another client of ours that’s attracted a lot of attention has been Nikola motors, we help them with their headquarters and their manufacturing facility in New Jersey, we just recently went public the other day, we also spent a lot of time working with major professional sports leagues helping them plan some of their major events. So, we have a lot of fun, we’re in a lot of different areas, and we certainly enjoy the work very much.
Rick: So, real quickly, just to kind of dig in on that just a bit major manufacturers, major headquarters, and sports leagues, that seems to take you across the full gamut of location work.
Tom: It does. One of the benefits of this profession, I think, is that you have to be multi-disciplined in order to really succeed through the ups and downs of economies and the swings and business cycles. And I’ll be honest, we’re at the point in our careers, our team here that we get to kind of choose our projects and choose the clients that we work with rather than having to chase a lot of business. And those clients have been with us for in some cases now decades, which is a lot of fun. And the economic impact of things like a major manufacturing facility, or a corporate headquarters, or a large event can be pretty tremendous for a community. Certainly you’ve seen that in film and TV Motion Picture production, where we have a rather large client that we help choose some of the site works for their production. And the economic impact from those events can be as large on a shorter term basis than it can be for permanent facility. So, we enjoy what economic development can do, we’re really happy to be a part of it. And it does keep it interesting when none of your clients are the same.
Rick: Sounds both interesting and fun. And then along came the future and the COVID-19 pandemic. Tell me how has that affected and also not just the pandemic, but also business and government’s response to that, how has that impacte
Rick Weddle: Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a closer look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to the top leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with the members of the guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession. In this episode, we have as our guest, Elias van Herwaarden, principal with Locationperspectives. In this capacity, Elias assists companies in building and restructuring their business internationally. This includes a wide range of services and location selection, footprint optimization, and glocalization, or helping companies successfully adapt their products and services to local markets. Today, Elias will talk with us about the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it may actually be redrawing Europe’s borders. Join me as we welcome Elias van Herwaarden to Site Selection Matters. Elias, the COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of how and where companies produce their goods and services. Certainly, this has contributed to this ongoing debate we hear about reshoring or as some would say, rightshoring. Could you take a minute or two and explain just what reshoring is and maybe what it means in a European context?
Elias van Herwaarden: Thank you very much Rick for that question. I think the answer to that question depends on who you ask. If you would ask the French government, they actually understand it as bringing the jobs or the work back to France. If you would ask the Bulgarian Prime Minister, he will say reshoring is, well, bringing it back from Asia and bring it to Europe and, by the way, as you do that, bring it to my country. So, it’s a political perception, which I think if you talk to business people, you’re getting a different answer because for them reshoring is about shoring closer to market or closer to certain suppliers and providers. So, there’s a difference between the two. But companies are more thinking about rightshoring, rethinking their structures, then they’re literally taking the word reshoring for moving back to their country of origin.
Rick: Okay. Well, let me ask you this, with that different perspective, now, let’s take it from the company’s perspective, does it always work? Is it functionally the right thing to do in this current environment?
Elias: Let me talk from the European side. It is striking that I think it was back in 2016, the European administration set up a reshoring monitor and attract around 700 reshoring projects, meaning intentions to reshore. They closed the project down in early 2019. And there’s some interesting information in there because it shows projects that reshored and did well. And there are striking examples of projects that reshored or shored closer to market and failed. And actually, Europe and the U.S. have one in common. It was when Adidas set up its Speed factories. Recall, in the old days, Adidas was manufacturing its sports shoes and gear in China, and it moved into Vietnam, as China became too expensive. And then to stay ahead of the game, Adidas said, “We’re going to make fully automated factories. We’re going to place them near market. One was in the U.S., the other was in Germany, and will allow people to actually assemble or design their sneaker off the internet and get it delivered within a couple of days, as opposed to getting a standard off the shelf thing that took six weeks to tr
Rick Weddle: Welcome to ”Site Selection Matters” where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak to members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest, Mark Williams, former Guild chairman and president of the Strategic Development Group, Incorporated, a firm that provides a variety of site selection and location and city of negotiation services designed to enhance the operational performance and produce cost savings to companies and their suppliers. Today, Mark will talk with us about the issue of reshoring as it relates to the current COVID-19 environment. Please join me as we welcome Mark Williams to ”Site Selection Matters.”
Mark, despite the lockdown and stay-at-home guidelines, this has to really be a busy time for location advisors. Take a minute, if you will, and give our listeners a brief overview of your role in the Strategic Development Group and what you do.
Mark Williams: Sure, Rick. Thanks for having me back on this great podcast. You know, we remain very busy. Strategic Development Group is a location advisory firm and we have a suite of existing clients and are always generating new clients to advise them on where to locate and why. So of course, there are factors related to logistics sites, technical aspects of sites, labor, etc. So no two projects are the same. We’ve been in business for a long time and have kind of seen the good and the bad and the ugly related to navigating this path of site location. So we help our clients do that. Generally, our clients are medium and very large firms, many of them global firms. So we help with those locations, but there are always things that come up where additional advice is required in that process. It could be related to the political nature of things, it could be related to how do we negotiate incentives in the COVID environment? What is the acceptance of that concept? So it’s dynamic. It’s very interesting. It’s been very interesting to me.
Rick: Well, thank you. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, which I think has changed nearly everything, we’re hearing more and more about the concept of facility reshoring or bringing facilities back to the US. For the benefit of our listeners, how do you define reshoring?
Mark: Rick, for I’m gonna say about the past 20 years, companies, many of them from the U.S. have been looking to focus on improving their economics of their production systems. And they have decided in many cases to move offshore for economic reasons. In 2019, for example, 18% of all the U.S. imports were from China. You know, my definition of a reshoring is, okay, these companies have moved production capacity offshore, reshoring is the concept of them considering bringing it back. And they may have some reasons for that we can discuss that or economics or logistical or other, but that’s the concept. And it’s getting a lot of attention for a lot of reasons we can chat about.
Rick: You know, Mark, I’ve heard you describe when we’ve talked about this, that manufacturing risk and economics really, as a pendulum. What do you mean by that? And where would you see that pendulum earlier this year? Where is it now also?
Mark: So the pendul
Rick Weddle: Welcome to Site Selection Matters, where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of Site Selectors Guild. In each episode we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild and our economic development partners and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode we again have as our guest Andy Shapiro. Andy is a principal in the location advisory firm Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Company and the immediate past chair of the Site Selectors Guild. He’s here to talk with us about economic development in cities in the United States, more specifically, how such incentives are being or likely to be impacted by the COVID-19 health emergency. Join me as we welcome back Andy Shapiro to Site Selection Matters.
Andy, we’ve been hearing that the climate around state and local incentives has really been evolving both before and even after now the pandemic that’s underway. Tell us about that a bit and help us understand what’s happened since COVID-19 has emerged.
Andy Shapiro: Thanks, Rick. You know, in many ways the practice of economic development incentives has or soon will be unrecognizable by pre-COVID standards. But you’re correct. There’s been a change underway for quite some time now. And in particular, before COVID, we were receiving a pullback in many of those states that had typically deployed incentives strategically as part of their economic development efforts. I’ll just give you a couple of examples from the recent experiences we’ve had at BLS & Company.
For example, New Jersey, you know, under Governor Murphy, you know, they basically allowed most of those Christie-era programs such as the Grow New Jersey incentive to sunset and have done so without any clear guidance on what would be the successor incentives. This has had a significant impact on the state, not the least of which has been the cratering of the office market, particularly along the New Jersey-Hudson River waterfront, which has historically thrived on the steady diet of New York City’s, you know, out-migrating companies. So there’s a lot of uncertainty there on the New Jersey side and without a successor program in place, a lot of deals have gone basically on lockdown. This is all, again, before COVID.
Another pre-COVID example of how the incentives climate has changed to a nearby state in the Northeast in Connecticut. There, another new governor, Governor Lamont, ordered a top to bottom reevaluation of all state incentive programs with recommendations that ultimately the state curtail some of the more discretionary inducements in favor of some of the more what we would call “pay-to-play” programs such as payroll withholding-based incentives instead.
And then finally in Florida it’s been a very contentious climate for several years around incentives in Florida. A lot of that really came about during the Scott administration with a tug of war with the legislature. That has eased somewhat under Governor DeSantis. The governor and legislature seem to be more on the same page now. They’ve agreed, at least for the time being, to allow some of the state’s major incentive programs such as the QTI program and the closing fund, the governor’s closing fund, they allowed them to sunset. So, you know, again, these are three states that have actively used incentives strategically in a competitive process to lure or retain businesses over
Rick Weddle: Welcome to “Site Selection Matters” where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision making. I’m your host Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guide, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest, Andreas Dressler, managing director of Location Decisions, Berlin, Germany based location advisory firm that assists companies in the location analysis and site selection in Europe and around the world. Today, Andreas will talk with us about investment attraction strategies in the post-COVID-19 world in which we live today. Join me as we welcome Andreas Dressler to “Site Selection Matters”.
Andreas, we’re all working every day to try to figure out how to best manage in this new environment. What are you seeing really in Germany in terms of re-opening the economy?
Andreas Dressler: Well, I think the approach has been very different throughout all of Europe, so Germany specifically or Germany specifically. It’s starting to slowly re-open, so people are starting to go back to work, factories particularly in the automotive industry which has caused a lot of concern have re-opened in many cases.
So, things are returning to some semblance of normalcy. You have a similar development in other European countries. Some countries primarily the Nordic countries like Sweden have had a more relaxed attitude. Things there have been going on pretty much as normal.
Countries that have been more impacted like Spain and Italy are also slowly starting to re-open and have introduced re-opening plans that will see their economies not go back to full capacity but certainly see major industries get back online between now and the end of June.
Rick: Well, thank you, Andreas. That’s really interesting. I haven’t used the word normal in a sentence in the last few weeks without having the word new in front of it, so we’re all trying to figure out what will be the new normal as we go forward. Why don’t you take a minute if you don’t mind to help our audience understand what you see, as a corporate location advisor, in the corporate investment and global growth dynamics, the changes that are underway?
Andreas: The biggest question I think for everybody in this field, whether you’re a site selector or an economic developer, is what’s going to happen to investment, what’s happening with investment projects. And probably everybody has experienced the same thing. Projects are being put on hold or being canceled out, right? That’s happening for different reasons.
Now, certainly there are a lot of companies in industries that are being impacted very hard, and they’ve had to cancel their projects because their focus right now is really on survival. It’s on retaining cash. It’s on not laying off too many workers. And the last thing these companies are thinking of is expanding. So those projects are pretty much gone.
We also see a lot of companies, and this is probably the largest group based on my experience and some of the conversations I’ve been having that are simply putting projects on hold. In many cases, these are companies that want to invest, have fundamental reasons to be investing, but because of the uncertainty around everywhere in the world right now, they just can’t make those decisions. They’re waiting to see how thin
Rick Weddle: Welcome to “Site Selection Matters,” where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I am your host, Rick Weddle, President of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest, Jerry Szatan with Szatan & Associates, a Chicago-based location strategy, site selection, and economic development consulting firm. Today Jerry will talk with us about current and future food industry trends. More specifically, we’ll talk with Jerry about factors shaping food processing site selection and the overall impact of COVID-19 on site selection in the food industry. Join me as we welcome Jerry Szatan to “Site Selection Matters.”
Jerry, we’ve been on a long period of economic expansion. Now with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and given that our economy is going into a contracting phase, what do you see the outlook for food projects now?
Jerry Szatan: There’s a two-part answer. In terms of output, I think that food processors will continue to hum along. In some cases, there’ll probably be increased demand for the products for things like canned goods and other shelf-stable or product. If you take a look at the Great Recession, the Federal Reserve puts out data on capacity utilization and food production essentially stayed stable throughout the recession. Maybe it was down a percentage point or two, whereas other industries like computer peripherals, for example, just plunged. So, I think production will stay stable and perhaps increase in certain products. However, site selection becomes a different sort of thing. I think that new facility decisions for the time being as everybody tries to scramble to maintain current production, I think new facility decisions are likely to be on the back-burner.
Rick: That’s interesting. The point is obviously food is food and we have to eat. I mean, right now a lot of us are having to get food delivered to our house, whether it’s a takeout from restaurants or just ordering food deliveries. Do you see that kind of just-in-time delivery requirement to changing anything specific to the food distribution business?
Jerry: Yeah, I think it will. That’s an interesting development. I was reading just the other day that one of the meal kit companies was hiring significantly just as our grocery stores. There was a company in Chicago called Peapod who was pioneer in food delivery. I think it was in February, so it wasn’t due so much to the COVID-19, but it was due to changes in the industry, they announced that they were closing up their Chicago operations. And their model had been that you would place your order one day and you would get your delivery the next. That model became uncompetitive, I suppose, when people started getting used to placing your orders with Amazon through Whole Foods and getting your deliveries in two hours. So, I think that desire for convenience on the part of consumers will continue. One longer-term impact of COVID-19 may be that there just be maybe more interest in meal preparation kits, cooking at home and so on. But convenience and speed of delivery will count, I think, in at-home food delivery, just as it does in…increasingly in other aspects of e-commerce.
Rick: And I think it’s too early to tel
Rick Weddle: Welcome to ”Site Selection Matters,” where we take a close look at the art and science of site selection decision-making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, president of the Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest, Michelle Comerford, industrial and supply chain practice lead for Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Company, a leading site selection firm. Today, Michelle will talk with us about how COVID-19 pandemic has impacted manufacturers and their supply chains. More specifically, we’ll be talking to Michelle about what firms are doing right now to respond to this evolving global crisis. Join me as we welcome Michelle Comerford to ”Site Selection Matters.”
Michelle, before we jump into the COVID-19 discussion, take a minute, if you will, to explain to our listeners exactly what a supply chain is.
Michelle Comerford: Yeah, Rick. So certainly, a term that if you didn’t hear it much before people are hearing a lot of it these days in the news. But a supply chain basically is the sequence of raw materials, parts, supplies that go into manufacturing a product and everything that is kind of in that chain to get it into a manufacturing plant, make that product, and then ship it and deliver it to customers. So, if you can imagine anything around your house kinda what all went into making that product, that is a supply chain. And the interesting thing about supply chains in manufacturing is that over the past couple of decades, many of them have become very complex. As we become a more global society, companies are sourcing parts for their products from all over the world. And they went to that model for a lot of different reasons, but it’s added a lot of complexity to our manufacturing environment today.
Rick: So just because something we think was made in one country or another country, we have to look deeper, could be that the component parts are made in another country. And that makes it more vulnerable, I guess, to some sort of disruption.
Michelle: Absolutely. In fact, most things you see probably have some, one or more parts that have come from a different country than where it was ultimately made in. And so it’s been an interesting time as we have seen a lot of disruption lately.
Rick: Yeah. So that’s very interesting. So obviously the conversation topic of the day is this COVID-19 situation, which has really turned the whole world upside down. Just how has that impacted manufacturers and manufacturing overall?
Michelle: Well, that is a very loaded question, especially these days. COVID-19 has impacted manufacturing and in lots of different ways. In the U.S., you know, a month or more ago now, the impacts were largely on that supply chain as manufacturing companies over in China, where a lot of things and parts and products are made as they had to shut down to prevent the spread of COVID-19, those plants suddenly couldn’t send those parts and supplies to U.S. manufacturers who are depending on them to make their products here. As the inventory that U.S. manufacturers had in stock, as that dwindled, a lot of those companies suddenly weren’t able to fulfill the orders they had for product. So that was, you know, a month or two ago.
Then looking at a couple of weeks ago, a
In this week’ episode, host Rick Weddle, President of the Site Selectors Guild, interviews Dennis Donovan, Principal of Wadley Donovan Gutshaw Consulting, about the site selection process abroad. Dennis walks us through the site selector’s role in international corporate location decisions and how International Promotion Agencies (IPAs) can better position communities abroad for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
Rick Weddle: Welcome to “Site Selection Matters,” where we take a closer look at the art and science of site selection decision making. I’m your host, Rick Weddle, President at Site Selectors Guild. In each episode, we introduce you to leaders in the world of corporate site selection and economic development. We speak with members of the Site Selectors Guild, our economic development partners, and corporate decision-makers to provide you with deep insight into the best and next practices in our profession.
In this episode, we have as our guest, Dennis Donovan, Principal with Wadley Donovan Gutshaw Consulting; WDG Consulting advises corporations on geographic deployment of business operations, including manufacturing plants, distribution centers, R&D centers, IT centers, call centers, back offices, and headquarters operations. Today, Dennis will talk with us about how international investment promotion agencies or IPAs can become more effective in attracting U.S.-based direct or cross-border investment. Join me as we welcome Dennis Donovan to “Site Selection Matters.”
Dennis, today, we’re talking about international investment promotion agencies or IPA and what’s needed for them to be more effective in attracting U.S.-based investment. Take a minute, if you will, and explain, from your perspective, how the process of attracting investment works in the U.S.?
Dennis Donovan: Well, the process, Rick, is pretty much uniform, irrespective of the geography involved, and generally speaking, it’s a very structured process that a company would follow to identify and ultimately select a new location. And the process begins in what we call discovery or definition. And that’s identifying why is there a need for expanding or contracting the footprint of an organization? You know, what are those drivers? What are the business objectives that hope to be accomplished? And then from there, what are the requirements of the new operation in terms of its headcount, its access to customers, access to suppliers, real estate, and so forth. And then, you have to identify, you know, what geography are we looking at? Is this going to be targeted at a specific region of the United States or a region of the world? And if so, is the region being targeted to service customers better, to balance the footprint from a geography risk and supply chain standpoint, or to reduce costs? So, there’s that involved.
So, sometimes, the geography is small, is one state or one country, or it could be an entire continent or a couple of continents. So, that’s important. And then a company needs to identify and agree upon, what are the criteria? What is really overarching in terms of its importance? You know, in other words, these are must-haves to guarantee successful operation in a new location. And then, you’ve got important and somewhat important criteria. So, all that has got to be sorted out.
Once that’s agreed upon, then comes the analytical phases. And the first phase is to be able to identify where are the potentially best locations? We call that a long list. Well, it’s a very systematic and metric-driven process to ultimately start out with a universe of locational candidates. It could be 100 areas, 200 areas, more or less, and how do we get down to a manageable number that we can take a closer look at?
And this is where the rub comes in international site selection. We have very robust and extensive sources of data to be able to conduct this, what I call location screening, the winnowing down process, if we will, in the United States. Overseas, the available data far less expansive and uniform th